Video Transcript: Mary Magdalene

In this segment, we're going to focus on this very interesting person, Mary Magdalene, who, of course, is in all four Gospels. In all four gospels, she is the first person, the first of the group of women to the tomb on Easter morning. In John's gospel, she's the only one all of her  companions have disappeared. So obviously a very important person. Who is she? Well, she's  known as Mary of Magdala. And that's what Magdalene means that the person who comes  from a place called Magdala. And Magdala is a place on the western side of western shore of  the lake of Galilee. Still there, it's some very interesting excavations and structures, buildings  are going on there right now. And Magdala is an Aramaic word that means tower. Aramaic,  you know, is a language very closely related to Hebrew. It's the language of the Persian  Empire, the ancient Persian Empire, and after the Persian invasions in sixth century, fifth sixth century, sorry, seventh sixth century BC, it became the common language of the Jews of  Judea. And it was the language that was spoken in Galilee was Jesus first language. It's very,  very closely related to Hebrew. And Magdala is in Aramaic it it means tower. If you look on the picture there, we have in Latin script Magdala just below it we have Hebrew Migdol in in  Hebrew, Migdal means tower. And you can see here an example of how closely these two  languages are related Migdal and Magdala it's just a change in vowels a so it is, it is a town  that is known. And in in the New Testament time actually had a different name tarichae which  means salted fish. And that's an indicator of what its main business was the salting of fish to  preserve fish in, they didn't have refrigerators, you know, so to carry fish and be able to to  have it later you dried it out and salted it must have been very salty by the time they ate it.  And that's that's what this village was known for. There are other theories about a tower that  she wasn't really from there. But she was a tower of strength. Well, okay, I mean, you can do  that if you want. But basically, it's simply saying that she is from this town of Magdala. So I  had already mentioned Luke 8:1-3, where she is the first one named, and John, the dialogue  between Jesus and Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning. One New Testament  scholar suggested that Mary Magdalene was to the women disciples what Peter was to the  male disciples, the leader, recognized leader and spokesperson, whatever you make of the  role of Peter, in later generations, when you read the gospels, all of them you really see him  as a spokesperson. I mean, he is he is somebody who is recognized by the others as, as a  leader, a natural leader, and that probably Mary Magdalene was that to the women disciples.  And I think that's an interesting take on it. Now, Mary Magdalene, is confused with other  Marys she even gets confused with the mother of Jesus once in a while, because everybody's  named Mary and we have Mary of Bethany, who is presumably the same as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. And why all these Marys Well, there's a possible a suggested reason for  why we have so many marries in the Gospel. Studies have been done on names of both men  and women popular names. Right around this time in the burials surrounding Jerusalem.  That's where we have enough evidence for this Jewish people in the cemeteries surrounding  ancient Jerusalem and something like 25 - 30% of names were either of women were either  near Miriam or Mariam, which are variations on the same name. And they all translate as  Mary. So in English, we have all these Marys in, in Greek, sometimes sometimes Mariam,  sometimes, Miriam. But it was just a really popular name. And I think that that's why we have  so many women by that name, which creates the confusion. So remember, we have Mary of  Bethany, who is the one who in John's Gospel just before the passion, anoints, Jesus' head  with perfume. And, but there's another there's a foot washer, in Luke 7, an unknown woman  in the city, this is up in Galilee, Jesus is at dinner with Pharisees, this unknown woman who  was a sinner comes in and washes his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. And  this causes scandal. And Jesus says, she didn't, you messed up, you my host messed up by  not offering the water to wash my feet. You know, if you spend much time today, even  walking around in, in the Holy Land, your feet, your shoes get very dusty. And they had  sandals and open sandals. And so it was the hospitality thing to do when somebody arrived at your house. And usually it was a slave who did it who washed the feet. And Jesus says you  didn't do that, to me, she's doing it. And this will be told in memory of her, wherever.  Wherever these stories are told. And by the late fifth century. Interpreters Some interpreters  also take this story, and put it together with Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus with perfume,  and put that together with Mary Magdalene. And so the whole thing, all of these distinct 

characters get associated with the name of Mary Magdalene. So there's a whole confusion  that that happens. But what is the real role of Mary Magdalene? What does she really stand  for here? Well, remember that in John's gospel, she is at the tomb by herself. And she  recognizes Jesus when he calls her name. And he says, go tell my disciples, that I am  ascending to my God and your God. And that line, go tell my disciples, is the basis for a very  early tradition that calls her the apostle of the apostles. By the early third century, that that's  attested. And it simply means that, that she's the one who gave the news of, of the  resurrection of Jesus. And so we have this image of her in this, this tradition about her as  being the apostle of the apostles. And that gives rise to a whole tradition about Mary  Magdalene in the early church, to the to being a teacher, and one who received revelation  from Jesus special revelation from Jesus to pass it on. And she is sometimes depicted holding  an egg, which is in this contemporary painting. And that's because of a legend that it is  legend that she went to Rome, and she preached the gospel to the emperor Tiberius, who  said to her, I can I cannot believe what you're saying any more than she was she was, had an  egg in her hand, that the egg would turn red, and of course upon his saying that the egg  turned red. Here, the egg is white but she is sometimes depicted holding a red egg. And both  of those are reflections of this legendary story. But the interesting thing about it is that she  was about a Proclaimer of the gospel. She was the one who was in this story, sent to preach  the gospel even to the emperor that she was a recipient of special revelation from Jesus.  Because in that story in in John and chapter 20, Jesus says, go tell my disciples, she goes and  tells them and she says, and these are the things he said to me. What are the things he said  to her, it's not spelled out. And that gives rise to the tradition that that at that moment that  Jesus gave her secret, hidden revelation. There is a text from the fourth or fifth century that's  called the gospel of Mary. And it never says Mary Magdalene, some have said that this is  meant to be the mother of Jesus. But most interpreters would say, No, it's meant to be Mary  Magdalene where the disciples, the male disciples are all gathered with Mary Magdalene. And  Peter says, No, sorry, not Peter. It's one of the others says, Mary, what are the things, secret  things that Jesus said to you? And she then says some things which are pretty esoteric. I  mean, they're, they're, they're, they're hard to understand. They're the kind of riddles you  know. And Peter, at the end of it says, huh I don't believe that, that Jesus really said these  things to you. And it's Levi, who says, Peter, you're always giving her problems stop doing  that. We have to accept the fact that the Savior loved her more than he loved us. So what  kind of a community would have treasured stories like this, that it had to be communities that really revered her memory? And that that recognized her as, as an important figure in the  early church and the apostle to the apostles. She also of course, gets confused with the Mary  of Bethany, the sister of Martha, and this is Caravaggio, portraying Mary Magdalene as Mary  of Bethany coquettish, wouldn't you say? And she's very, and of course, she's in in  contemporary clothing of Caravaggio's day, and she's quite lovely. And she's got a mirror  that's a mirror that she's holding in her left hand. And Martha is trying to talk to her. And  Martha's head is shaded in dark and so you don't really see much of Martha. But the light is  illuminating that face of Mary. And it's just a really interesting portrayal, which, of course, is  nothing like what we think the historical Mary Magdalene would have looked like, but its a  portrayal of her. And then we have Titian who portrays Mary Magdalene, the repentant  prostitute. Yes. And this comes off of the passage in Luke 7, remember I said, it's a confusion  of Mary Magdalene with that figure. And that woman, a certain woman in the city, who was a  sinner. Now, doesn't say what kind of sinner, but in that culture, if you say a woman is a  sinner, it probably it means some kind of irregularity about her sexual life doesn't necessarily  mean prostitute, doesn't necessarily mean professional, collected taking money, you know,  but it's a sexual irregularity of some kind. And in the course of centuries, and the  interpretation of that passage, she became a prostitute. And then, as I said, in the late fifth  century, she gets connected with Mary Magdalene. So then Mary Magdalene becomes a  prostitute, which she wasn't before, several centuries after her death, and then she gets  connected with the whole idea of a desert ascetic, and I'll show you another picture of that in  a minute. But it's this idea of the Yes. The repentant prostitute is still titillating. You know, and  she's always portrayed in this guise with her, you know, the clothes kind of slipping down and 

yeah its gonna fall over her breasts the next you know, it's, it's, it's they're. They vaguely or  innocence, not what I meant to say barely concealed sexuality. And she gets confused here  with a figure called Mary of Egypt another legendary figure in the early church, at the time of  the desert ascetics, when a number of people men but also women were taking to the desert  and spending their lives as ascetics in the desert and Mary of Egypt, the story about her is  that she was a famous prostitute. And she decided to go on a pilgrimage to the holy land  because everybody was doing that everybody was going on pilgrimage. And when she got  there to Jerusalem, and she tried to enter the Church of the Anastasis, the resurrection, which  is what we then the Crusaders called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And she some  mysterious force kept her back, she wasn't able to walk in the church, she was instantly  converted. And then she did walk in the church, and she repented of her sinful life and she  took off to the desert and was never seen again until she died. And and she had she dressed  like a man. And they didn't know the other ascetics desert, ascetics didn't know she was a  woman until they were gonna bury her when she died. So Mary Magdalene, in the  imagination, artistic imagination, gets connected with Mary of Bethany, and that's what you  had going on here. So this is not the only one there there are a lot of depictions of titled Mary  Magdalene, and repentant sinner in the desert, bemoaning her past sins. And then she is the  desert ascetic you see and this is Donatello's depiction of Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt,  now the half starved mostly starved, desert ascetic. So these are all some of the the ways in  which Mary Magdalene has been portrayed. And in more recent scholarship, she's gone back  to being an apostle, the apostle of the apostles, because we sort of peeled off the layers of  development of tradition. So don't let anybody tell you Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, that  is later invention. Mary Magdalene herself, was a disciple a faithful disciple of Jesus, who was  recognized by the male disciples, and very early in the tradition was honored as an apostle.  So modern imagination about Mary Magdalene has hung on to these dramatic projections  have hung on to the prostitute because the let's face it's more interesting, you know, the the  famous prostitute who repents, and now she's converted. So I give you two examples here.  One is Jesus Christ Superstar, those of you of a certain age, may remember this, those of you  who are younger, probably haven't seen it. But it was a wonderful musical depiction of the life of Jesus. And Mary Magdalene is, is, of course, a repentant prostitute and a lover of Jesus and  lover in many different ways. And, and this is one of the modern depictions of a tradition that  has gone on for a while Oh, I didn't even mention. Also the there's another tradition about  Mary Magdalene, Martha, and Lazarus getting in a boat going across the Mediterranean  landing at Marseille in France. And so you have a whole tradition about Mary Magdalene  there, too. And she's this person who just shows up everywhere, because she's so interesting.  But in Jesus Christ Superstar there, there is the suggestion that that there of a romantic  relationship between the two of them. And that's certainly not the first of the modern  suggestions of that. And then we come to Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code. Now, the Da  Vinci Code is, is a wonderful novel. His history is atrocious. He absolutely slaughters history,  and so don't believe much of the history that you read in the Davinci Code. But it's a  wonderful novel. And as one of my friends used to say, please note, where in the bookstore it  is it's under fiction. This is not history. This is fiction. And it's its imagination. And of course, in  the Da Vinci Code, also we have a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary. So Mary  Magdalene functions as a figure who is so fascinating to people that she is. There's just all  kinds of stories about her and she gets confused in many different ways. So what can we  really presume about the real Mary Magdalene with a real Mary Magdalene please stand up?  You know, we've got a woman who is attracted to as a disciple to Jesus, a faithful disciple. She is not poor. She is providing some of the, the support for this group of disciples. And she is not necessarily young. And so we do not need to picture Mary Magdalene as, as a youngster as as a young, nubile person, you know, she's she's wealthy and she's, so she's probably a she's  either married or maybe widowed. There's no mention of her husband whereas there is a  mention of Joanna's husband in that passage in Luke 8. She's probably widowed and which  would mean she could be of a certain age. And she is faithful in her. Her line of discipleship in  her life of discipleship. And after the death of Jesus continues as a faithful disciple with the  group of other disciples I think that's, that's really well we can say about the, the historical 

Mary Magdalene and then we have all of this wonderful imagination that flows from this  fascinating character.