Stories are more key than doctrine

Jacob Neusner, a Jew who describes himself as "speaking pretty good Catholic", argued that it was unproductive trying to translate between the doctrines of two faiths, but more promising to map the stories of one faith onto those of another. He said that if he were trying to explain to Jews how Catholics viewed Mary, he would appeal to an apocryphal story about Rachel.

When the Jews were in exile in Babylon, all the male prophets appealed to God to bring them home and, being jealous of their past attachments to other gods, he would not listen. Rachel reminds him of a still more apocryphal story about her having allowed Jacob to partner with Leah first, and says, "If I could get over my jealousy you can get over yours." God relents. Rachel is the woman God will listen to when he will listen to no-one else; so is Mary.

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Responsible Religion

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