Mary Magdalene

by Bruce Chilton

  one ancient manuscript of the New Testament (the Codex Bezae): It is named after Theodore Beza, the sixteenth-century reformer, who gave this unusual fifth-century Greek manuscript to the University of Cambridge.

  76 the Church of the Holy Sepulcher: Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem made his city into a prosperous religious destination: Pilgrims were promised they could walk in the final footsteps of Jesus. The bishop mapped the Via Dolorosa, which marks the so-called Stations of the Cross—key stages in Jesus’ passion and death. Those stations are imitated to this day in churches all over Christendom. They encourage meditative devotion in overcoming one’s selfish attachment to well-being by following the example of Jesus, but they have also been manipulated to mount one of the most effective advertising campaigns for pilgrimage that has ever been devised. But Cyril’s program for the honor of his city and the worship of Christ crucified does not stand up well to historical or archaeological considerations. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher probably doesn’t mark the place of Jesus’ grave.

  The legend that it does began when Emperor Constantine ordered the destruction of a temple dedicated to Venus just outside Jerusalem; a burial cave was discovered during the subsequent excavation. The excavators convinced themselves they had discovered Jesus’ tomb. Later, it was said that Constantine’s mother, Helena, had a vision confirming the site, which—investigated on her order—was found to contain bits of what was said to be the cross and some nails.

  Whatever you make of this story, the best archaeological opinion estimates that during the first century (before two sieges, fires, and demolitions by the Romans—in 70 and in 135 C.E.) the city wall ran north of the site on which the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built. It would therefore have been inside the city, where Jewish practice prohibited cemeteries, and there is no evidence of a cemetery at that site during the first century, although a couple of skeletons of indeterminate date were uncovered. But the force of legend is hard to resist, and even Protestant scholars in recent years have abandoned their earlier skepticism to embrace this factoid of fourth-century pilgrimage propaganda, which Cyril exploited with incomparable skill.

  By the fourth century, this church was inside the city again, as it is today, puzzling theologians of the time. Why did the women have to walk or travel there? One later copyist of Mark solved this problem by having the women “walk into” the tomb (eisporeuesthai; from the codex known as “W,” now at the Smithsonian) instead of walking out of the city. Scribes in antiquity, like some scholars even today, find it easier to change the meaning of texts than to break with tradition. See John J. Rousseau and Rami Arav Jesus and His World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), pp. 112—118; see also Rabbi Jesus, pp. 269-272. For a similar position from an Evangelical point of view, see J. A. Thompson, The Bible and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), pp. 347-349. Thompson observes that “Protestant scholars have not been greatly interested to preserve the reputation of the traditional site of Calvary” (p. 348). This is to be contrasted with the view expressed twenty years later, which claims the Holy Sepulcher site is “almost certainly correct”; see Harold W. Mare, “Jerusalem, New Testament,” in The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, ed. E. M. Blaiklock, R. K. Harrison, and D. R. Douglass (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), pp. 261—265.

  77 Mark’s Gospel intentionally highlights the mystical qualities of these encounters with the divine: Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational, trans. John W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1923), remains a classic in this field, although personally I am more attracted to Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (London: Methuen, 1911). Both these authors influenced Thomas Merton deeply; see The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948). Among the works of current authors, those of Matthew Fox are the most influential as well as the soundest; see The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988).

  79 The whole Gospel According to Mark is designed as a program: It is well known that the Aramaic word abba means “father,” but too little known is the fact that it can also mean “source.” By utilizing the Aramaic term to refer to their own inner experience of baptism, Greek Christians showed that they did not in any way think of the term as referring to literal paternity when God was involved; see Rabbi Jesus, pp. 41-63. As I recently remarked to a friend who is a classicist, I am happy to speak of Jesus as “unique,” in the sense that every parent knows that each and every child one cares for is unique. When theologians press the term unique to mean that Jesus is exclusively God’s child, they undermine the meaning of baptism in Jesus’ name, which is designed to realize the same relationship to God that Jesus developed. It should go without saying that the term bar in Aramaic, like ben in Hebrew, may be used inclusively of females and males. Yet some New Testament scholars today have taken to writing “[sic!]” after “son,” as if it were a mistake, so it would seem that even the obvious has to be stated.

  8.ECSTATIC VISION

  81 Moses and Elijah, prophets who: Chilton, “Not to Taste Death: A Jewish, Christian and Gnostic Usage,” in Studia Biblica igj8, vol. 2, ed. E. A. Livingston (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), pp. 29—36.

  84 What causes their astonishment?: In her recent book The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament (New York: Continuum, 2002), Jane Schaberg talks of all the experiences of Mary Magdalene as necessitating the “empty tomb” as the jolt (pp. 282-291) that it took to make her vision happen. In my opinion, that vastly underestimates the force of meditative practice, as well as reducing varied texts to a single simplistic meaning. Because part of the argument of her book is against the “conflation” of passages and of people, Schaberg’s own harmonization is glaring. She goes on to say (p. 284), “But I do not think this commits me to the belief that the Resurrection must be thought of as the resuscitation of a corpse; rather, it is compatible with a lost or stolen corpse, and compatible with exaltation/ascent, and compatible with the mystery of the unknown fate of the corpse, and compatible with the destruction of the corpse.” She apparently agrees with what I say in Rabbi Jesus (p. 273): “When the women turned from the tomb of Jesus, directed away from any search for Jesus’ corpse by their vision of the white-robed youth, the question of what became of his physical body was left open forever.” Had Professor Schaberg observed that they make no search in Mark’s text, so that the “empty tomb” is moot there, she would have saved herself complication.

  84 He said he could not even tell whether he was “in the body or outside the body”: 2 Corinthians 12:2-4; Rabbi Paul, pp. 114—116, 119, 203, 228.

  87 Several of these are unmistakably male fantasies: Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) misses the subtlety of the novel of the same name (1951) by Nikos Kazantzakis. On the other hand, Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003) represents its “factual” predecessors quite faithfully.

  90 James, Jesus’ brother and the most prominent leader of Christianity at the time: The stoning of James occurred during the interregnum of the Roman governors Festus and Albinus (Josephus Antiquities 20.9.1 §§ 197-203), and Ananus was removed from office as a result of popular protest; see B. D. Chilton and J. N. Neusner, eds., The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001).

  9. the scar

  94 The Gospels were composed in communities where there was still an oral memory of Jesus: Well into the second century, an early Christian teacher named Papias said he always preferred the “living voice” of those who taught about Jesus to any written Gospel; see Eusebius History of the Church 3.39.

  96 No Gospel was written as a biography of Jesus: This point was well expressed by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza in her landmark study, In Mem
ory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983, 1992), p. 102: “The Gospels, then, are paradigmatic remembrances, not comprehensive accounts of the historical Jesus but expressions of communities and individuals who attempted to say what the significance of Jesus was for their own situations.” The resulting erasure of women is an important theme in Jane Schaberg, The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, I995)-

  96 If we focus only on what was written: See Antoinette Clark Wire, “Rising Voices: The Resurrection Witness of New Testament Non-Writers,” in On the Cutting Edge: The Study of Women in Biblical Worlds—Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, ed. Jane Schaberg, Alice Bach, and Esther Fuchs (New York: Continuum, 2004), pp. 221—229. In her article, Wire writes (p. 229), “By taking seriously those who are speaking, we could learn how to tune in and hear these and other rising voices.” That is precisely the program here, a continuation of Professor Wire’s prescient approach in The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction Through Paul’s Rhetoric (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).

  96Feminist theology and textual scholarship have proven a vital force in showing that history is flexible: See Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Free Press, 1992). She spells out her approach on p. 93 in a way that both engages and rejects historical inquiry:

  A reconstructive historical model seeks to reshape our historical and theological self-understanding by displacing the androcentric reconstructions of early Christian origins that marginalize or eliminate women and other nonpersons from the historical record. It does so by interrogating the rhetorical strategies of androcentric biblical texts in order to subvert them. For it is in and through such interrogations that the “reality” which the text marginalizes and silences is brought to the fore. As I will now go on to explain, although I agree fully that historical inquiry involves inference, it seems to me that attempting to change historical judgments by means of rhetorical subversion might not only fail to convince, but wind up entrenching positivist reactions.

  97Some feminist theology has suffered a failure of nerve in the face of his tory: In addition to Professor Wire’s work, referred to heretofore, see the criticism of Professor Fiorenza’s theoretical perspective by Dr. Tal Ilan in Mine & Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden:Brill, 1997) and in “Paul and Pharisee Women,” in On the Cutting Edge, ed. Schaberg, Bach, and Fuchs, pp. 82—101, and the major series Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings, edited by Amy-Jill Levine with Marianne Blickenstaff (Edinburgh: Clark, 2001—2004).

  97 The vogue of “the final form of the text” had a profound impact upon thinking about the Bible: See G. T. Sheppard, “Canonical Criticism,” in Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, ed. John H. Hayes (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), pp. 164—167.

  97 one leader among feminist biblical scholars has called for a rejection of the approach to “the bible as ‘fact’”: Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001), p. 41. In her earlier work, Professor Fiorenza did invoke a social scientific model of history (defining history as inference rather than deduction). Having passed through a period in which she severely criticized historical work generally, she now does make more room for it here, albeit in a qualified way (p. 145): “However, insofar as historical studies do not sufficiently problematize the positivist assumption that kyriocentric source-texts are descriptive and reliable evidence for socio-historical reality, their focus on women’s history remains caught up in the marginalizing tendencies of the kyriocentric text, which subsumes women under male terms.” That is because she is committed to a programmatic reading, which is at odds with historical assessment; see her statements: “Whether you are a believing bible reader or a reader who appreciates the bible as a cultural treasure, becoming a feminist interpreter means shifting your focus from biblical interpretation construed as an ever better explanation of the text to biblical interpretation as a tool for becoming conscious of structures of domination and for articulating visions of radical democracy that are inscribed in our own experience as well as in that of texts” (p. 3); “… a feminist biblical Wisdom interpretation is best understood as a spiritual practice in the open space of Divine Wisdom through which, like the wind, the Spirit blows as it/s/he wills” (p. 77); “In short, the transformation of the scientific-positivist ethos of biblical studies into a rhetorical-ethical one creates a grassroots democratic space in which feminist and other readers/hearers can participate in defining and debating the meaning and significance of a biblical text in contemporary social-political locations and cultural-religious rhetorical situations” (p. 97).

  97 when feminist theologians speak of possible “voices” in texts: A recent study of the Gospel According to John makes this explicit; see Satoko Yama-guchi, Mary and Martha: Women in the World of Jesus (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002) p. 142: “And the old stories should be accompanied by new stories too. In retelling old and new stories I hope we emancipate our spirituality from later doctrinal interpretations of the Bible as well as from a modern Western dualis-tic mind-set that exclusively identifies Western culture with the ‘pure’ Christian tradition.” She puts into practice Fiorenza’s observation (Wisdom Ways, p. 148): “From its inception, feminist interpretation has sought to actualize biblical stories in role-playing, storytelling, bibliodrama, dance, and song.”

  99 Saint Paul’s infamous mandate: See Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets; Rabbi Paul, pp. 214-216.

  99 Jesus had demanded the renunciation of family for the sake of his message: The New Testament proves that some Christians departed from Jesus’ attitude by the end of the first century: The relationships of family were portrayed as providing an opportunity for enacting the love one had learned from Christ (see 1 Peter 2:18—3:7).

  10.EXPURGATING THE MAGDALENE

  But wide variations between these two Gospels: For a representative example of the textbook presentation, see Mark Allan Powell, Fortress Introduction to the Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998). I develop an alternative reading of the evidence, accounting for variations that the standard theory cannot accommodate, in Targumic Approaches to the Gospels: Essays in the Mutual Definition of Judaism and Christianity (Lanham, MD, and London: University Press of America, 1986) and in Profiles of a Rabbi: Synoptic Opportunities in Reading About Jesus (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). See also Holly E. Hearow, The Magdalene Tradition: Witness and Counter-Witness in Early Christian Communities (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004).

  a legendary event that appears in Matthew alone among the Gospels: This is actually the second reference to the earthquake in the Gospel According to Matthew. At the time of the crucifixion, this Gospel says (yet again, uniquely; 27:51—53): “And look: the curtain of the Temple was split from top to bottom in two, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened and many bodies of the holy ones who slept were raised; they came out from the memorials after his raising and entered into the holy city and were manifested to many.” Matthew is not clear about its own chronology, so you can’t tell when exactly this earthquake (unmentioned by historians of the time) was supposed to have occurred. Presumably, it coincides with the moment of Jesus’ Resurrection, because Matthew’s conception is that this Resurrection marks an apocalyptic breakthrough that shows how all believers will be raised.

  Ananias, who baptized Paul: Rabbi Paul, pp. 48-71.

  But Paul finds no place in Matthew’s conceptual universe: This is one reason that makes me think the originating community was Damascus, rather than Antioch (another contender). Damascus—with its deep and ancient connection with Judaism—was the kind of city in which one might have heard of Jesus saying things such as “Whoever looses one of the least of these decrees and teaches people that way will be called least
in the kingdom of the heavens” (Matthew 5:19). That is a likely swipe at Paul, appearing only in Matthew; those who heard Matthew read would have known very well that the word paulus in Latin means “little” or “least.” This Gospel is categorically pro-Law, and yet vociferous in its condemnation of Pharisees and synagogue leaders, as one would expect, if Christians in Damascus were influenced by the Essenes, who had been well ensconced in the city.

  106 Matthew’s women not only see the angel; they meet Jesus himself as they depart from the mouth of the tomb: Their response reflects this Gospel’s view of what people should do to acknowledge Jesus as God’s Son (Matthew 28:9—11): “They came forward and seized his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus says to them, Do not fear. Depart, report to my brothers so that they go away into Galilee, and there they will see me.” This encounter evokes worship, exactly the response of the eleven apostles (28:16—17), Who heed the women’s instructions and go to Galilee, where the risen Jesus commissions them to baptize “all the Gentiles” in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and promises them his visionary presence until the end of the world (28:16-20). The eleven male leaders are solely authorized to take up this commission, but Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary” are the pioneers of the apostolic experience, and the issue of doubt is not associated with them as it is with the eleven (28:17). The eleven reflect how Christian teachers presented baptism in Damascus: an initiation into Spirit brought by the blinding lightning of vision just before the thunderclap of a final judgment, at which time all humanity would be held accountable before God.