Was Mary Magdalene an Apostle?
Easter, aka Resurrection Day, reminds us that she was
The combination of Easter season and yesterday’s International Women’s Day seems like a good time to remind us that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute (not that, in my opinion, it’s any of our business to pass judgment). She was a woman from a notable family who was Jesus’s right-hand man, as it were.
When a woman establishes such a powerful presence that it is obvious she will have great historical influence, a patriarchy’s first response is to try to turn her into a prostitute, or, in the case of Hillary Clinton, the leader of a cult of pedophiles.
According to a steadfast patriarchy that continues to spread tentacles that now reach into the minds of young American men, Kamala Harris similarly slept her way to the top.
Women in general need to prepare for various types of sexual shaming whenever they become successful.
In other words, the story of Mary Magdalene is part of a grand old male tradition that has withstood the test of time with great aplomb.
Jesus, of course, knew better. Mary Magdalene was the first person Christ visited after his resurrection. He didn’t visit the men first. He visited her.1
She was that important.
Sidebar: You may not believe in the resurrection, or other magic, for that matter, but I’m not interested in those kinds of religious debates. I’m not a fundamentalist Christian — I don’t care if you think Jesus or Mr. Potato Head is divine, or if you consider the whole notion of any kind of God as hooey.
“There are many scholars who argue that because Jesus empowered women to such an extent early in his ministry, it made some of the men who would lead the early church later on uncomfortable,” Robert Cargill, assistant professor of classics and religious studies at the University of Iowa and editor of Biblical Archaeology Review says. “And so there were two responses to this. One was to turn her into a prostitute.”2
“By turning [Mary Magdalene] into a prostitute, then she is not as important. It diminishes her in some way. She couldn’t have been a leader, because look at what she did for a living,” Cargill adds3
This of course accomplishes two great goals of patriarchy. It diminishes the historical significance of Mary, and it helps sully the reputation of the oldest profession in the world, one that is made possible by patriarchy itself.
The Apostle Mary Magdalene?
Christ, as we see repeatedly in scripture, gave great countenance to women.
You’d never know this from a conventional reading of the Bible, which was written and translated by men.
Women were the first to see Christ after his resurrection. They played important roles in his ministry, roles that were possibly tamped down, from a publicity standpoint, by subsequent Bible scribes and church leaders, whose belief systems were crafted by archaic and primitive attitudes common to a highly patriarchic society.
Christ said to Mary Magdalene just after his resurrection:
“Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
~ John 20:17
Mary of course did so. If she had adhered to the quote attributed to the apostle Paul regarding the silence of women, she would have gone home to wash some clothes, and it’s possible Christ’s ascension would not have reached the ears of Christ’s other apostles.
Mary Magdalene was of such importance to Christ that some have claimed they were married. Anything is possible, but persistent scripture reading will probably lead you to a better conclusion — that their relationship was the perfect example of an intimate platonic relationship between a man and woman, something worthy of modeling in our own lives.
Why, then, was so little space devoted to Mary Magdalene given her obvious prominence in Christ’s ministry? The answer is almost surely because the Bible was written, transcribed, and translated by men.
Christ Revered Women
Jesus Christ had quite a different view towards women than the men who later built, and ruined, his church. Although the canonical Bible pretends that none of his apostles were women, the roles of Mary Magdalene and Mary and Martha were such that it is hard to consider them anything less:
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”
But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
~ Luke 10:38–42
This sounds like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but most likely by this time Jesus was already intimately familiar with the two women (enough to pay a house call). It was not their final encounter:
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.
So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. …
~ John 11:1–6
Of course, Jesus loved everybody, but this case seems special. There is more, but the final scene between them says it all, with Jesus dying on the Cross:
There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
~ Matthew 27:55–56
These women weren’t just part of a gawking crowd. They were ministering to a dying Jesus. This conveys an intensely personal relationship.
The Suppression of Mary Magdalene’s Story
It is worth noting that several ancient manuscripts of the Book of Mark don’t include the story of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the resurrected Christ, whereas others do.
Modern interpreters can’t know if this exclusion on the part of ancient Bible scholars, translators, and distributors was intentional, or even whether the story was added by some later scholars to keep in sync with the other three Gospels, Matthew, John, and Luke, the latter of which reports on an incredulous reaction on the part of the other apostles when she, the other Mary, and several other women reported on Jesus’s empty tomb.
Another important piece of scripture that is left out of some manuscripts is the famous, “Who hath not sinned throw the first stone” chapter of John (double brackets indicate that text is missing from some manuscripts:4
[[They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]
~ John 7:53–8:11
Call me paranoid, but it seems to me that back in those days, there was significant conflict among biblical scribes on whether women should be mentioned at all.
What kind of a world would we be living in today if women’s roles in scripture had not been suppressed by men as the evidence seems to suggest? What other roles did women play that we will never discover?5
Women played an important enough role in Jesus’s life and teachings that it became ultimately impossible for the patriarchy of his era to completely hide them from view.
The Sisters of Jesus
Nevertheless, women were so hidden from view by the early Christian patriarchy that discovering the names of Jesus’s sisters becomes a great challenge. Aha. You didn’t know that Jesus had two sisters, did you?
Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?”
~ Matthew 13:55–56
We know that two of Jesus’s brothers, Judas (known as Jude and not to be confused with the Judas who betrayed Christ) and James, wrote Epistles.
We can never truly be certain that neither of his sisters did, unless some lucky archaeologist uncovers one, probably looking for something else in the archaeological riches of the Holy Land.
I am going to go out on a limb and guess that if one of them had the audacity to write an epistolary note of some kind, ancient Christian men would have scrambled to hide or destroy it.
That may seem like a cynical statement, but it is no more cynical than the patriarchal attitudes of second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first-century Christians.
Anna and the King
If the fact that Mary Magdalene was the first to see Christ after his resurrection doesn’t impress upon you the importance of women in Jesus’s ministry, then perhaps it’s time to look at the prophet Anna, who was, as far as we can tell in the Bible, the very first person to proclaim to Jews waiting for the Messiah that, in Jesus’s birth, their prayers had been answered:
She spoke of him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
~ Luke 2:38
So. Of perhaps the two most illustrious roles given to witnesses of Jesus, two out of two of these witnesses were women.
These were women of steadfast faith. Anna was in Jerusalem, at the temple, and had lost her husband at an early age after having been married to him for only seven years. When Jesus was born, her devotion to her faith had accumulated many years and she was quite old.
She had endured widowhood through her faith,6 and her stature and the influence of Roman law probably helped her retain significant influence, and so God chose her to be a public mouthpiece for Christ’s appearance and messianic delivery.
Much, if not all, of the Bible’s transcription occurred during a period of extreme patriarchy. There is no possible way to discover how many reports on the role of these various women were removed by the men who put the early pieces of the New Testament together.
Where Oh Where Has My Mary Gone?
The references to Mary Magdalene are shockingly few. Did the apostles who mention her leave out key passages, or did the scribes who transcribed various versions of the Bible do that (that’s my vote)? We have no way of knowing, beyond prayer, and that still small voice within, the Holy Spirit, who seems to tell me that the Gospels told more than what we see, but were “edited” to reflect the times.
These references would be more frequent if Mary Magdalene’s gospel, known as The Gospel of Mary,7 had made it into the biblical canon. The book is a fascinating look into the history of the battle waged by men against women as the church emerged.
Like dozens of other early Christian writings, it didn’t make it into the Bible (books that make it into the Bible are part of what is referred to as canonical scripture).
There are two big reasons why some books aren’t considered canonical:
One, they were discovered after much of the Bible was compiled. Most denominations are loath to make changes to the Bible. The Gospel of Mary, for example, wasn’t discovered until 1896, and key parts are lost.
The other reason centers around authenticity.
In the case of Mary Magdalene’s gospel, nobody knows who wrote it. It was written between 120 and 180 A.D., so it could not have been written by Mary. It is called the Gospel of Mary because it tells of Mary’s experience from her perspective, so possibly it was written by someone close to her, first as oral history, then transcribed. In addition, the book is incomplete, or, more accurately, lost, with important passages missing.8
Typically, “gospels” also tell the story of Jesus Christ, not of his apostles. But what is interesting about this ancient book is that the author takes the position that not only was Mary Magdalene an apostle but possibly the most important.
The Courage of a Woman
Few disciples had Mary’s courage. She stayed near Jesus’s tomb after his death, unlike the male apostles.
She was the first to encounter Jesus after he rose from the dead. She commiserated with angels at his tomb. Of the 11 male apostles, only John watched Jesus die on the cross.
Mary gathered other women to anoint Jesus’s body while hostile Roman soldiers looked on:
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?”
And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back — it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
~ Mark 16:1–8
Most remarkably, after her chat with the angels at Jesus’s empty tomb, Jesus himself appeared to her. He had risen from the dead. He could have picked anyone to talk to first. It wasn’t like it was just more convenient for him to choose her because she happened to be in the neighborhood.
This was an incredibly significant event, but barely touched upon in the Bible, which was scribed by men presiding over, and protecting, a patriarchal order.
This isn’t a criticism of the Bible, which in my view is a holy book mostly spoken by God himself (yes, even the genocidal parts) but which suffers from the errors and deliberate alterations from male scribes. It is instead a criticism of the patriarchy that saw fit to, probably, commit the sin of deleting and altering parts of God’s word from human history.
The consequences of Christendom’s patriarchal beginnings are extreme. Today, there are still few women bishops,9 preachers, pastors, reverends, or priests.
This seems to me a shameful loss, not just in view of the massive sexual corruption within the Catholic and Baptist churches, but in the lack of platforms allowing us access to spiritual messaging from a woman’s perspective.
Thanks for reading!
Footnotes
It’s worth noting that, if she had been a prostitute, it would not have mattered one whit to Jesus, who was attracted to people society tended to ostracize and shame.
Pruitt, Sarah. 2019. “How Early Church Leaders Downplayed Mary Magdalene’s Influence.” HISTORY. March 2019. https://www.history.com/news/mary-magdalene-jesus-wife-prostitute-saint.
ibid
Some biblical scholars, based on their observations of translation nuances and language use, believe this passage was inserted considerably after John wrote the book, and some even dispute that John wrote the book at all
The. 1998. “Gospel according to John | Description, Authorship, & Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica. July 20, 1998. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gospel-According-to-John.
I’ll note here that general authorship questions regarding the gospels is beyond the scope of this article.
Many scholars believe that the earliest churches were almost exclusively under the governance of women because early church congregations were forced into secrecy and, therefore, the safer sanctuary of homes. As churches became more “open,” women were booted out of their important roles.
“Widows in the New Testament Period | Bible Interp.” 2018. Arizona.Edu. 2018. https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/widows-new-testament-period.
“Gospel of Mary.” 2020. Earlychristianwritings.Com. 2020. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospelmary.html.
If you’re envisioning an angry old man smashing a stone tablet against a rock, me too.
A prominent exception:
From a story today by The New Yorker:
Peter, one of the apostles, startled to learn that Jesus divulged secrets to Mary Magdalene not shared with the men in the group asks in The Gospel of Mary:
“How is it possible that the Teacher talked in this manner with a woman about secrets of which we ourselves are ignorant? Must we change our customs and listen to this woman? Did he really choose her and prefer her to us?”