The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer, 2004 by Carolyn Osiek

THE RESURRECTION OF MARY MAGDALENE: LEGENDS, APOCRYPHA, AND THE CHRISTIAN TESTAMENT. By Jane Schaberg. New York, NY: Continuum, 2002. Pp. 379. Cloth, $35.00

Mary Magdalene is "hot" these days. Of all the many books coming off the press about her, this is one of the most solid, at the same time creative and scholarly. On the creative side, Schaberg's constant companion and dialogue partner throughout her investigation is Virginia Woolf, and Woolf's presence lingers like the fragrance of incense around every corner. For examples on the scholarly side, chapter two gives the best summary in English that I have seen of what is known about Migdal from archaeology, history, and Talmud; chapter three gives an excellent summary of the most important medieval legends about Mary Magdalene; and chapter five contains a superb analysis of the empty tomb traditions.

The structure of the book is well conceived. First comes the place from which Mary presumably originated and what we can know about it. Schaberg has frequently led groups there in search of whatever can be found. The site is overgrown and untended, contrasting sharply with the attention given to Capernaum just a few kilometers away. Then we turn to media and literary portrayals, analysis of the data from the canonical texts, and the conflation of the several Marys and unknown anointers and footwashers into the figure of Mary Magdalene. The medieval legends are numerous, their variety reflecting the ever-present tension between the earlier witness/apostle and the later penitent/contemplative. The legends include (shades of THE DAVINCI CODE) that the wedding feast at Cana was the marriage of Mary with Jesus, and go to the point of turning her into a patron of fertility. Using D. Mycoff's classification, Schaberg divides the patristic and medieval legends into three categories: early legends, both heretical and orthodox, "theories of unity and multiplicity" (how many figures, conflated into how many), and "versions of the Magdalene's post-Ascension career" (p. 89). The last is the most interesting area, as we read of revelations and migrations. One notes the great irony that while the East conflated all the "Johns"--authors of Gospel, Letters, and Apocalypse--into one, it retained the separate identity of Mary Magdalene from all her possible evangelical doubles, while the West conflated Mary Magdalene but not John.

In the fourth chapter, Schaberg analyzes the Gnostic Mary, not always clearly identified by name, but rather by a "cluster of traits" or a profile. Here she is in dialogue with earlier work by F. Bovon and A. Marjanen on the same point. Of the nine points used for comparison in five Nag Hammadi texts and the Gospel of Mary, only the Gospel of Mary meets all the criteria. Chapters five and six analyze the canonical texts through history of interpretation and feminist analysis. Schaberg finds the interrelation of appearances to Mary Magdalene and the empty tomb tradition as expressions of a struggling, conflictual egalitarianism in the Jesus movement. She finds the empty tomb tradition to be historical, but not the resuscitation of a corpse; Mark 16:1-8 is a little apocalypse. An original appearance to Mary Magdalene is more likely to have been suppressed than invented later.

All of this prepares the way for the leap forward that follows in chapter seven. Schaberg posits, based on the enigmatic remark of Jesus in John 20:17 that Mary should not hold him because he had not yet ascended, that the earliest tradition contained not only an appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene and a commission to tell what she knew, but also a commission of the risen Jesus making her his authorized replacement. The comparative text here is 2 Kings 2:1-18, where Elisha sees Elijah's ascent. So too, Mary Magdalene sees Jesus ascending, and his spirit therefore rests on her, empowering her to carry on the vision. Rather than holding onto Jesus to keep him on earth, Mary has taken hold of him to take her with him. But he insists that she stay behind to witness and continue the work he has begun. Both scenes, Schaberg argues, are about grief, loss, empowerment, transformation, and sending.

Two objections to this bold suggestion are dealt with briefly. The first is that Elijah did not die and resurrect. Given his rather unorthodox departure, however, he is associated with resurrection in later traditions, e.g., Mark 9:11-13. The second objection is the plausibility of an early tradition in which Jesus appoints a woman as his successor. In support of her argument, Schaberg cites the Testament of Job, in which Job's three daughters are given a spiritual inheritance.

Schaberg has prepared the foundations for her argument with impeccable academic analysis. Her bold new interpretation will need to be tried and seasoned. Even for those who will not eventually accept it, there is much harvest to be gleaned in these pages. Who needs THE DAVINCI CODE?

Carolyn Osiek

Brite Divinity School

Fort Worth, TX 76129