Mary Magdalene

by Bruce Chilton

  that these disgusting dogs were taken and massacred during the feast of the one that they had insulted“: Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay, The History of the Albigensian Crusade: Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay’s Historia Albigensis, trans. W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1998), p. 51.

  the legend that Jesus and Mary were lovers: The Grail connection is fleshed out in Lynn Picknett and Clive Thomas, The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ (New York: Touchstone, 1997), the most immediate source of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code (New York: Dou-bleday, 2003). But in this vein, see the earlier book by Margaret Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail (Santa Fe: Bear, 1993). Among several competent refutations, see Bart D. Ehrman, Truth and Fiction in ”The Da Vinci Code“ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

  Jesus took up the protest against Herod Antipas and the forces of Rome: John the Baptist had objected that Antipas’s marriage to his brother’s former wife broke a basic law in the Torah. Antipas reacted swiftly to this assault on the status of his marriage—and therefore on the legitimacy of his reign—by beheading John; see Rabbi Jesus, pp. 41-63. Luke’s Gospel spells out in so many words Antipas’s resolve to kill Jesus (Luke 13:31); see Rabbi Jesus, pp. 174-179.

  18 He sent them out to preach, heal, and exorcise: When the New Testament lists the most prominent twelve men among the disciples, the names on the list vary a little (Matthew 10:1-4; Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:12-16; Acts 1:13). That is not surprising: The people who composed the Gospels a generation after Jesus’ death naturally wanted to remember their teachers as among the Twelve.

  21 Jews in Galilee and elsewhere proudly embraced that name for their own daughters: See, for example, L. Y. Rahmani, A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 1994); Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Part I: Palestine 330 BCE—200 CE (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002). Marianne Sawicki has argued that the name Miriam would only have been assigned for nationalistic reasons a generation before Jesus, so that Mary Magdalene “may well have been old enough to be Jesus’ mother” when they first met; see “Magdalenes and Tiberi-ennes: City Women in the Entourage of Jesus,” in Transformative Encounters: Jesus and Women Re-Viewed, ed. Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 181-202, 192. This suggestion runs up against the occurrence of the names Miriam and even Maria (among other variants) in Jewish inscriptions right through the period, as well as the number of Marys in the New Testament. I agree with Sawicki’s inference that Mary was somewhat older than Jesus, for reasons discussed in chapter 1, but Mary’s vigorous companionship with Jesus until the end of his life, as well as her influence thereafter, makes it unlikely she was as old as his mother.

  21 Magdala was important both practically and symbolically for Jesus and his disciples: Richard Atwood, Mary Magdalene in the New Testament Gospels and Early Tradition (Bern: Lang, 1993), pp. 21-26; Mendel Nun, “Ports of Galilee,” Biblical Archaeology Review 25, no. 4 (1999): 18-31, 64. On the sociology of the region, see Richard A. Horsley, “The Expansion of Hasmonean Rule in Idumea and Galilee: Toward a Historical Sociology,” in Second Temple Studies III: Studies in Politics, Class and Material Culture, ed. Philip R. Davies and John M. Halligan (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), pp. 134-165. Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, was a fifteen-mile walk west and south from Magdala. Nazareth was much smaller and poorer than Magdala.

  The site of Magdala has fallen victim to the ravages of nature, politics, and modern warfare; see Jane Schaberg, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament (New York: Continuum, 2002), pp. 47—64. Rising groundwater, forced up by recently built dams at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, has jumbled ancient remains beneath the ruined site. Bombings have also damaged ancient archaeological remains.

  Schaberg’s hopes of renewing excavation of the site have run up against the complicated cross-claims of the Israeli government, Franciscan proprietors, and Palestinians who have traditionally lived there. So while Capernaum—the site of Peter’s home with his in-laws—is a neatly labeled model dig (with a Dis-neyesque touch in a modern church built there), Magdala has been closed to research, much as Mary Magdalene has been concealed with cliches about women.

  Historical sources say more than archaeology can at the moment. Josephus, born around 37 C.E., knew Magdala from personal experience; his writings detail the cultural context of the town in a way the Gospels do not. Magdala itself became a service town for Tiberias, Antipas’s new capital. Josephus later attempted to organize Galilean resistance to the Romans from a base in Magdala during his brief and disastrous career as a Jewish general in Galilee between 66 and 67 C.E.; see Gohei Hata, “Imagining Some Dark Periods in Josephus’ Life,” in Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith, ed. Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 309-328. He referred to the place by its Greek name, Taricheae, derived from the word for salted fish; the town had become a city, specializing in a preserved product that could be exported, and even boasted its own hippodrome as well as a stadium (Josephus Jewish War 2.596—647). With a market as big as nearby Tiberias it spelled wealth and splendor. This extensive trade, the key to Magdala’s success, made the town notorious for its association with Gentile culture.

  22 “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior”: In the way of acronyms, a liberty with spelling was involved. In the actual word for fish, there is an o before the u, ikhthous, while the acronym yields ikhthus.

  22 He chose a spot along the Sea of Galilee: See Josephus Jewish War 2.168; Moshe Dothan, Hammath Tiberias, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983-2000); Rabbi Jesus, pp. 91-93; Jonathan L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-examination of the Evidence (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000); Chilton, “Review Essay: Archaeology and Rabbi Jesus,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 12, no. 2 (2002): 273-280.

  the Jews who moved to the city were the flotsam of Galilee: After two wars with the Romans, however, rabbis who contributed to the Mishnah eventually settled in Tiberias during the second century and it became “the center of Jewish life and the spiritual capital not only of Jewish Palestine, but also of the Diaspora” (see Dothan, Hammath Tiberias, vol. I, p. 4).

  To call Jesus “the Nazarene” naturally evokes Nazareth as his native village: This geographical meaning is also expressed in the Gospels by another designation, “Nazorean” (Nazoraios in Greek, Natsoraya in Aramaic), which does not rhyme with Magdalene. The use of Nazorean predominates in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, while Mark uses only Nazarene. See the still-worthwhile article by Hans Heinrich Schader in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 874-879. In the Talmud and other Rabbinic sources, Jesus is called “the Notsri,” an evident play on Nazaraya and Natsoraya. Notsri means someone who “keeps” or “hinders”: Jesus and his followers kept their own traditions, and therefore hindered other Israelites on this view.

  3.SECRETEXORCISM

  Mary was so wealthy: David Mycoff offers an excellent treatment of such stories in The Life of Saint Mary Magdalene and of Her Sister Martha (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1989).

  narrators relished tales of demonic possession: Josephus, the first-century historian, described a Jewish exorcist named Eleazar, whose success was proven when the departing demon—as commanded—knocked a vessel of water over on its way out. In this wonderful story, Eleazar used a root, approved by Solomon, attached to a ring; he applied it to the possessed man’s nose and drew the obliging demon out of his nostrils (Josephus Antiquities 8.46-48). Apollonius of Tyana, born slightly later than Saint Paul and north of Paul’s native Tarsus, in Asia Minor, dispatched a demon into a statue, and then the statue collapsed (Philostratus The Life of ApoUonius of Tyana 4.20): The adolescent who had been possessed
was cured of his crude behavior, including the habit of exposing himself in public. When we analyze these sources, we see that compared to other practitioners, Jesus was not a run-of-the-mill exorcist. He exorcised Mary seven times, so the first six sessions did not completely dispel her demons. This is part of an unusual pattern in the Gospels that reveals a great deal about the difficulty Jesus had with many of his exorcisms, the meaning he attached to them, and how other people reacted to him.

  the positive energy of God’s purity: See Chilton, Jesus’ Baptism and Jesus’ Healing: His Personal Practice of Spirituality (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 58—97; Scot McKnight, A New Vision for Israel: The Teachings of Jesus in National Context (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 15-69.

  27 this teaching appears shortly after the reference to Mary’s possession: Even the most skeptical of commentators have agreed that Jesus himself made this statement. It passes muster with what John Meier has called “the criterion of embarrassment”—you can more easily imagine Rabbi Jesus saying this than pious followers making it up and attributing it to him; see John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), pp. 168-171. Observing the possible embarrassment caused the early Church by teachings like this one (and Jesus said many other things that have cast an embarrassing light on the doctrines of later times) is like being surprised ourselves, only at one remove. Once you have observed the reaction, you need to see what provoked it; otherwise, all you are doing is registering puzzlement, not furthering insight. Looking beyond our surprise or the early Church’s embarrassment, why should Jesus speak of this problem of abortive exorcism? That is the question that demands a plausible answer.

  28 a possession that an incautious exorcist might make repeatedly worse: Showy exorcists, both ancient and modern, have often reinforced the sense that unclean spirits are powerful, opening the way for fresh possessions, and thus more requests for exorcisms. That spiral is good for business and fine for demons, but bad for those who suffer from possession. For vivid illustrations of modern practice, see Mario Cuneo, American Exorcism (New York: Doubleday, 2001).

  28Petrarch called her “the sweet friend of God” (“dulcis arnica dei”): Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1993

  Beelzebul, god of the underworld: W. Herrmann, “Baal Zebub,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, eds. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 154-156. The form “Baal Zebub,” meaning “Lord of the flies,” deliberately distorts the original “Baal Zebul,” or “Lord, the prince.” That was how the Hebrew Bible demoted a god of the underworld into the ringleader of demons. There is evidence from Qumran that exorcists were, in fact, willing to invoke Beelzebul’s help; see Douglas L. Penny and Michael O. Wise, “By the Power of Beelzebub: An Aramaic Incantation Formula from Qumran (4Q560),” Journal of Biblical Literature 113, no. 4 (1994): 627—650.

  Mary’s companionship with Jesus would not have been permitted: Haskins, Mary Magdalen, pp. 196-197, quoting Honorius Augustodunensis.

  30 the false claim that women had no place within the leadership of Jewish worship and learning: The response that modern Christians had coming can be found in Amy-Jill Levine, “Lilies of the Field and Wandering Jews: Biblical Scholarship, Women’s Roles, and Social Location,” in Transformative Encounters: Jesus and Women Re-Viewed, ed. Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 329-352. Professor Levine writes (pp. 343-344), “Unsupported and insupportable historical views of a misogynistic, essentialist, atavistic Judaism lead naturally to theological speculation. The bad history reflected in these numerous citations culminates in a theology that at best can be labeled obscene.” See also Mary R. Thompson, Mary of Magdala: Apostle and Leader (New York: Paulist, 1995), pp. 81-95.

  32 male and female together reflected the reality of the divine image: Jane S. Webster, “Sophia: Engendering Wisdom in Proverbs—Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 78 (1998): 63—79; Rabbi Jesus, pp. 145-146; Karen L. King, ed., Women and Goddess Traditions in Antiquity and Today (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997). This conception was also pivotal within Jesus’ teaching on marriage; see Mark 10:2-12. The wide range of estimates for dating Proverbs is detailed in R. N. Whybray, The Book of Proverbs: A Survey of Modern Study (Leiden: Brill, 1995). My own chronology falls well within that range.

  4. mary’s signature

  The Gospels emerged a generation after Jesus’ death: Early Christian tradition agreed that the earliest of the Gospels, Mark, was not composed by one of the disciples of Jesus. Papias (the learned and garrulous bishop of Hierapolis, in Asia Minor) described Mark as the secretary or amanuensis of Peter, who preached an oral gospel. This story has had a rich afterlife. See Eusebius History of the Church 3.39.15-16; Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), pp. 158-161. Papias’s assumption that individual authors did not compose the Gospels agrees with the consensus of modern critical scholarship.

  Peter was especially involved with preparing converts for baptism: Acts 10:34-43 provides an outline of the narrative of Peter’s oral gospel, as has been widely recognized since the contribution of C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1944) and According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet, 1952). Because sources are reconstructed on the basis of inference, there is no universal agreement concerning their number or extent. But Dodd’s work set the stage for a growing consensus among critical scholars. Fashions of study such as Fundamentalism and Structuralism discredited source analysis and an interest in history during the 1970s and 1980s, but these basic tenets have made a fine comeback since the 1990s, especially in Europe. See Journal of Biblical Literature 112 (1993): 146-148, review of the seminal work of Matti Myllykoski, Die letzten Tage Jesu: Marcus und Johannes, thre Traditionen und die historische Frage (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1991).

  35 Mary Magdalene also emerges as the author of a source of stories that bear her oral signature: In a groundbreaking study, Thorleif Boman credited women for a source within the Gospel According to Luke in particular; see Die Jesus-Uberlieferung im Lichte der neueren Volkslfunde (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), pp. 123-137. In my opinion, the likely center of this circle of women was Joanna (Luke 8:3). She had access to members of the Herodian court, which explains the specific and sometimes sympathetic reference to them in both the Gospel According to Luke and the book of Acts. See Carla Ricci, Mary Magdalene and Many Others: Women Who Followed Jesus, trans. Paul Burns (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), pp. 43-46, 69-72, 154-156.

  The hypothesis that there was an exorcistic source within the Gospels was developed by Etienne Trocme in L’Evangile selon saint Marc (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2000) and La formation de I’evangile selon saint Marc (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), pp. 42-43.

  these three stories amount to a manual of how to cope with unclean spirits: These are the three most detailed accounts of exorcism in the Gospels. Each of the three is also represented in Matthew and Luke, but Mark’s is the earliest written form available. For that reason, Mark is the point of departure for establishing the Magdalene source, fully reproduced in the Appendix.

  a small building fitted with benches: For further description and a diagram drawn by James F. Strange, see Rabbi Jesus, pp. 96-97.

  The slip back and forth between plural and singular: Chilton, “Exorcism and History: Mark 1:21-28,” Gospel Perspectives 6 (1986): 253-271.

  40 no commentator has been able to draw the line between the story’s symbolic meaning and the literal event it depicts: Chilton, “Friends and Enemies,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, ed. M. Bockmuehl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 72—86, and Rabbi Jesus, pp. 168-173, where the context of the events in the deadly threat to Jesus from Herod Antipas explains the political symbolism of this
exorcism. The sequel to the exorcism (Mark 5:14-17) is also discussed in those pages of Rabbi Jesus.

  he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven: Joel Marcus, “Jesus’ Baptismal Vision,” New Testament Studies 41 (1995): 512-21; Rabbi Jesus, pp. 174-179.

  “except by prayer”: Some ancient manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel attest the addition of “and fasting.” Fasting was certainly a part of Jesus’ spiritual discipline, but it does not feature as a part of his exorcistic technique, except here. Most textual critics have concluded that the phrase was added later, as practices of the early Church influenced the way Mark was copied in Greek; see William Lane, The Gospel According to Mar1{ (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1974), PP- 335-336-

  42where other disciples and their sources are concerned: The collection of Jesus’ sayings known as “Q,” the mishnah his apostles assembled after his death, has been parsed so thoroughly that some scholars believe they can tell you to the fraction of a verse what was in it and what was not. See James M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann, and John S. Kloppenborg, eds., The Critical Edition of Q (Leuven: Peeters, 2000). I demur from this claim of certitude, although I agree that Jesus’ mishnah, an oral source, influenced the Gospels; see Pure Kingdom: Jesus’ Vision of God (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids and London: SPCK, 1996), pp. 107-115.