“She who is named more than most of the 12 disciples and nearly as much as Mother Mary is not to be missed, and especially at a time when it was not the practise to include the names of women at all,” was one of many insights in a passionate lecture by historian Professor Jennifer Powell McNutt of Wheaton College at Sydney’s Women’;’s College Sybil Centre last week.
McNutt is in Australia for ADM – Anglican Deaconess Ministries – which is dedicated to the conviction “that women can contribute in profound and enriching ways to the public imaginationand cultural conversation about Christianity.” McNutt’s lecture certainly did that – rejecting the hoary church traditions of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute or an hysterical woman, revealing “The Mary We Forgot” the title of her book.
McNut turns us to the canonical Bible text to discover the real Mary
“We know Mary Magdalene’s name because the gospel writers tell us over and over, multiple times across all four gospels, even with 52 mentions of the name Mary in the New Testament, notable efforts are made by the gospel writers to set her apart from other Marys. We can observe this happening when the vast majority of the Marys are distinguished according to their familial ties. Wife of Joseph, mother of Jesus, mother of James, wife of Cleopas, sister of Martha. Apart from the Mary of Romans 16, who is described as hardworking, the name Mary Magdalene, including one instance of Mary called Magdalene, is identified at least 11 times across four gospels, with 14 total references and context. When ‘the other Mary,’ that’s meant to differentiate her from Mary Magdalene in the same grouping.”
For McNutt, the fact that the gospel writers overcome the prejudice against women’s testimony highlights the significance of the woman from Magdala. “Even when the gospel writers reveal to us the discomfort, the reticence, the downright disbelief of many of the 11 to Mary Magdalene and the women’s testimony, they do not also remove her presence from their account of Jesus’ ministry, from Galilee to Jerusalem, at the cross, at his burial and at the empty tomb. And though it puts the gospels at risk to highlight her presence, her grieving, her calling, and sending by Jesus to bear witness, the gospel writers do not remove her presence or erase her words.”
McNutt explains how the prostitute label came about. “In my work to trace the exegetical traditions for my book, I note how a harmonisation of the four different gospel stories of a woman anointing Jesus led to Mary Magdalene’s association with the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus in Luke chapter seven. Because that unnamed woman is described as a sinner, church interpreters drew conclusions. The sinner was in fact a euphemism for prostitute. And though Luke did not use the term in this case as he does in others, that is the exegetical tradition.”
As McNutt draws us to a clearer picture of the real Magdalene, she quotes the formular applied to her by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, “first to worship and to witness.”
“Importantly, Mary Magdalene is not the former prostitute, now Penitent Oliver coming to the tomb, but the formerly demon possessed woman, turned disciple, meaning student, of Jesus rushing to the tomb, and that changes the dynamics of their encounter significantly. When she comes to the tomb, she doesn’t just bring spices. She brings a robust testimony with her already about Jesus’ power to heal and to save. And so she’s not just any woman at the tomb, she is Mary Magdalene, who knows the power of Jesus to deliver her from seven demons. She received his welcome to join his itinerant ministry alongside the 12 and many other women. As a student or disciple from Galilee to Jerusalem, she gave of her financial resources to support and expand his ministry as a prominent patronist. And she then bore witness to Jesus’ death on the cross and was present when the body was laid in the tomb.
“She knew where the body was leading.”