At the midpoint of Dan Brown’s uber-popular book, The Da Vinci Code, renowned symbologist Leigh Teabing reveals a shocking secret: Mary Magdalene, the famed “apostle to the apostles” who ministered to Jesus and his disciples, was actually Jesus’ wife.

Not only that – the pair had children – and this holy bloodline, through all manner of complicated movements, ended up in France, where it’s protected to this day by, among other things, some murderous monks.

It’s one of our favourite clips to play on Undeceptions: Sir Leigh Teabing revealing the shocking secret of Jesus and Mary!

The Da Vinci Code book sold over 80 million copies, renewing public interest in—and scepticism toward—the historical basis of Christianity. 

In particular, it sharpened the focus on Mary Magdalene and her relationship not just with Jesus but with all of early Christianity.

Brown wasn’t the first (and surely won’t be the last) to suggest Jesus married Mary Magdalene.

In 2012, Harvard professor Karen King announced the discovery of an ancient papyrus fragment with the first evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus had been married.

The papyrus made massive waves, not just among historians, but Christians around the world who seemed to have a big issue with Jesus having a wife.  

Eventually, it was discovered that this was, in fact, most likely a fraud; however, the fascination surrounding the story suggests something more profound.

Then there’s the infamous Gospel of Philip.

A gnostic gospel, written several centuries after the death (and resurrection) of Jesus, this text is gibberish mainly, but it does have one passage that gives scholars (and conspiracy sleuths) pause for thought:

Mary Magdalene. [… loved] her more than [all] the disciples [and used to] kiss her [often] on her […]. The rest of [the disciples…] They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?” The Saviour answered and said to them, “Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in the darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.

Being composed in a gnostic style centuries after the events, aside, the major problem with this text is that we have no idea where Jesus is said to have kissed Mary (if he kissed her at all).

It might have been her cheek, her big toe, her hand, her forehead – it’s a complete unknown.

Add in the fact that gnosticism was a generally “sex-negative” belief system that detested physical affection, and it’s even more unlikely that this text would be approving of a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary.

The Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Philip are not considered historically reliable and are not taken seriously by scholars.

However, the question of whether Mary Magdalene might have been in a romantic relationship with Jesus continues to spark the imagination.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt, associate professor of theology and the history of Christianity at Wheaton College and author of the book ‘The Mary We Forgot,’ believes that our inability to distinguish between a fictional trope and reality reveals something more profound about culture.

“The discovery of texts (like the Gospel of Philip) raised a lot of questions about the authenticity of scripture, and it really opened the door for fiction writing that captured the modern imagination, The Da Vinci Code especially,” she said, speaking on Undeceptions. 

“It’s based upon some of these interactions we see in the Gnostic text and is a signal of the anemic way that we can look at love between two people and make it physical, sexual even.” 

But being Jesus’ secret wife isn’t the only trope that’s attached itself to Mary Magdalene.

She was a sex worker, right?

This one is easy to dispel (and explain).

Mary almost certainly wasn’t a sex worker, and the reason for this tradition is due to a conflation of Marys.

There are seven Marys mentioned in the New Testament, a name that was popular at the time, which has led to some confusion. 

“She’s often conflated (particularly) with Mary of Bethany, in John’s gospel, and also the sinful woman in Luke’s gospel who comes to Jesus,” John Dickson notes.

Given that the term “sinful woman” is sometimes used as a euphemism to denote a sex worker, things quickly became murky.

Jennifer continues:

“Eventually that gets put on Mary Magdalene and we can see that happening in the sixth century in a formalised way with the Pope (Pope Gregory) bringing all those pieces together and introducing Mary Magdalene for the Western Church through that lens of her as both one who had seven demons, but that those seven demons are a signal to the seven deadly sins.

“Then (she becomes) the prostitute of Luke chapter 7.”

As Jennifer said, Pope Gregory is largely to blame for all of this.

In a pronouncement in 591, he wrote:

“We believe that this woman [Mary Magdalene], whom Luke calls a female sinner, whom John calls Mary, is the same Mary from whom seven demons were cast out.” 

Pope Gregory I hard at work (and potentially defaming Mary Magdalene)

It’s unlikely that Mary Magdalene is the same “sinful woman” from Luke 7. 

Luke specifically name-checks Mary Magdalene in the very next chapter, without any hint that this is the anonymous woman mentioned two minutes earlier.

Mary is also one of the women who helps bankroll Jesus’ mission, suggesting that she had capital to draw upon.

Sadly, it’s highly unlikely that a first-century sex worker would have had these resources.

There are plenty of other questions surrounding Mary. 

Did she go to France after Jesus’ resurrection?

Did she go on to have a preaching career like the rest of the Apostles?

Why doesn’t she get a mention (at least, obviously get a mention) after the gospels?

There’s so much we don’t know – so what are the facts?

Mary Magdalene, portrayed here in icon form

Truthfully, we only know a few basic things about Mary Magdalene.

The most unsettling of these is that she was, according to the Gospels, inhabited by demons at one point in her life.

“We are told that she was a woman who was gripped by seven demons and that Jesus delivered her from that difficult situation,” Jennifer said. 

“When that happened, she completely transformed her life by joining him in his itinerant ministry from Galilee to Jerusalem, and we know her as contributing her financial resources to support Jesus’ ministry.” 

Why she had these demons – and what they did to her – we’ll likely never know.

But there are a couple of other facts we do know.

She was at the foot of the cross when Jesus died, and then—perhaps most famously—she became the first person to whom the risen Jesus appeared, leading to her commission to go and tell the other Apostles.

In this sense, Mary Magdalene was the Apostle to the Apostles.

“(Mary) was called and commissioned to proclaim Christ’s resurrection,” said Jennifer.

“That should open the church up to recognising the importance of hearing female voices.”

Whether or not she was married to Jesus or had a difficult past as a sex worker doesn’t really matter.

What we can know for certain is that Mary Magdalene underwent a complete life transformation, followed Jesus throughout his ministry, and eventually was given the task of proclaiming the most astounding news of all: that Jesus Christ had risen from the grave.

News like that makes The Da Vinci Code sound positively boring.

Adapted by Alasdair Belling from Undeceptions episode 151 ‘Mary Magdalene’. Listen here.

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