Mary Magdalene

Please note that due to software, not everything recorded in this transcript will be accurate.

 

MEDIA- Martin Scorsese on The Last Temptation of Christ

John Dickson – Studio:

In 1988, Martin Scorsese’s epic religion drama ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ was released in cinemas. We just heard him talking in an interview about the backlash the filmmakers experienced. The film was based on a 1955 book of the same name written by Nikos Kazantzakis. After its publication, Kazantzakis was excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox Church and the book was placed on the Vatican’s list of banned books. So the controversy over the film adaptation shouldn’t really have come as a surprise.  One Christian group offered to reimburse the full production costs of making the film version, if it was pulled from screenings. 

What was all the fuss about? 

Both the book and film explored what it might mean to be both a man and God, and therefore to experience the battle between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the spirit. That mostly comes through the dramatisation of the internal thoughts of Jesus, including – at one point – an imagined sex scene between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, one of his followers. That was the scene that caused most outrage. Mary Magdalene has played many roles throughout history. She’s been a prostitute, a temptation, Jesus’ wife, Jesus’ lover, a cave dwelling mystic, a devoted follower, a revolutionary and a penitent. Last season, we took a close look at the Virgin Mary, trying to untangle the myths that have built up over time and overshadowed the real, inspiring Theotokos, the God-bearer. So, we thought it’d be good this season to do the same for the other wonderful Mary – the one from Magdala … Mary Magdalene. If the Virgin Mary presents herself to us as a serene, holy-almost ethereal-figure, Mary Magdalene-the sinner-turned-saint-comes to us in a multiplicity of earthly, perhaps even scandalous, portraits that surprise and inspire. 

I’m John Dickson and this is Undeceptions. 

Undeceptions theme

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
So I think for me, it was the fact that I grew up in, uh, a home and at a church where we talked a lot about the women of the Bible. I learned a lot about them, but when it came to Mary Magdalene,when it came to Mary Magdalene, um, There was a lack of clarity about her backstory, her relationship with Jesus, and  kind of what she really means when she’s at the, um, at the tomb encountering the risen Christ, um, what that means for our faith. And so it’s just always been a question for me.

John Dickson – Studio:

That’s Jennifer Powell McNutt, Professor of Theology and History of Christianity here at Wheaton College in Illinois. Professor McNutt is an Undeceptions veteran. With her husband David, she led us on a whirlwind tour of almost 20 of the most important theologians who ever lived – back in episode 124. Links in the shownotes. Jennifer recently published The Mary We Forgot, all about uncovering the true Mary Magdalene amidst the mythology that has built up around her. And it was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Jesus Christ Super Star that first piqued her interest in Mary … You know … “I don’t know how to love him …” Producer Kaley and Jennifer should be friends. 

 John Dickson: So, there wasn’t enough information in Jesus Christ Superstar for you

 Jennifer Powell McNutt: No. Not enough information. Yeah, exactly. Um. So I did see, so I tell the story in the book about going to see Jesus Christ Superstar and really being left with questions about Who is this woman? Why is she, why is she there? Yeah, so it’s been marvelous to get to unpack her story and explore her remembrance and tried to bring correction and clarity as a way to retrieve her for the church today as a, as a model of faithful following of Christ. And as a, an opportunity, I think, to return to scripture and what scripture says about her.

John Dickson – Studio:

Mary Magdalene is mentioned in the gospels almost as many times as Jesus’ mother Mary. In fact, there are at least seven Marys in the NT—Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany (sister of Martha and Lazarus), Mary the mother of James and Joses (in Mark 15), Mary wife of Clopas, Mary of Rome mentioned by Paul in his letter there, and Mary mother of John Mark in Acts 12. Seven Marys!! Actually, this fits perfectly with what we know of Jewish names in the first century, where one in five girls was named Mary. That’s just for free today!! Anyway, our Mary, Mary Magdalene, is mentioned in the Gospels more than all other disciples  — with the exception of Peter, James, and John. I asked Jennifer to give us a brief rundown of Mary Magdalene in the Gospels.

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Um, we are told that she was a woman who was gripped by seven demons and that Jesus delivered her from that, um, From that difficult situation and that when that happened that she completely transformed her life by following, joining him in his itinerant ministry from Galilee to Jerusalem, and we know her as contributing of her financial resources to support Jesus ministry. She’s even named as the first among the group of women who had been healed by him and who were present alongside the 12, um, with, you know, part of Jesus’s ministry. And then we get to see her as a very faithful witness, watching him, uh, die on the cross and suffer. We, she sees his body, um, entombed in the  tomb, and then we see her at the dawning after the Sabbath, um, in the cemetery garden, um, present, ready to bring spices or anointing and is shocked to discover the empty tomb and then also to encounter the risen Christ. So it does lead to, you know, questions about what was her actual relationship with Jesus.

MEDIA – The Da Vinci Code

John Dickson – Studio:

That, of course, is a clip from The Da Vinci Code, with the great Ian McKellan playing Sir Leigh Teabing. Teabing is the leading scholar in the film, based on the uber-popular novel by Dan Brown. The basic plot here is that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and that Mary had a baby to Jesus, and that bloodline survives right into the modern period, in France. The Da Vinci Code book has sold over 80 million copies. And it renewed the public interest in (and scepticism toward) the historical basis of Christianity. The movie and the book were panned by critics. And actual scholars mostly just laughed at it. When I was at Macquarie University, our Ancient History Department ran a public day conference poking holes and fun at the whole thing. Dan Brown wasn’t the first or 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. Here’s some American news coverage: 

MEDIA – Karen King on the news

John Dickson – Studio:

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. Personally, I think it would be lovely to discover that Jesus had been married. It would underline his humanity and earthliness. And no Christian doctrine I can think of would be affected in the least by news of a happily wedded Son of God. For Catholics, on the other hand, Jesus’ celibacy forms the foundational reasoning for the celibacy of priests. So, there’s that. Anyway, this three-inch piece of papyrus became known as ‘The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’. Several years later, an investigative journalist for The Atlantic wrote a book about the shady provenance of the papyrus. After reading it, even Karen King said that it looked like the papyrus was a forgery. Of course, that announcement didn’t get quite the same media coverage as her initial claim. But whatever … There’s something compelling about the idea. Fake or not, the papyrus didn’t actually say that it was Mary Magdalene who was Jesus’ wife. And yet that was a given in much of the coverage. Mary as Jesus’ girlfriend is how popular culture has come to see her.

John Dickson:
So we need to get this out of the way. She was Jesus girlfriend, right?

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
No

John Dickson:
Undeceive us!

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
But that is really the popular culture’s reading of her and it’s just so prevalent, um, but that’s not at all how we are invited to remember her in scripture.

 John Dickson:
We’re going to read from the Gospel of Philip, the Gnostic Gospel, where Jesus often kissed Mary on the … And then the script literally, the script breaks. Uh, big toe? Cheek? 

John Dickson – Studio:

I got to play with the ancient manuscript of this Gospel of Philip in Cairo years ago for a documentary called The Christ Files … 

MEDIA – John in ‘The Christ Files’

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
The cultural conversation today around this really seemed to have emerged in the 20th century with the discovery of some, you know, texts, uh, early Christian texts that were unknown previously, I’m thinking of the Nag Hammadi scrolls, uh, that point to Gnosticism and early Christian heresy, as well as, um, the Dead Sea Scrolls. And even before that, about 55 years before that, there was the discovery of the Gospel of Mary, which is often known or cited as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, but that’s not actually its title. When that happened, um, the discovery of those texts, I think that it raised a lot of questions about the authenticity of scripture and raised a lot of doubts about whether we can trust scripture. And this is where it really opens the door for some of that fiction writing that captured the modern imagination, with, you know, The Da Vinci Code, especially. So that’s where the idea is really popularized and, but it’s, it’s also based upon some of these interactions we see in gnostic text and is a signal of the anemic, um, way that we can look at love between two people and, you know, make it physical, sexual even, and …

John Dickson:
Even. the kiss in, um, The, the gospel of Philip, there’s, there’s no way it’s romantic because Gnostics hated romance!

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
I know they’re opposed to the body,  The body is inherently evil.

 John Dickson:
Its weird.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
It is so funny how that it is not even Gnosticism, actually the modern version of it. And, but people are really ..

 John Dickson:
So we’re just sort of seeing our own culture back at us.

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yes, exactly. And I think we … So, and that plays out in Jesus Christ Superstar, for sure. She’s longing, she has this romantic love for Jesus. And um, when I look at the gospel accounts, I see more of a sibling dynamic at work in their relationship. And that’s something that I explore in the book.

John Dickson:
Um, Mary is, um, so I want to do some clearing away still because she’s often conflated with some other women. So Mary of Bethany in, in John’s gospel, and also the sinful woman in Luke’s gospel who comes to Jesus. So can you tell us something about how the conflation came together? We’ll, we’ll get voice actors to read those various passages, but how did the conflation occur?

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yeah, so. One of the things that I did was try to trace that story, and I noticed that kind of the first move that biblical commentators and theologians were making was that in their harmonizing of the Gospels and their interpreting the Gospels as in harmony with one another, that there became opportunity to conflate the different accounts of a woman anointing Jesus in each of the Gospels.

John Dickson – Studio:

Anointing in the Bible, by the way, is usually with a special fragrant oil, poured or rubbed on a person in preparation for burial or for the coronation of kings as a way of symbolising that they are set apart.  

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
And then, so first the anointing stories became conflated, and then the Marys became conflated from that point on. The reason for that is because there’s only one of the anointing accounts where the woman is named and she’s named as Mary of Bethany in the John account. 

Reading

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Gospel of John, Chapter 12

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
And so she became that story, Mary of Bethany became that story. And that was really complicated by the fact that in the Luke 7 version, the woman is described as the sinner woman, as a sinner woman. And in the reading of the church, that became a euphemism that was understood as a euphemism for prostitution. And so initially Mary of Bethany then is, is actually seen as having this like past, inappropriate life.

Reading

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
And then, um, but eventually that gets put on Mary Magdalene and we can see that happening in the sixth century in a formalized way with the Pope, uh, at the time, Pope Gregory, um, is sort of 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, um, the seven deadly sins and that then also she is, you know, the, the prostitute of Luke 7, and she claims all the other stories also of Mary Bethany.

John Dickson – Studio:

The conflation of the “Marys” in the gospels is actually a pretty big deal, and untangling them isn’t easy. The label of ‘prostitute’ for Mary Magdalene really stuck, thanks to a pronouncement of Pope Gregory I in the year 591 that identified her as the “sinful woman” in Luke chapter 7. But Pope Gregory I was endorsing a tradition that was already developing. In his pronouncement, Gregory wrote:

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

 John Dickson:
Do you think there was a misogyny going on in this conflation or just a genuine, um, desire to, to bring harmony to, to the stories? I mean, I’m quite a fan of Gregory the Great and his writings are right behind you. Um, But was there a misogyny or something more innocent? Can you tell?

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yeah. That’s a great question. Um, so I think it is more complicated. I think it does come from this desire to see how the gospel accounts fit together. So I think that that is a good thing to, to read the gospels with that in mind. So, in part, it has to do with their interpretation and a good practice that can, um, shape our understanding of the text. But I do also think that there is a, a kind of assumption that we could see with other women in the Bible and the, in the history of reception, the reception history, um, that If there is a reference to sin, no matter how ambiguous it is often regarded as a sexual sin when it comes to women, and that would be in line with some of the dynamics that we see in the medieval church and, but at the same time, I think this, this desire to see the connections between multiple people with the same name does have, um, a harmless origin as well. It’s part of the devotional practices of the church to link different figures across time and space with the same name as a way to remember them, as a way to say that they are alike in a certain way, um, but then it’s not always clear in the remembrance later on.

 John Dickson:
Yeah, so there’s, so there’s, it’s interesting, um, perhaps a kind of misogyny in always thinking she must have been a prostitute, like that that’s the only sin that women do. But not in, in the memory of her as a former prostitute, because obviously the honoring her, you know, she’s, she’s regarded as saintly. Um, And her conversion is seen as a complete restoration of her dignity.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yes, it is true, but it also obscures the true story.

John Dickson – Studio:

It’s unlikely that Mary Magdalene is the same ‘sinful woman’ from Luke 7. I mean, Luke name checks Mary Magdalene in the very next chapter, without any hint that this is the anonymous woman he mentioned 2 minutes earlier. All four gospels name Mary Magdalene multiple times, but she is never introduced as a prostitute or with the descriptive “sinner”. And the role of a prostitute suggests a financial disadvantage in Jesus’ culture. That doesn’t chime with Luke listing her among the wealthy women who bankrolled Jesus and the apostles. So, we’ve still got some work to do identifying and describing this remarkable woman of Magdala. 

Break

MEDIA – ‘The Chosen’

John Dickson – Studio:

That’s from the first episode of the hit TV series The Chosen, arguably the best dramatisation of the Bible. Creative license is taken in giving the backstories of Jesus’ followers, including Mary Magdalene, but it has helped millions of people see the characters in the Bible as three-dimensional people instead of cartoons. In the scene, Jesus approaches a visibly disturbed and unwell Mary Magdalene. As Mary is crying in desperation, Jesus lays his hands on her head and heals her of her demons. The Gospel of Luke is way more matter-of-fact. We have just five words in the text: ἀφ’ ἧς δαιμόνια ἑπτὰ ἐξεληλύθει “out of whom seven demons had departed.” That’s it. It’s as though Luke expects readers to know the story — so, it can be truncated in this cryptic form. Centuries later … we don’t know the backstory!!!

Reading

Jesus went through cities and villages, proclaiming and telling the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, the one also called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the manager of the household of Herod Antipas, and Susanna, and many others. These women provided for the others from their own resources.

Gospel of Luke, Chapter 8

 

 John Dickson:
What’s going on there? Why the number seven?

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yes. Well, there’s so many theories about it. Of course, I’ve already mentioned Gregory seen as seven deadly sins. Um, but I prefer to use Jesus’s own story where he, he talks about the significance of seven demons in Matthew 12. So Jesus himself addresses this question, and I think it’s very helpful, uh, potentially to give us insight into a story that actually scripture does not reveal to us. So all that we really know and when we encounter her is that she is freed from this situation. Um, but what Jesus ends up saying is that he talks about how, you know, if there is, if you’re being oppressed by one demon and you had a, uh, poor exorcism, if the exorcism did not go well, that, um, you, really are opening yourself up to the return of more demons, not just the one. And even they progressively get worse and worse as it, as, as they come into their, um, that’s hard to talk, um, as they come into your life. And so, um, so So I think that what might have happened to her was that perhaps she had one demon and had a poor exorcism that led to this extreme situation. And we know from other biblical accounts of demon oppression that, you know, sometimes individuals are not even aware, right, of what is going on with them, and so that perhaps then, you know, Jesus is, is healing her in, in a way that she’s not even aware of what’s happening to her. And then, but that because Jesus is such a successful exorcist, and this is not just, I’m not just saying this as a Christian who believes in Jesus, but it is known at the time and among biblical scholars today, you, you even know more than I on this matter, but that

 John Dickson:
Yeah, I mean, I look at those historical Jesus books, historical Jesus books, every one of them would agree Jesus was a famous exorcist on just historical grounds.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
But we don’t think about him that way. We like to cut that part of the story out and we have actually done that in our remembrance of Mary Magdalene. And when we do that, it has huge implications for how we understand who Jesus is and his, his power and authority on earth.

John Dickson:
She is also perhaps wealthy and elite woman. And I’m just thinking of that little passing reference in, in Luke 8.

Reading

These women provided for the others from their own resources.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yes. So the Luke eight first three verses of Luke eight is so often overlooked. Um, it’s very easy to skip over and move right into the parable of the good sower. And I actually think that the two side by side matter. Um, but that. Uh, so we are introduced to Mary Magdalene as, uh, a woman who is identified with a location or with also, uh, character, um, quality, right? Or both. Um, and we should be alert to the fact that she is not being associated with a man in her life. She’s not associated with a husband or with a son,, or, you know, with a father. She is associated with a place. And that already signals to us that she is, you know, perhaps a widow.  She has some independence. It, it should surprise us that she would be introduced that way. And then we learn that she first among a group is giving of her resources. And this should lead us to realize that women had resources that they could distribute as they pleased.

 John Dickson:
One of those women explicitly is said to be an elite, right? Joanna, the wife of Chuza. And the language there is very striking, these women were supporting them out of their means. So the ‘them’ is clearly the Apostles and Jesus. So 13 people are being bankrolled here. At least

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yes. It’s amazing. Yeah. And it does change the way we think about women in that time period and their, uh, connection to, to finances, what they could inherit, um, the kind of money that they could have apart from their husband’s reach. And that then those Christian elite women could use that money to advance Jesus’s ministry. And I think the other part of that is that Jesus accepts it. He receives the good gifts of women and of Mary Magdalene giving of her money. And You know, that, I think that’s important as well. Um, and the male disciples receive it.

John Dickson:
Yeah. So she’s an elite woman, she’s healed from something horrible, and then she travels with Jesus. Okay us get our heads around that. She’s actually on the road.

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Right. Right. Well, so there is some disagreement about this part of it, but I think mostly it would be quite shocking and surprising that a woman would be traveling with this band of men.

John Dickson – Studio:

I have to chime in here with a sweet passage from my all time favourite historical Jesus volume, Jesus Remembered by the late great James Dunn of the University of Durham. In discussing these women, he wrote: “There is no hint in the Jesus tradition that Jesus thought of women as disadvantaged as a class in the way that the ‘poor’ and ‘sinners’ were …Hence the lack of specifically ‘good news for women’. Even so, the prominence of women among Jesus’ followers and his closeness to several, notably the two Marys, of Magdala and Bethany, must have raised a few eyebrows in ‘polite society’ at the time. And it surely indicates that Jesus saw no deficiency in their status as women or in their innate capacity for service and ministry.”

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
So it should highlight for us that she was a student of Jesus’s and we think about the word student in our Bible is signaled with disciple, right? Disciple means student.

John Dickson:
I wish we would change the English translation because disciple sounds like it just means adherent or devotee but you’re right. It means a student in a school.

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
And that’s, that’s actually why I love in John 20, though she has often been criticized for this, um, but that she cries out to. Jesus, Rabboni, you know, she responds to him that way in the garden and I love that that has been included because it reminds us that he was her teacher and she was his student and so it is appropriate. That she would address him that way in that moment, even as he is about to completely transform her understanding of what has taken place and the fullness of who he is.

Reading

It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read: The King of the Jews.

At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.

Gospel of Mark, Chapter 15 

 John Dickson:
She’s there all the way to the end. Tell us that story. Just all the way to the death, to the cross, and to the empty tomb.

 Jennifer McNutt:
Yeah, so she, so the Gospels take care to highlight her presence. They are, of course, written, um, after these events have transpired. So they know how important it is that she’s there. They would also know that she’s problematic as a witness because of being a woman, um, because of her emotionality as well. So while she is very. Uh, devout and, um, suffering from the loss of Christ’s presence. She’s also, it is traumatic. I think what they have seen, how he’s died publicly, um, tortured and crucified and, you know, seeing his dead body and then, you know, going with the body to. See it, enter the tomb and the texts highlight that. She sees the stone close the tomb. So she, she’s watching it at every stage, um, as a faithful witness. And then. In the morning she returns at the first dawn. She is bringing, you know, anointing spices with her ready to care for the body and discovers that the tomb is open and is distressed. Um, there are, there is some variation to the account but she does, she runs, I’m looking at the John 20 text, but she runs to tell Peter and John immediately. Um, and while others are uncertain about what she’s saying, um, Peter and John immediately run to the tomb to see what. She’s reporting and you know, all they see is an empty tomb and they return but she lingers.

Reading

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.  Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” [Ra-bon-eye] (which means “Teacher”).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
And I love that part of John’s chapter because it talks about her just basically sitting there in that place waiting and then that’s when Jesus reveals himself to her. And initially she doesn’t recognize him. And so then, but as soon as she hears his voice. She does. And I like to see that part of her story as living out the parable of the good shepherd, that the sheep know the voice of the shepherd. And that has also been an important reading in the history of the church as well. Um, and so she recognizes his voice and he, he uses her name. So he calls her by name. There’s such a dignity there that is in that exchange,  and then, you know, this is where there’s been a lot of confusion, in part because of how the verb was translated in the Latin Vulgate, um, that Jesus says, do not touch me.

John Dickson – Studio:

Good old Jerome in translating the Greek NT into the more common Latin (in the early 400s) gave the verb as tangere, which suggests a mere ‘touch’, whereas the original Greek of John has ἅπτου which has a much broader range of meanings – from ‘touch’ right through to ‘cling’, ‘hold’, ‘grasp’ … and even ‘do violence’ (1 John 5:18) and, I kid you not, ‘have sex’ (1 Cor 7:1)! Here in John 20, Mary seems to be clinging to Jesus, as if never wanting him to leave. It’s more than a mere ‘touch’.

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
And that’s actually, that has been memorialized on stained glass windows. And like, that’s the part of the exchange that the church has often chosen to remember. And I think.

John Dickson:
Yeah, she made this theological mistake.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yeah, she made a mistake and the church is puzzled over it. What does it mean? Does it mean, is it because she’s so sinful? Is it because, you know, all these different reasons. Is it because she’s a woman, you know, is it because there’s Uh, some claims about his, the Trinity or about Christology or these other theological doctrines. And unfortunately, it has hidden the fact that she is holding on to him and she is actually clinging to him is what the Greek indicates. And that really matters that she touches the risen Christs body. That is a foundation for her apostolicity. So even going beyond the tradition of the church, we can also make a good sort of conclusion based upon how the Bible talks about apostolicity and to see that she is one who touched Jesus’s body and therefore knows in such a profound way that he was resurrected. Yeah, so the, the better translation is cling and then, you know, Jesus in that moment, you know, so let, let me go because I have to send you and we have this, this commissioning that Jesus gives to her sending her, which is the meaning of apostles messenger and he gives her this message. And I think oftentimes we look just at, you know, that she declares that, He, I’ve seen the Lord, you know, I’ve seen the risen Lord, but, um, in fact, he has given her words to speak to them. And this message is really the message of the gospel, the fullness of it, which is that we have been made brothers and sisters with Christ and that God is our father. And so she carries that message to, and is faithful to proclaim.

John Dickson – Studio:

We’ll find out what Mary does with that message after the break.

BREAK 2 

Reading 

 

New Pilgrimage Route in South of France Follows Traditional Path of St. Mary Magdalene

Winding from Camargue [Cam-ARG] to Provence, the 147-mile pilgrimage trail traces the journey of the saint who, according to tradition, sought refuge in the region a few years after the Ascension of Christ.

Medieval accounts suggest that after the Ascension of Christ, several of his closest companions fled persecution in the Holy Land and spent the rest of their earthly life in the South of France. Among them were Martha and Lazarus of Bethany, Maximinus of Aix and Mary Magdalene, the latter of whom is regarded as the patron saint of the region of Provence. 

According to tradition, Mary Magdalene reached the coast by boat and landed in a city known today as Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. After evangelising the whole area, in particular the city of Marseille, she settled in a grotto nestled in the heart of a nearby mountain, which would later become the Sanctuary of Sainte-Baume, here she dedicated the rest of her life to prayer. Her tomb, considered the “third vault of Christendom” (after the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and St. Peter’s tomb under the Basilica in Rome), is located in Saint-Maximin, at the foot of the Sainte-Baume mountains, and has been kept by the Dominicans for centuries.

John Dickson – Studio:

That’s a part of a news article from the National Catholic Register in 2021, covering the newly updated pilgrimage trail to Provence. The path adds a new stage to the 10-stage pilgrimage that purports to trace the journey of Mary Magdalene from the French coastal town of Marseille to her mountain respite. 

This is part of what’s called ‘The Golden Legend’, a string of medieval stories involving in part, Mary Magdalene and some of Jesus’ other companions, including Lazarus (of raised-from-the-dead fame!). They were exiled by pagans and thrown onto a rudderless boat in the Mediterranean to die. The boat washes up … quite a bit later — on the shores of the South of France. Mary Magdalene straight away preaches the risen Christ to all she meets before settling in a cave and praying there for the rest of her days. 

Reading

But by the purveyance of Almighty God they came all to Marseilles, where, as none would receive them to be lodged, they dwelled under a porch before a temple of the people of that country. And when the blessed Mary Magdalene saw the people assembled at this temple to do sacrifice to the idols, she arose up peaceably with a glad visage, a discreet tongue and well speaking, and began to preach the faith and law of Jesus Christ. They marvelled at the beauty, of the reason, of her speaking. And it was no marvel that the mouth that had kissed the feet of our Lord so debonairly and so goodly, should be inspired with the word of God. 

The Golden Legend.

John Dickson – Studio:

Now, just to be clear, I don’t think any of this is true, sadly … But you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty interesting that Christians in the 1200s AD in France had no trouble thinking of Mary as an effective public preacher — in fact, they thought of her as an Apostle. 

John Dickson:
So, I want to stay in some of the myths for a little bit longer. Because, the Golden Legend. Tell me about the golden legend. So we’re now in the medieval period and people are sort of writing and collating all sorts of stories about all sorts of figures of the Bible.  But Mary gets a treatment here,

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:.
Yes, she does. Oh, she’s all over that book, actually, in all different ways. So, uh, Jacobus de Viragini writes this book in the 13th century, around that time. And it becomes, for its time, a best selling book. And then when the printing press becomes possible, it continues to be a best selling book. And it is a collection of the, the stories of the life of the saints and the lives of the saints. And it highlights Mary Magdalene in sort of really three parts. One, um, pointing to her as a positive example of the ascetic, hermetic life. Um, so seeing her as. She’s having this backstory of being a prostitute and then, you know, interning to Christ and being transformed, um, withdrawing to the wilderness. And she’s often, you know, depicted with all this like animal fur and hair all over her body. And, um, you know, she is in caves and in the forest and and these kinds of things. It’s one of the examples of how her story has become untethered from the biblical account very significantly and how she’s being used as a representative of monastic life and monastic practice. So that’s one part of her story. There’s also some tensions between Mary Magdalene and Jesus’s mother, Mary, the Virgin Mary, that we can see in the text as the text is kind of sorting out which Mary gets prominence and receives respect. And so that’s, that’s fascinating to see them sort of grapple with ‘Can we both support the Virgin Mary and honor her and honor Mary Magdalene at the same time’? And then the other part of it too. So there is mixed in there the biblical account as well. But then layered on that is this remembrance of her as – after Jesus commissions her to go and proclaim to the remaining disciples, um, that he is risen and his message that she continues on that journey to preach and proclaim and evangelize. And so she’s also remembered as a preacher evangelist.

John Dickson:
All the way over into Gaul? The Golden Legend has that?

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
That’s right. The Golden Legend has her getting on a boat in Jerusalem under threat of persecution and travelling to Roman France to Roman Gaul and, um, then evangelising into Marseilles. Now, at previous to this and at the time as well, there is this tension going on between the Eastern Church and the Western Church over Mary Magdalene’s connection to the different branches of the church. And so the Golden Legend is an important, um, source that that highlights for us how much the Western Church wants to claim her apostolicity. So in the text, though, before I started this project, I heard from many people that the Eastern Church alone had the tradition of remembering her as Apostle to the Apostles. But in the Golden Legend for the Western Church, she is known as Apostle to the Apostles. And so that is then the emergence of Christianity, in fact, in the Western Church, uh, in Mary Magdalene’s connection to Christ.

John Dickson:
So hang on, are you saying this idea of her being an apostle to the apostles is not a modern woke feminist intrusion?

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
That’s right. Yes. It’s part of the tradition. Exactly. Oh,

John Dickson – Studio:

And here it is in the 13th century text itself:

Reading

Mary Magdalene was the first person to whom Jesu Christ appeared after His resurrection. She was a companion of the apostles and was appointed by our Lord as apostolorum apostola the apostle to the apostles.”

John Dickson:
This is just a wish. I, I want this Mary Magdalene to be the Mary who works hard in the Lord that, that Paul says hi to at the end of Romans 16. I have no evidence, But I’m sticking to that speculation.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Well, in the Eastern Tradition, that’s the Eastern Tradition’s view. So, I think it’s very possible that that is the case, you know.

John Dickson:
And you know, Bauckham, Richard Bauckham, um, who’s been on the show, um, reckons that Joanna, uh, wife of Chuza, friend of Mary Magdalene is the Joanne, is the, um, junior mentioned in Roman 16. So that’ll be fun. Wouldn’t it? If Junia and Mary Magdaelene…

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yeah. Just like in Luke 8. There they are. You know, they continue to be together in Rome and, and I think too, we know that. you know, that she is, is known for being a witness at the tomb.

John Dickson:
Do you think we can know anything beyond that, chronologically speaking. I mean, you know, here am I speculating she, she went to Rome and she did her ministry and, uh, the golden legend says she went to France, etc. But really, is it, is it just zero evidence?

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Well, I think in, we would want to read Luke 23, 24, and then Acts 1 to see about the possibility of her presence at Pentecost, um, in Acts 1, the women who were with Jesus during his ministry are alluded to. And of course, Mary, his mother is named as present. And so it is curious to me that Mary Magdalene isn’t named in Acts chapter one, but it’s possible that she was among that group and then would have been with others in that missionary expansion that takes place, I, I believe that she wouldn’t be able to keep that to herself, that she would continue to proclaim that wherever she went. And I think it’s interesting that in second century, um, critics of Christianity, remember Mary Magdalene, you know, I’m thinking of Celsus, right here, Celsus.

 John Dickson: Hysterical wives tales or something?

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yes, that’s right! The frantic woman. Or yeah, however you translate it. But yeah, exactly. 

Reading

While he was alive he did not help himself but after death he rose again and showed the marks of his punishment and how his hands had been pierced. But who saw this? A hysterical female, as you yourselves say.

Origen, Against Celsus 2.55 

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
So the emotionality of her. And, yes, is

John Dickson:
Sexist jerk.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Their laws were set up that way. So, anyway, um

 John Dickson:
Yeah, so he’s recognizing that this whole resurrection thing it all goes back to that that crazy woman.

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
That’s right. Yeah. So that signals that she’s known wider than just among the Jewish Christian communities of the time as, um, the one to, um, criticize, um, the one to pinpoint in, you know, opposition to Christianity.

John Dickson:
We don’t need to fret about the idea of a woman being an apostle. I mean, she’s not one of the twelve, right? The twelve is another category, but apostles is a wider category, right? And we know there was a woman apostle. Um, because Romans 16 mentions Junior. The fact that Mary was one too, yeah, that shouldn’t freak us out.

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
And yet it does.

John Dickson:
Yeah, it does. 

5 MINUTE JESUS 

The name Mary “Magdalene” is almost certainly a reference to her home town of Magdala. The town itself was uncovered only in 2009, on the west coast of Lake Galilee, two hours walk south of Capernaum, another important city from Jesus’ life. 

I’ve been to the site several times since it was discovered, and it is fantastic. They even uncovered a synagogue, complete with lovely mosaics on the floor. A coin was found in the synagogue itself with Herod Antipas’ name minted on it … along with an exact year stamp: Year 33 of Antipas. That’s AD 29. It’s a coin from the very time of Jesus’ public ministry, in one of the very towns where Jesus preached. 

It’s one of the few places you can stand in Israel and say with historical confidence: ‘Jesus stood here’ (he would have actually sat down in the synagogue to teach, but you know what I mean). 

This synagogue was one of only a handful of synagogues that can definitively be dated to the first century, to the time of Jesus. It used to be said – like way back in the 1970s-80s – that all those references to Jesus preaching in the synagogues of Galilee was a retrojection. There likely were no actual synagogues in Galilee and Judaea (scholars used to say). The Gospel writers, who were writing outside of Galilee, were just telling us what they imagined. 

Silly, silly geniuses! 

Then archaeologists found one up in Gamla–north east Galilee. Then in 2009 the one in Magdala. The same year they found another Khirbet Wadi Hamam just south of Magdala. In 2016, another at Tel Rekhesh near Mount Tabor. 

And here’s the fun thing, in between my various visits to Galilee they found another definitely first-century synagogue in 2021! Guess where?? In Magdala — just over the other side of the modern highway that runs through the current excavation. This was very very surprising. Two synagogues in Mary’s town. Last time I was there, in March 2023, I ran across the highway, jumped the little fence (which I’m sure was just decoration) and sat in that synagogue, too. For sure, Jesus taught there, as too. 

I guess my point is very simple. Although there’s a lot of later legends about this stuff – Mary marrying Jesus, going to France and so on – the original story of a faithful Jewish woman named Mary from the town of Magdala, who was healed of some serious ailment, who followed and helped bankroll Jesus and the apostles, and who became the first person to bear witness to Jesus’ resurrection — this is historical, as solid as the limestone blocks you can still sit on in Mary’s synagogue today.

You can press play now.

John Dickson:
Let’s, let’s begin with Christians. What, what do you think is the benefit of having a good look at Mary?

Jennifer Powell McNutt:
Yeah, I think there are so many reasons why we need to take a closer look at Mary Magdalene. The first one is, I think, that it requires us to read scripture with more care, and to recognize and realize what’s happening when the, gospels highlight a woman’s name at all. And so that should also reveal something about our faith and about what it means to follow Christ and what the church should look like. So I think that’s, that’s one part of it. I think that. It also reminds us that a woman was called and commissioned to proclaim Christ’s resurrection, and that is very clearly shown, um, in the Gospels and especially John 20, and that that should open the church up to recognizing the importance of hearing female voices of followers of Christ proclaim what God has done and is doing in their lives and how they are, um, being illumined in their understanding of scripture and of discipleship. So …

 John Dickson:
What about the person who’s not sure what to make of Christianity who may be sitting there thinking, you know, Christianity has got a pretty bad reputation when it comes to women.

 Jennifer Powell McNutt:
I think Mary Magdalene would challenge that. And not because she is some pseudo wife for Jesus, but because she is among the members of his ministry that that’s a paradigm shift, not only for the skeptic, but it’s also for people in the church, oftentimes, that Jesus had both men and women with him in his ministry, contributing and receiving his teaching and learning and participating. You brought up Richard Bauckham. I love what he highlights about the 70s, sending the 70 out. And you know, if Mary Magdalene would have been part of that group, and therefore she would have been already doing those kinds of things as part of her inclusion. So I think, so that’s a paradigm shift about how we think about Jesus’s acceptance of women and, um, the way in which too, he, he, he calls them to do hard things, things that maybe even defy the practices and the expectations of their own time period. When we look to Mary Magdalene, we should be surprised in many different points, in her prominence and her  inclusion and then her legacy as well.

Undeceptions theme