David Capes
She might also have been tall, you never know!
Jennifer Powell NcNutt
Yes, she could have been tall!
David Capes
And when she put on those high heels, boy, was she really up there! I’ve heard all sorts of things about that, and a lot of it is tied to Magdala, which is a location on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. There’s been a lot of research done there in the last years, a lot of discoveries archeologically. It’s just fascinating how all these things develop. I wasn’t aware that the idea of the tower had that staying power into the tradition.
Jennifer Powell NcNutt
It’s so interesting to discover we’re having this conversation today about how we should understand it, but we should also be aware of how the church has thought about it too, but again, inconsistently.
David Capes
There’s this conflation of her and the idea of prostitution. First of all, where did that happen? How did that happen, do you think, from all of your research as a historian?
Jennifer Powell NcNutt
I really enjoyed this part of it, the curiosity of discovering how this story fits together. What I was able to perceive was that some of the hermeneutical approaches that were happening with reading and making sense of the Gospels was to harmonize the Gospels. We can understand and appreciate that. That is a good approach. But nonetheless, what I noted was that the various stories in the Gospel about a woman anointing Jesus became one story. There are four stories and John’s Gospel is the one that names Mary of Bethany. So they are all conflated into one story, rather than interpreting that maybe the other women are different women. The person that I see this happening with is Augustine. He makes this move. And by linking these anointing women with Mary Bethany, he also links Mary Bethany then with the Luke 7 woman, who is described as a sinner woman. That, to him, shows that Mary Bethany had this other story, this other back story to her life. First, she is not looked on very well.
Then the next move that happens, that I would say, formalizes this is with Pope Gregory the Great. He then conflates Mary Bethany with Mary Magdalene. So basically, you have the conflations of the anointings, then you have the conflation of the Marys. Mary Bethany gets absorbed into the Mary Magdalene story. Mary Magdalene is known for having seven demons. Gregory then is trying to understand how that fits into the story. He will describe those as seven deadly sins and interpret the sinfulness of the woman in Luke 7 as prostitution. And actually, that is the conclusion for a lot of interpreters even into the 21st century.
It’s only been more recently that there have been some questions about the fact that Luke could have used the Greek word for prostitute, if he’d meant that. He uses it otherwise and chooses not to use it here. So maybe her sin is not prostitution. It isn’t necessarily prostitution. That’s where we get that. From the sixth century, and on from there, she really becomes this model of a penitent prostitute who is reflecting basically the epitome of sin. It is a great example of God’s graciousness to choose her and select her to proclaim the good news of Christ’s resurrection.
And that is not going to be questioned until the Reformation. In the Reformation, they will begin to untie the Mary Magdalene story from Mary of Bethany and from the Luke 7 woman. And this is called the controversy of the three Marys. So the Luke 7 woman isn’t a Mary.
David Capes
She isn’t necessarily a Mary at all. Once the Pope says something, and once Augustine says something, that’s going to be like law forever [for some].
Jennifer Powell NcNutt
For the West, yes. Because it shapes then the liturgy. You think about the feast days, you think about the liturgy, which scripture passages are you reading on which days? The church is going to place the Luke 7 reading with Mary Magdalene’s feast day. And that’s not even going to be changed until the modern era.
David Capes
If we tell the truth now about Mary and we understand better her story, that’s what your book is all about. In a summary way, what can she teach us today?
Jennifer Powell NcNutt
Well, I think so much. I think the big takeaway, first of all is we have to recognize that in the Gospels, she is a woman who has been gripped by demons, by seven demons. That’s actually her backstory, and Jesus is healing her from this, and he is definitively delivering her from the grip of that demonic activity, however you interpret that. The Gospels don’t reveal to us her experience of that suffering, so we don’t know exactly what she experienced. We’re meant to remember her as healed. We’re also meant then when we see her in the garden with Jesus, to see what she comes to represent in the story, when she is witness to resurrection.
And I know you’ll love this part, because I think she is revealing to us who Jesus is. And this is: Jesus is Exorcist, who is truly King. We have really lost that reading of her, and it impacts how we understand the Easter morning. It impacts how we understand why the women are there, what it means when she points us to Jesus. In the early church, when they looked at Mary Magdalene, they read her, they were less focused on her and more focused on what she tells us about Christology. What she tells us about the Trinity. And I think we want to recapture that part of it, not to the detriment of knowing her or seeing
her rightly, which I think is biblically right, reading the biblical text clearly. But then also, because her whole role is really like John the Baptist, to point us to Christ in all that he means, so his identity and what he is bringing to us through salvation. That’s one part of it.
I think the other part, though, is that we have been very focused on her being this penitent prostitute, sinner, when her story is very different. And in fact, the Gospels want us to see that as soon as Jesus heals her, she is with him. She is focused on him. She is walking with him. Everything about her life becomes centered around him as we understand it again from the Gospels. Her resources, her time, where she goes. Everything is about being with him. She becomes this witness. She’s really this creedal witness for us. Because she is there in the ministry. She is there at the cross. She sees him die, sees his body put in the tomb, and the tomb sealed. She sees the empty tomb, and then sees the risen Christ, you know? And that’s not even all of it.
There’s so much about it and the financial part is really interesting, because typically, we probably think that a woman in the New Testament is not going to give us a lot of insight into finances and how we serve faithfully with our finances. But actually, that’s also part of her story.
David Capes
So many takeaways here. I love the fact that you refer to her, and the church does as the apostle to the apostles. As the one who was this initial witness to the resurrection, who now relates this good news, who is sent to tell this good news to others, to the 12 and to others as well.
Jennifer Powell NcNutt
And we have been missing that part of it because of our reading of John 20. Some of the difficulties that we have faced for the church that have obscured that part of it. Clearing some of that away, her tears, her inability to see Jesus immediately, etc, allows us to see what it means when they interact and when he sends her. There are many different parts to his sending of her that helps us to realize that in the true sense of the term apostle, she is messenger. She is the one who is sent.
David Capes
Indeed, indeed. We’re talking with Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt about her book, “The Mary, We Forgot: What the Apostle to the Apostles Teaches the Church Today.” It’s a great book. I would encourage you to get it. It tells us so much about church history, our beginnings, but also about Mary. She was just a remarkable woman who was completely, totally devoted to Jesus. Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt, thanks for being with us today.
Jennifer Powell NcNutt
Thank you so much for having me. It was delightful.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
