The good Lord loves a rebel.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Briefly Noted - Chester Brown's "Mary Wept over the Feet of Jesus: Prostitution and Religious Obedience in the Bible" - Brief article - Book review

Veteran graphic novelist Chester Brown's new book, Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus: Prostitution and Religious Obedience in the Bible (Drawn & Quarterly), presents comic-book versions of Bible stories involving prostitutes. The libertarian-leaning Brown is a partisan for the quasi-heretical belief among some outre Bible scholars that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a prostitute.

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But Brown's larger message goes beyond just whether God can forgive, or even glorify, women who sell sex for...