Shownotes Transcript
We knew that there'd be opposition to the film from, again, from, I say, people who believe in the errancy of the Bible or feel certain, want to feel their relationship with God is a certain way and don't want to be disturbed and feel that we might be shaking other people's face and that sort of thing. And as I say, that's not our intention, nor is it, I think, would be the result, nor would it be the result of seeing this film. I think this picture...
would generate a lot of interest in God, especially in how one stands with God. But at any rate, we expected some opposition. The nature of the opposition, the ugly quality of it, is surprising and shocking and saddening, really. I find it saddening, especially the anti-Semitism involved and the death threats, that sort of thing.
In 1988, Martin Scorsese's epic religion drama The Last Temptation of Christ was released in cinemas. And we just heard him talking in an interview about the backlash the filmmakers experienced.
The film was based on a 1950s 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 even offered to reimburse the full production costs of the film if they would just pull it from the screenings. What was the fuss all about? Both the book and the film explored what it might mean to be both man and God, and therefore to experience the battle between the desires of the flesh and the will of the spirit.
That mostly comes through the dramatization 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, of course, that caused most outrage.
Mary Magdalene has played many roles throughout history. She's been a prostitute, a temptation, Jesus' wife, his 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 very earthly, perhaps even scandalous portraits that surprise and inspire. I'm John Dixon and this is Undeceptions. Undeceptions
This season of Undeceptions is sponsored by Zondervan Academic. You can get discounts on their special Master Lectures video courses and free chapters of many of the books we talk about here on the show. Just go to zondervanacademic.com forward slash Undeceptions. Every episode of Undeceptions, we explore some aspect of life, faith, history, science, culture or ethics undeniably.
That's either much misunderstood or mostly forgotten. With the help of people who know what they're talking about, we're trying to undeceive ourselves and let the truth. So I think for me, it was the fact that I grew up in a home and at a church where we talked a lot about the women of the Bible when it came to Mary Magdalene.
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 tomb encountering the risen Christ, what that means for our faith. It's just always been a question for me. I've been more...
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. Link in the show notes.
Jennifer recently published The Mary We Forgot, all about uncovering the true Mary Magdalene amidst the mythology that's built up around her. And it was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Jesus Christ Superstar that first piqued her interest in Mary Magdalene. You know the one. I don't know how to love.
Don't see why he moved me. That's producer Kayleigh. He's a man. Okay, you can stop now. Thank you very much. So there wasn't enough information in Jesus Christ Superstar for you? No, not enough information.
Yeah, exactly. 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 there? Yeah, so it's been marvelous to get to unpack her story and explore her remembrance and try to bring correction into
and clarity as a way to retrieve her for the church today as a model of faithful following of Christ and as an opportunity, I think, to return to Scripture and what Scripture says about her.
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 New Testament. Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene. Then there's Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus. Mary, the mother of James and Joses, that's 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 chapter 12, seven Marys. Actually, this fits pretty well 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 the other disciples, with the exception of Peter, James and John.
I asked Jennifer to give us a brief rundown of Mary Magdalene according to the Gospels.
We are told that she was a woman who was gripped by seven demons and that Jesus delivered her 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
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 also.
alongside the 12 with part of Jesus's ministry. Then we get to see her as a very faithful witness, watching him die on the cross and suffer. She sees his body entombed in the tomb and
And then we see her at the dawning after the Sabbath in the cemetery garden, present, ready to bring spices or anointing, and is shocked to discover the empty tomb and then also to encounter the risen Christ. It does lead to questions about what was her actual relationship with Jesus, and I do offer some answers.
No, the Grail has never been a cup. It is quite literally this ancient symbol of womanhood. And in this case, a woman who carried a secret so powerful that if revealed, it would devastate the very foundations of Christianity. Wait, please. You're saying the Holy Grail is a person? A woman? And it turns out she makes an appearance. Right there. But they are all men. Are they?
What about that figure on the right hand of our Lord, seated in the place of honor? Flowing red hair, folded feminine hands, hint of a bosom. No? - No, I am. - By doot-da-fay. It's called scottoma. The mind sees what it chooses to see. Who is she? My dear, that's Mary Magdalene. The prostitute? She was no such thing. Smeared by the church in 591 Anno Domino. Poor dear. Mary Magdalene was Jesus' wife.
That, of course, is a clip from The Da Vinci Code with the great Ian McKellen playing Sir Lee Teabing. Teabing is the leading scholar in the story in the film, based on the uber popular novel by Dan Brown. The basic plot 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 public interest in and skepticism towards the historical basis of Christianity.
The movie and the book were panned by critics, mostly, 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 that 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.
Well, it reads like something out of a Dan Brown thriller. A Harvard professor is contacted by an anonymous collector with a tantalizing artifact, a small scrap of papyrus covered with an ancient text making the first known reference to the wife of Jesus.
The notion that Jesus might have been married sparked controversy in the Christian world. And I'm joined now by the Harvard scholar at the center of it. Karen King is a professor of early Christian history at the Harvard Divinity School. And welcome. Thank you. So we're very intrigued about this collector. That's something that you have kept very secret. Would that lit up?
more credibility to this if you could say where this originated? Well, if we knew actually more about the find itself, you know, who found it in Egypt, how, you know, the history of it since the find, that would be of enormous use. You know, when things are found by professional archaeologists... The papyrus made massive waves, not just among historians, but Christians around the world who seem to have a really 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, I understand Jesus' celibacy forms a 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' Wife. But several years later, an investigative journalist for The Atlantic wrote a whole 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 the initial claim, but whatever.
There's something compelling about this 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. So we need to get this out of the way. She was Jesus' girlfriend, right? Yeah.
No. And deceivers. Yes. But that is really the popular culture's reading of her. And it's just so prevalent. But that's not at all how we are invited to remember her in scripture. We're going to read from the Gospel of Philip, the Gnostic Gospel, where Jesus often kissed Mary on the...
And then the script breaks. Literally, the script breaks. Big toe, cheek. I got to play with the ancient manuscript of this Gospel of Philip in Cairo years ago for a documentary called The Christ Files. Because the manuscript is a little damaged, as you can see here, we're not exactly sure what was in the original manuscript.
For instance, where it says, "Jesus kissed Mary on the mouth," this is a bit of guesswork, since just where the word "mouth" might have been, there's a lot of damage. Jesus may have kissed Mary on the cheek or the hand or the big toe, for all we know.
What's more disappointing for those of us who quite like the idea of Jesus the romantic is that the kiss mentioned here is almost certainly religious, since kissing fellow believers was a custom in the ancient world. The point of this second or third century text is not that Mary is the ideal wife or girlfriend, it's that she is the ideal disciple to whom the other disciples should aspire.
The cultural conversation today around this really seemed to have emerged in the 20th century with the discovery of some early Christian texts that were unknown previously. I'm thinking of the Nag Hammadi scrolls that point to Gnosticism and early Christian heresy.
as well as 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, the discovery of those texts, I think 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. But it's also based upon some of these interactions we see in the Gnostic text and is a signal of the anemic world.
way that we can look at love between two people and make it physical, sexual even. Even the kiss in the Gospel of Philip, there's no way it's romantic because Gnostics hated romance. I know, they were opposed to the body.
The body's inherently evil. So it is so funny how that it is not even Gnosticism, actually, the modern version of it. And, but people are really- So we're just sort of seeing our own culture back at us. We are. Yes, exactly. So, and that plays out in Jesus Christ Superstar, for sure. She's longing. She has this romantic love for Jesus. Yeah.
And when I look at the gospel accounts, I see more of a sibling dynamic at work in their relationship. She's often conflated with some other women. So Mary of Bethany 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? 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. 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 and priests as a way of symbolizing their being set apart.
And then, so first the anointing stories became conflated, and then the Marys became conflated from that point on. And 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. ♪
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.
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 actually seen as having this like past inappropriate life. 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.
When the Pharisee, who had invited him, saw this, he said to himself, 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?"
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. 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 at the time, Pope Gregory, sort of bringing all those pieces together and saying,
introducing Mary Magdalene for the Western church through that lens of her as both one who had seven demons, but that those seven demons are a signal to the seven deadly sins. And that then also she is, you know, the prostitute of Luke seven and she,
claims all the other stories also of Mary of Bethany. The conflation of Mary's and other women in the Gospels is actually a pretty big deal and untangling it all isn't easy.
The label prostitute for Mary Magdalene really stuck thanks to a pronouncement of Pope Gregory I in the year 591, as he identified her as the sinful woman in Luke chapter 7. But Gregory was actually just endorsing a tradition that had already begun to develop. In his pronouncement, Gregory wrote...
We believe that this woman, Mary Magdalene, whom Luke calls a female sinner, whom John calls Mary, is the same Mary from whom seven demons were cast out. Do you think there was a misogyny going on in this conflation or just a genuine desire to bring harmony to the stories? I mean, I'm quite a fan of Gregory the Great and his writings are right behind you, but was there a misogyny or
Or something more innocent? Can you tell? Yeah, that's a great question. 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 read the gospels with that in mind. So in part, it has to do with their interpretation and a good practice that can shape our understanding of the text.
But I do also think that there is a kind of assumption that we could see with other women in the Bible and in the history of reception, the reception history, that if there is a reference to sin, no matter how ambiguous, it is often wrong.
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. But at the same time, I think this desire to see the connections between multiple people with the same name does have 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. But it's
then it's not always clear in the remembrance later on. Yeah, so it's interesting. Perhaps a kind of misogyny in always thinking she must have been a prostitute, like that that's the only sin that women do. Yes. But not in the memory of her as a former prostitute because obviously the church is honoring her
You know, she's regarded as saintly and her conversion is seen as a complete restoration of her dignity. Yes, it is true. But it also obscures the true story.
It's extremely unlikely that Mary Magdalene is the same sinful woman from Luke chapter 7. I mean, Luke name-checks Mary Magdalene in the very next chapter, the beginning of chapter 8, without any hint that this is the anonymous woman he just mentioned two minutes earlier. All four Gospels name Mary Magdalene multiple times, but she's never introduced as a prostitute or with any descriptor like she's a sinner.
And the role of a prostitute suggests a financial disadvantage in Jesus' culture. And that just 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 in identifying and describing this remarkable woman from Magdala.
This episode of Undeceptions is brought to you by our season sponsor, Zondervan Academic, and their new book, Beautiful, Disappointing, Hopeful, by New York pastor Drew Heughan. Drew moved to Manhattan in September 2001 and was confronted by just how quickly life in a beautiful, hopeful city can be shattered by darkness and disappointment.
as he experienced the events of September 11. His book shows that Christianity provides not only the tools to celebrate and be grateful for life, but also to mourn, to lament in healthy ways. With its practices of gratitude, grief and grace, Drew argues that biblical Christianity is the best lens through which to process the highs and lows of life.
This is not happy, clappy Christianity. It's nitty gritty. You can grab a free chapter of Drew's book, Beautiful, Disappointing, Hopeful, as well as discounts on a bunch of other titles just by going to zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions. zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions. Mary. Mary of Magdala. Who are you?
How do you know my name? "Us says the Lord who created you, and he who formed you. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you."
That's from the very first episode of the hit TV series The Chosen, arguably the best dramatization of the Bible ever. Creative license is taken in the show in giving the backstories to Jesus' followers, including Mary Magdalene. But it's helped millions of people see their characters in the Bible as three-dimensional people instead of Bible cartoons. In this 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, afhis demonia hepta excelluluti, out of whom seven demons had departed. That's it. It's as though Luke expects readers already to know the story, so it can be truncated in this cryptic form.
Centuries later, we don't know the backstory. 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 Cusa, 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.
What's going on there? Why the number seven? Yes. Well, there's so many theories about it. Of course, I've already mentioned Gregory seen as seven deadly sins. But I prefer to use Jesus's own story where he talks about the significance of seven demons in Matthew 12. So Jesus himself says,
addresses this question. And I think it's very helpful 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. But what Jesus ends up saying is that he talks about how if you're being oppressed by one demon and you had a
poor exorcism, if the exorcism did not go well, that 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 they come into your life.
And 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 sometimes individuals are not even aware of what is going on with them. And so that perhaps then Jesus is healing her 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 even know more than I on this matter, but that he was— Yeah, I mean, I look at those historical Jesus books, 117 historical Jesus books, every one of them
would agree Jesus was a famous exorcist. He was a famous exorcist. On just historical grounds, yeah. 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 power and authority on earth. Mm-hmm.
She is also perhaps wealthy, an elite woman. Yes. And I'm just thinking of that little passing reference in Luke 8, which we'll get a voice actor to read so the audience will hear it. These women provided for the others from their own resources.
Yes. So the Luke 8, first three verses of Luke 8 is so often overlooked. 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. So we are introduced to Mary Magdalene as a woman who is identified with a location or with also a character or
quality or both. 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 with a father. She is associated with a place. And that already signals to us that she is 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 went.
Well, one of those women explicitly is said to be an elite, right? Very elite, yes. Joanna, the wife of Cusa. That's right. And the language there is very striking. These women were supporting them, right?
out of their means. So the them is clearly the apostles and Jesus. So 13 people are being bankrolled here at least. That's right. Yes. It's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. And it does change the way we think about women in that time period and their connection to finances, what they could inherit,
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 that...
I think that's important as well. And the male disciples receive it. Yeah. So she's an elite woman. She's healed from something horrible. And then she travels with Jesus. Yes. Okay. Help us get our heads around that.
She's actually on the road. 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 as their...
I have to chime in here with a really 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 all 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.
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. I wish we would change the English translation. Yes. Because disciple sounds like it just means adherent.
adherent or devotee. But you're right. It means a student in a school. And that's actually why I love in John 20, though she has often been criticized for this, but that she cries out to Jesus, Rabboni. 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. 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, which means, 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. 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. Yeah. So the Gospels take care to highlight her presence. They are, of course, written 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, because of her emotionality as well. She is very devout and 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, tortured and crucified, and seeing his dead body. And then, you know,
with the body to see it enter the tomb. And the texts highlight that she sees the stone close the tomb. So she's watching it at every stage as a faithful witness. And then in the morning, she returns at 5.
The first dawn, she is bringing anointing spices with her, ready to care for the body, and discovers that the tomb is open and is distressed.
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. And while others are uncertain about what she's saying, Peter and John immediately run to the tomb to see what she's reporting. And
And, you know, all they see is an empty tomb, and they return, but she lingers. 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 disciples 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, 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 the 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 were 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!" which means "teacher." Jesus said,
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. 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. And so she recognizes his voice and 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 that Jesus says, do not touch me. And that's actually true.
Good old Jerome, in translating the Greek New Testament 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 haptu, which has a much broader range of meanings, from touch right through to cling, hold.
hold, grasp, and even do violence, 1 John 5.18. And I kid you not, the same word can mean have sex, 1 Corinthians 7. Back 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.
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- Yeah, she made this theological mistake. 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 some claims about his sin?
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 Christ's body. That is a foundation for her apostolicity. So even going beyond the
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 better translation is cling. And then Jesus in that moment, so let me go because I have to send you.
And we have this commissioning that Jesus gives to her, sending her, which is the meaning of apostle's 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 in fact, she
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 and is faithful to proclaim. We'll find out what Mary did with that message after the break. ♪
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New pilgrimage route in south of France follows traditional path of St. Mary Magdalene. Winding from Camargue 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 Sainte Marie de la Mer. After evangelizing the whole area, in particular the city of Marseille, she settled in a grotto nestled in the heart of a nearby mountain, which would become later the Sanctuary of Sainte-Baume, where 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.
That's 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 actual 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 like Lazarus of Raised from the Dead fame. They were exiled by pagans and thrown into a rudderless boat in the Mediterranean to die.
But 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 everyone she meets before settling in a cave and praying there for the rest of her days. "But by the purveyance of Almighty God they came all to Marseilles, whereas 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 assemble 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 marveled 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. 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. I want to stay in some of the myths for a little bit longer. Oh, you do? Okay. Because The Golden Legend...
Oh, yes. 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. Right. But Mary gets a treatment here. Yes, she does. Tell me. Oh, she's all over that book, actually, in all different ways. So Jacobus de Varagini 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 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, pointing to her as a...
positive example of the ascetic, hermetic life. So seeing her as having this backstory of being a prostitute and then, you know, interning to Christ and being transformed, withdrawing to the wilderness. And she's often, you know, depicted with all this
like animal fur and hair all over her body. And, you know, she is in caves and in the forest and these kinds of things. And 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
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 what's going on.
Which Mary gets prominence and receives respect. And so 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 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
All the way over into Gaul? Yes. The golden legend has that? That's right. The golden legend has her getting on a boat in Jerusalem under threat of persecution and traveling to Roman France, to Roman Gaul, and then evangelizing into Marseille. 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 Ledge is an important 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 in Mary Magdalene's connection to Christ. So hang on. Are you saying this idea of her being an apostle to the apostles is not a modern thing?
woke feminist intrusion? That's right, yes. It's part of the tradition, exactly. That's funny. And here it is in the 13th century text itself. Mary Magdalene was the first person to whom Jesus 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.
This is just a wish. I want this Mary Magdalene to be the Mary who works hard in the Lord that Paul says hi to at the end of Romans 16. I have no evidence, but I'm sticking to that speculation. I love that. Well, in the Eastern tradition, that's the Eastern tradition's view. So I think it's very possible that that is the case. And, you know, Borkham, Richard Borkham, who's been on the show recently,
reckons that Joanna, wife of Cusa, friend of Mary Magdalene, is the junior mentioned in Romans 16. Yes, that's right. So that would be fun, wouldn't it? Junior and Mary Magdalene. Yeah, just like in Luke 8. There they are. There they are, yeah. They continue to be together in Rome. And I think, too, we know that –
that she is known for being a witness at the tomb. Do you think we can know anything beyond that, chronologically speaking? I mean, here am I speculating she went to Rome and she did her ministry and the golden legend says she went to France, etc. But really, is it just Zoroastrianism?
Zero evidence? Well, I think we would want to read Luke 23:24 and then Acts 1 to see about the possibility of her presence at Pentecost.
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 1, 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 believe that
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 critics of Christianity, remember Mary Magdalene, you know, I'm thinking of Celsus. Oh yeah, right here, Celsus. Yeah, hysterical wives, wives tales or something. The frantic woman, or yeah, however you translate it. But yeah, exactly. Exactly.
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. Oregon, against Kelsus, 255. So the emotionality of her and, yes, is... Sexist jerk. Yeah.
Their laws were set up that way. Yeah, so he's recognizing that this whole resurrection thing, it all goes back to that crazy woman. That's right, yeah. So that signals that she's known wider than just among the Jewish Christian communities of the time as the one to criticize, the one to pinpoint in opposition to Christianity. Right.
We don't need to fret about the idea of a woman being an apostle. I mean, she's not one of the 12. Right. The 12 is another category, but apostles is a wider category, right? Yes. And we know there was a woman apostle. Yes. Because Romans 16 mentions Junia. That's right. So the fact that Mary was one too, yeah, that shouldn't freak us out. And yet it does. Yeah, it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's press pause. I've got a five-minute Jesus for you.
The name Mary Magdalene is almost certainly a reference to her hometown in Galilee 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.
Director Mark, you've been there too. What do you think? Yeah, I've stood there, sat on the part in the synagogue. Good fun. Good fun. Yeah, that's right. They even discovered a synagogue in Magdala, complete with lovely mosaics on the floor. And a coin was found in the synagogue. Someone obviously dropped it when they went to service one day. With Herod Antipas' name minted on it, along with an exact year stamp.
Year 33 of Antipas. That is AD 29. Boo! It's a coin from the very time of Jesus' public ministry in one of the very towns where Jesus certainly preached. It's one of the few places you can stand in Israel today and say with very high historical confidence, Jesus stood here. He would have actually sat down in the synagogue to teach, but you know what I mean.
This synagogue is one of only a handful of synagogues that can definitively be dated to the first century, to the time of Jesus. And it used to be said, like way back in the 1970s and 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 Judea, scholars used to say. The gospel writers who were writing outside of Galilee were just sort of telling us what they imagined it would have been like. Silly, silly geniuses.
Then archaeologists found a synagogue up in Gamla, northeast of Galilee. Then in 2009, they found this one in Magdala. The same year, they found another in Kerbet Wadi Haman, just south of Magdala. And in 2016, another at Tel Rakesh over near Mount Tabor. And here's the fun thing.
In between my various visits to Galilee, nearly always with Director Mark, they found another definitely first century synagogue in 2021. Guess where? In Magdala, just over the other side of the modern highway that runs straight 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 there for decoration, and sat in that synagogue as well. For sure, Jesus taught there 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.
Let's begin with Christians. What do you think is the benefit of having a good look at Mary? 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
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 one part of it. I think that it also reminds us that a woman was Christ.
called and commissioned to proclaim Christ's resurrection. And that is very clearly shown 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 and
proclaim what God has done and is doing in their lives and how they are being illumined in their understanding of scripture and of discipleship. What about the person who's not sure what to make of Christianity, who may be sitting there thinking, you know, Christianity's got a pretty bad reputation when it comes to women?
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 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' acceptance of women and the way in which, too, 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 at many different points in her prominence and her inclusion and then her legacy as well.
There's a lot going on at the moment for our team at Undeceptions. Check out our new documentary called The First Hymn, available to stream now in the United States and coming soon for Australia and our global audiences.
Head to thefirsthymmovie.com for all the info. It's a project eight years in the imagining, almost three years in the making. It's the story of an ancient piece of papyrus found in the deserts of Egypt and how it made its way to the middle of a Christian rock concert in the heart of America's music scene.
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Undeceptions is hosted by me, John Dixon, produced by Kayleigh Payne and directed by Mark Hadley, from whom Seven Demons came out. Alistair Belling is a writer-researcher. Siobhan McGuinness is our online librarian. Lindy Leveston remains my wonderful assistant. Santino DiMarco is chief finance and operations consultant, editing by Richard Humwee. Our voice actors today were Yannick Laurie and Dakota Love. Special thanks to our series sponsor, Zondervan, for making this Undeception possible.
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