Mary Magdalene

by Bruce Chilton

  James, the brother of Jesus, led a circle of disciples that seems to have been the source of passages in the Gospels that concern worship in the Temple, where James headed up Jesus’ movement after the crucifixion; see B. D. Chilton and J. N. Neusner, eds., The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001).

  Rabbis of this period also characterized another mystic: Rabbi Jesus, pp. 41-63, 83-102, 150-196, 303.

  her own bloody battle with a demon: Katherine Ludwig Jansen, The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 300.

  44 “the messianic secret” Heikki Raisanen, The “Messianic Secret” in Mark (Edinburgh: Clark, 1990). As he rightly says (p. 171) of the exorcisms in chapter 1 and chapter 5, “The people however do not appear to hear, and the secret does not break out,” and he makes a comparison to the heavenly voices of 1:11 and 9:7 (p. 172). This difference between what demons say and what people hear also launched my approach.

  5.NAMELESSANOINTER

  The same kind of incompatibility emerged: Rabbi Jesus, pp. 168-171, 174-196.

  by offering sacrifice on Mount Zion in the way that the God of Israel desired: Ibid., pp. 174—212.

  She would have observed the planning in Bethany: Ibid., pp. 213—247.

  oiling skin was a routine ritual in Jesus’ movement: Anointing was commonly practiced in Judaism as a whole during this period. Anointing was much less unusual than sending out the disciples or the extraordinary, aberrant exorcisms that are recorded in detail, and for that reason, the Gospels do not dwell on the practice, although they do attest it. See Tal Ilan, “In the Footsteps of Jesus: Jewish Women in a Jewish Movement,” in Transformative Encounters: Jesus and Women Re-Viewed, ed. Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 115—136. The Talmud of Jerusalem (Shabbat 14:3-4) provides several examples of the permission to engage in anointing on the Sabbath for purposes of celebration and of healing. Ilan (p. 129) takes this as evidence of “the large number of women who practiced the art of healing.”

  Mark’s Gospel provides the earliest, most richly textured account of this ritual event: Rabbi Jesus, pp. 248-268.

  50 Mark’s Gospel withholds her actual identity: Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza wrote a path breaking book that features this passage in its title; see In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983, 1992). Her work stands as a classic among feminist studies of the New Testament. Professor Schüssler Fiorenza wrote at a time, however, when literary approaches were sometimes pursued to the exclusion of asking basic historical questions. In the present case, the result is that she overlooks a key feature of the text and therefore assumes the woman was always anonymous. Tal Ilan seeks to correct this problem in feminist interpretation in “Paul and Pharisee Women,” in On the Cutting Edge: The Study of Women in Biblical Worlds—Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, eds. Jane Schaberg, Alice Bach, and Esther Fuchs (New York: Continuum, 2004), pp. 82—101.

  52 medieval interpreters correctly surmised: Valerie I. J. Flint cites the example of the Ruth well Cross in Scotland from the seventh or eighth century, showing Mary with ungentum, which had magical associations from the time of Gregory of Tours; see The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 260. See also Brendan Cassidy, ed., The Ruthwell Cross (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

  52 She, by name and by action, embodies the connection between Jesus’ interment and the angelic announcement: Other women are present at the interment and at the mouth of the tomb; only Mary Magdalene is in both places, according to Mark.

  6. “thy name is as oil poured forth”

  55 Women featured prominently among practitioners of anointing: See Tal Ilan, “In the Footsteps of Jesus: Jewish Women in a Jewish Movement,” in Transformative Encounters: Jesus and Women Re-Viewed, ed. Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 115—136, and Mine & Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 105, 230—232. Matthew Morgenstern has commented upon an Aramaic text of exorcism that involves anointing; see “Notes on a Recently Published Magic Bowl,” Aramaic Studies 2, no. 2 (2004): 207—222.

  55 this service included financial support: In the case of Lydia in Philippi (Acts 16:11—15), support was more than financial. She personally accommodated Paul in Philippi and provided him with crucial contacts; see Rabbi Paul, pp. 151-152. Neither Lydia nor the Magdalene is just a patroness or donor in the presentation of Luke and Acts. Their support went beyond financial largesse. Mary Magdalene—evidently less wealthy than Lydia, the dyer known for her purple cloth—physically traveled with Jesus, despite the risks of travel on foot and without any guarantee of food or lodging. During these expeditions, even a wealthy supporter had more to do than just open his or her purse, and there is no indication that Mary was wealthy. “Serving” or “ministering” meant work with one’s hands for the immediate needs of the fellowship, and labor for the Kingdom.

  In the synagogue, Rabbi Jesus did not quote the familiar words: The most accurate version of what he said is contained not in the Greek manuscripts of Luke but in a version called the Old Syriac Gospels. Written in Syriac, a sister language to Aramaic, the Old Syriac Gospels sometimes contain primitive traditions that are older than the Greek Gospels. See Rabbi Jesus, pp. 97-102, 300. See also Chilton, God in Strength: Jesus’ Announcement of the Kingdom (Freistadt: Plochl, 1979; reprint, Sheffield: JSOT, 1987), pp. 157-177.

  perhaps a merchant dealing in olive oil from Galilee: Oil, because it was a fluid, was held particularly to convey uncleanness, so that having pure oil in one’s household was vital to maintaining the laws of kashrut. In his histories, Josephus refers to the purity of Galilean oil in contrast to Hellenistic products: See Life 74-75; Jewish War 2.591-592; Antiquities 12.120.

  rules that sought to govern whether an Israelite from one social group: Mishnah Qiddushin 4:1—2 makes these rules explicit:

  Ten descents came up from Babylonia: (1) priest, (2) Levite, (3) Israelite, (4) impaired priest, (5) convert, and (6) freed slave, (7) mamzer, (8) Netin, (9) silenced [shetuqi], and (10) foundling. Priest, Levite, and Israelite intermarry among one another. Levite, Israelite, impaired priest, convert, and freed slave intermarry one another. Convert, freed slave, mamzer, Netin, silenced, and foundling all intermarry among one another. These are silenced—everyone who knows his mother but does not know his father; and foundling—everyone who retrieved from the market and knows neither his father nor his mother. Abba Saul called a “silenced” [shetuqi] “to be examined” [beduqi].

  For an explanation of this system, see “Recovering Jesus’ Mamzerut,” in Ancient Israel, Judaism, and Christianity in Contemporary Perspective: Essays in Memory of Karl-Johan Illman, eds. Jacob Neusner et al. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005); Rabbi Jesus, pp. 12—22, 64-69, 133—134.

  59stamped her as a woman of ill repute: See Dom David Hurst, Gregory the Great: Forty Gospel Homilies Translated from the Latin (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1990), pp. 187, 198 (from Homily 25). The Latin manuscripts, from Barcelona, Cambridge, and Paris, are specified by Hurst on p. 3.

  59 Critical scholarship since 1517 has formally refuted the confusion: The scholar who showed the problems involved in the identification was Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples, in a study entitled De Maria Magdalena et triduo Christi disceptatio. Unscrambling the confusion was a major accomplishment of the Reformation, and it ran into violent, sometimes deadly, opposition from Catholic authorities; see Victor Saxer, Le culte de Marie Madeleine en Occident (Paris: Clavreuil, 1959), pp. 4-6. In Rabbi Jesus (pp. 133-134), I discussed the significance of the incident, and provide a shortened version of the treatment here. In The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament (New York: Continuum, 2002), p. 102, Jean Schaberg claims to be unable to determine whether or not R
abbi Jesus identifies Mary Magdalene with the woman in chapter 7 of Luke’s Gospel. My book never in any way asserts that they were the same person. Professor Schaberg’s assessment and my own largely agree, except in regard to Mary’s connection to the ritual of anointing. Scholars occasionally claim to disagree with one another more than they actually do, which can give nonexperts the impression of more volatility within a field than there really is.

  went on to pursue him as a heretic in 1523: This episode is detailed in James K. Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform in Early Reformation France: The Faculty of Theology in Paris, 1500-1543 (Leiden: Brill, 1985), pp. 170-177.

  The Testament of Job: In refering to Job’s “patience” (James 5:11), the New Testament appears to have the Testament of Job in mind, rather than the biblical book. Like Elijah (Testament of Job 52:8-12), this Job is even taken up in the divine Chariot that represents God’s presence at the end of his life. Merkavah mysticism is introduced in Rabbi Jesus with reference to critical discussion, pp. 41-63, 157, 161—165, 190-196, 269-289, 306-307.

  The “Spirit,” the “Creation of the Heavens,” and “The Paternal Splendor”: See R. P. Spittler, “Testament of Job (First Century B.c.-First Century a.d.): A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseude-pigrapha, vol. 1, ed. James Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), pp. 829—868. The actual texts of this document are quite late, and no one would want to take everything about the Testament of Job literally, but the fact that it attests mystical legends about women cannot be refuted.

  Job’s three daughters are said in Rabbinic literature to have settled: See H. C. Kee, “Satan, Magic, and Salvation in the Testament of Job,” in Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers (Missoula: Society of Biblical Literature, 1974) vol. 1, pp. 53—76; Schaberg, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, p. 312, citing Pesiqta de Rab Kahanah 7, Exodus Rabbah 17:4, and Ruth Rabbah 1:5.

  a woman came up behind him and touched him: Rabbi Jesus, p. 179.

  63 One involves a deaf-mute (Mark 7:31-37) and the other a blind man (Mark 8:22-26): Rabbi Jesus, pp. 130-131.

  the woman applies her unction of saliva seven times: See Sotah 1:4, i6d and—more generally—Shabbat 14:4.

  Life on the other side of death was an existence “like angels”: This conception, less material than that of many Jewish teachers during the first century, and of many Christians in ancient times and today, was too much for Luke’s Gospel. There the key wording is changed from “like angels” to “angelic” (isan-geloi; Luke 20:36) in an attempt to leave room for a theory of survival in the Resurrection. But Jesus’ nonmaterialist teaching is categorical, and it comes through clearly. See Rabbi Jesus, pp. 236-237.

  64 Love of God was love of neighbor, and vice versa: Rabbi Jesus, pp. 242-244; Christopher D. Marshall, Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001); Robin W. Lovin, Christian Ethics: An Essential Guide (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001).

  69 our inability to specify how intimate Mary and Jesus were in sexual terms: This is the conclusion in Rabbi Jesus, pp. 142—145, 269—270, with which Professor Schaberg agrees almost verbatim (The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, pp. 314-317, 330-335), although earlier in her book she captiously promises to disagree with my “patriarchal” position on this point (p. 102).

  7.TRANSFIGURATION AT THE TOMB

  72 How could anyone end a story by saying “they were afraid, because—”? In Greek, the phrase is expressed as ephobounto gar. The word gar regularly occurs in writings of the period and throughout Mark’s Gospel in what linguists call the postpositive position. That is, it is the second element in a clause, introducing an explanation, the way the word because does in English. In every other occurrence in the Gospel, the expected explanation follows the use of gar, so its absence here deliberately produces a feeling of truncation.

  72 Pious scribes frequendy harmonized the texts of the Gospels: Additional material they appended to Mark’s Gospel (both a “shorter ending” tacked on to verse 8 and a “longer ending” that extends for a good ten verses) refers to personal appearances of the risen Jesus that are comparable to what can be read elsewhere in the New Testament. When you read these additions and compare them to the accounts in the other Gospels, you quickly see that they amount to no more than a boiled-down mixture of stories from Matthew and Luke, and they have been recognized since the eighteenth century as pasted-on afterthoughts. They represent a failed effort to make this Gospel look like the others.

  The reference to Mary Magdalene in Mark 16:9, for example, as the woman “from whom he had thrown out seven demons” alludes to what is said in Luke 8:2. But Mark doesn’t speak of that exorcism at all, so the ending refers back to what the original Gospel doesn’t even say. That is a sure sign of a pastiche, designed to make an unusual Gospel more conventional by the standards of a later time. Once all the texts of the New Testament circulated as a single canon of Scripture, it was natural for scribes to harmonize and homogenize what the different documents said. By becoming aware of tendencies of that kind, scholars can then distinguish the individual character of each document from the style of copyists, which is the purpose of textual criticism.

  The desire to patch together this ending shows that the distinctive voice of Mark was lost on later readers due to the copyists’ desire to make all the Gospels sound as much alike as possible. Sadly, modern editions of the New Testament in English sometimes go the way of this homogenization and thus ignore the clear findings of textual study based on the earliest manuscripts. Mark ended with the silence of the women; any reading of the Gospel that fails to cope with that is faulty.

  73 An iron spike with an attached piece of wood: Craig Evans, Jesus and the Ossuaries (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2003), pp. 98—103. The nail had been driven into a hard knot of olive wood and could not be removed at burial as the others evidently were.

  73 According to usual burial practice: See Rachel Hachlili, “Burials, Ancient Jewish,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman et al. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 798—994.

  73 the claim, fashionable for more than a century, that Jesus’ body was tossed: John Dominic Crossan has recently propagated this description in chapter 6 (“The Dogs Beneath the Cross”) of Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), pp. 123—158, but it comes from the century-old work of Alfred Loisy. Loisy’s scholarship could not have taken into account Yochanan’s ossuary, and he typified foibles of his time in ignoring Judaic evidence for the burial of crucified people. Crossan tries to explain away this evidence in favor of a sensationalist image, which is more to his liking. The postmodern period, in its enthusiasm for theory, has allowed of too much explaining away, instead of accounting for the data at hand. I have detailed this problem in Rabbi Jesus, pp. 270-272, 308. In Jesus and the Ossuaries (p. 101), Evans also contradicts Crossan, as does Jane Schaberg in The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament (New York: Continuum, 2002), pp. 239—240. On pp. 280—281, Professor Schaberg agrees with my reconstruction of the basic elements of Jesus’ interment, although she does not discuss the location I have suggested, which is based on the discovery of the ossuary of Caiaphas {Rabbi Jesus, pp. 214-215, 270-272).

  The story of the resuscitation of Lazarus in John 11:1-44: Rabbi Jesus, pp. 179 (citing Ebel Rabbati 8:1, an additional tractate of the Talmud), 244-246. In The Theology of the Orael Torah: Revealing the Justice of God (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), Jacob Neusner brilliantly analyzes the theological and literary relationships among the Mishnah, the Talmud of Jerusalem, and the Babylonian Talmud (as well as other texts). For the evidence of women’s role in lamentation, see Kathleen Corley, “Women and the Crucifixion and Burial of Jesus,” Forum 1 (1998); Marianne Sawicki, Seeing the Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994). Precedent for such customs goes all the way back to the patriarch Jacob, in h
is command to his sons to bury him with his fathers (Genesis 49:29). Jesus’ burial, including the likely site, is described in Rabbi Jesus, pp. 269-272.

  Crucifixion was a punishment that only the Roman authorities themselves: Gerald O’Collins, “Crucifixion,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. Freeman et al., vol. 1, pp. 1207—1210.

  the observance of the Sabbath: Mark knew that the authorities of the Temple, fearful of the impact of Jesus’ intervention in the Temple, had decided to act prior to Passover (Mark 14:1-2). A later liturgical tradition turned Jesus’ last meal with his disciples into the Seder of Passover (Mark 14, 12-15), but that reflects the emerging practice of Eucharistic observance, and its cooptation of Passover, rather than plausible history. If the priests and their associates feared “a riot of the people” (thorubos tou laou; Mark 14:2), why would they have awaited the arrival of Passover, along with its tens of thousands of pilgrims, to arrest Jesus? For an account of how differing datings of the Last Supper evolved in association with different liturgies, see Chilton, A Feast of Meanings: Eucharistic Theologies from Jesus Through Johannine Circles (Leiden: Brill, 1994); Jesus’ Prayer and Jesus’ Eucharist: His Personal Practice of Spirituality (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997).