Miriam's Midwives

Four Women Play Nativity. Six scenes inspired by Jane Schaberg and Nilton Bonder, composed by Konrad Yona Riggenmann.

Based on diligent research, the seven scenes of this nativity play present a realistic, biblically evidenced and coherent but persistently denied reading of Jesus' coming into this world. His end as a victim of Roman soldiers in touching psycho-logics corresponds with his start in the womb of a young rural worker victimized by Roman soldiers. Far from blasphemy but full of sympathy with both victims, these scenes show that, in the wording of Brazilian Rabbi Nilton Bonder, "not force and virility but ... the woman builds the path of humanity" and that, in the words of Catholic US-theologist Jane Schaberg, the repressed tradition of Jesus' illegitimous birth "unmasked ... presents us with fuller human realities and therefore with deeper theological potential."