Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the Unnamed Woman of Luke 7:36-50

Continued from Triggermanblog 

Name Dropping

Oftentimes, when reading the gospels, we tend to misread them, not simply in terms of order, but it terms of genre, as Wilson points out in his closing,

The gospels are not biographies exactly, but are rather a genre to themselves. They are, well, gospels. But these gospels certainly have strong biographical elements, and we have four of them, side-by-side. Three of them, the synoptic gospels, have many parallels, and one, the gospel of John, stands apart. Only a few episodes from the Lord’s life are in all four gospels…

It’s true, the gospels are not pure biographies but they are nonetheless biographical even if they refuse to be pigeon-holed into any one particular genre.[3] The problem historically has been that there appears to be, “an unwillingness to respect the silence and gaps of the biblical narratives.”[4] Readers of Scripture must be willing to accept the authors’ decisions and not read what we want into the text.

We look at incidents described in the gospels and don’t seem to want the text to stand on its own, something I see as a result of the discussion of the gospel’s relation to one another. We often refuse to allow the authors to define their own terms or tell the stories that they want to tell. I’ve discussed elsewhere that there are limits to harmonization, especially when that harmonization threatens to erase the distinctives of the individual accounts.

I suppose that the problem for me is when you’re following the narrative of one author and take something that he says at a later point and read that backwards into an earlier part of the gospel narrative with a different context. For those of the Reformed tradition, as much as we criticize those who do that to texts like John 6, when they get to the hard parts about the Father giving people to the Son, that they run off to later and different contexts—or even a different gospel—and attempt to shoehorn an entirely different point made there into the text (ie Leighton Flowers). There’s a word that gets used in those instances; eisegesis. So it’s rather disconcerting when the Reformed do this, even in points where there is no gospel significance.

This means that when we see the text actually name someone, we should be very careful about drawing connections to incidents to which they are not specifically attached by the author himself or by another in a parallel account.

One or Two

One of the problems with parallel accounts is that sometimes we might think that they are parallel without actually asking the question of whether or not they are in fact parallel. One point where this seems readily evident is the incident of the cleansing of the temple by Jesus which is recorded in all four gospels with Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all placing it as the final straw that incites Jesus’ enemies to act while John appears to set the incident at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. This leads some to believe that there were two incidents with John recording one at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the one in the week before his crucifixion.

Now, while that seems plausible, especially with John’s portrayal of Jesus as a wanted man (eg Jn 7:1), I believe that if Jesus had been able to do it once, and become a marked man because of it, then the likelihood that he would have been able to pull it off a second time, especially after a dramatic Palm Sunday entrance into the city would be extremely unlikely. Moreover, in John's gospel, there does not appear to be a concern with precise ordering of events as John’s concern is about properly identifying Jesus and the signs that he used to confirm it. In fact, if we look at John’s habit of carefully structuring his narrative around particular phrases, specifically the phrase μετὰ ταῦτα (meta tauta, “after this”), this phrase appears nine times in John’s gospel, 8 of which appear to set out particular narrative points that the writer wants the reader to pay attention to while one appears to serve as a bookend. I note this simply because the temple cleansing incident and the subsequent interaction with Nicodemus is not set out with one of these.[5] This absence of a narrative marker, likely indicates that the periscope is temporally out of place in John’s narrative. It is therefore likely that there was only a single incident, especially since nothing in the Synoptics appears to demonstrate any knowledge of a prior incident or Jesus repeating the same event.

This brings us back to the question of the two anointing events: one described in Luke 7 and the other in Matthew 26, Mark 14, and John 12. I highlight the fact that these are two distinct events and I believe that the gospels make this abundantly clear, and its is something that Wilson seems to realize when he notes that these incidents are, “so similar that we would naturally think that they were all the same incident—if only the timelines and locations were not out of sync.”

Would we though?

Facts to Consider

Again, if we look at where the gospels place the events in terms of geography, Luke appears to locate the anointing event in or around the town of Nain, which is about 6 miles south of Nazareth in Galilee because this incident is preceded by Jesus having raised a widow’s only son and his being accosted and questioned by John’s disciples. Bethany, on the other hand, is located just outside of Jerusalem (see maps). 

Wilson contends that, based upon particular similarities of the details of the incidents, that these are in fact “two separate incidents, but the same woman”.

In defense of this proposition, he writes,

The woman in John is identified as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. The woman in Luke is unnamed, but in the verses immediately following this incident, we are introduced to Mary Magdalene for the first time. An unnamed woman does this for the Lord at the end of Luke 7, and then at the beginning of Luke 8, Mary is named among the Lord’s followers. This harmonization I am proposing would also mean that Mary Magdalene and the sister of Martha were the same person. It would mean, in addition, that the common understanding of Mary Magdalene as a sexual sinner is correct. (emphasis original)

While there may be some coincidence with the fact that Mary Magdalene is from the region of Galilee, like the unnamed woman, it should be noted that the biblical authors go to great effort to introduce distinction between Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany has historically been ignored by a number of interpreters.[6] Similarly we could say that Mary Magdalene’s reputation as a prostitute is similarly earned by mistake or ignorance and only in the Western Tradition from about the 6th century onward.[7] None of the biblical authors themselves make such a connection.

Wilson does attempt to rehabilitate this by writing that, “Mary Magdalene had been ‘a sinner’ (Luke 7:39), she had been something of a celebrity, like a movie star, and not some cheap street walker.” Again, this assumes something that any gospel author doesn’t bother to even insinuate. 

In fact the only biographical information about Mary Magdalene that we are given after her introduction is that she had suffered from demon possession. The problem is that the unnamed woman from Luke is not said to have been demon possessed. Something we know from those times when Jesus interacted with demons they either tried to identify Jesus or they made someone incapable of living with people, we don’t see this with the unnamed woman, only that she is identified as a “sinner”, something the demon possessed is never called. Whoever the woman is, we can conclude that she is not Mary Magdalene.

So, is Mary Magdalene then Mary of Bethany?

In Luke’s gospel, there are three women identified by the name “Mary”. The first is Mary, the mother of Jesus, who–aside from her cousin Elizabeth and the prophetess Anna–is the only named woman in the first two chapters. The next instance is Mary Magdalene in 8:2 followed by Mary, the sister of Martha in 10:39. The only other instance where a Mary is named is in 24:10 who is said to be the “mother of James”.

Now, here’s the question that Wilson seems to simply blaze past, especially if Luke were to intend for us to identify Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany (or Mary, sister of Martha) as the same person, as he suggests, why doesn’t Luke just say, “Martha’s sister, Mary Magdalene”? It’s almost like Luke 10:39 doesn’t enter into his equation, because it’s not even mentioned in his entire post.

Wilson, instead, is dependent on John’s gospel to make the connection. As an interesting note, a quick word search reveals that the first time that John uses the name “Mary” in his Gospel is in 11:1, where she is identified as the sister of Martha, which better connects to Luke's introduction of Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus. This same Mary is mentioned throughout the rest of John 11, and is again mentioned in 12:3, and given its proximity to the identification in chapter 11 but also with Lazarus, we are forced by the text to recognize that this “Mary” is the same Mary from the previous chapter.

From there, the name “Mary” disappears from John until 19:25 where it is attached to two women: the wife of Clopas and Magdalene. It doesn’t appear again until 20:1 where Magdalene appears again and the context makes it clear that this woman is the central character next to Jesus. No where does the text ever even insinuate that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are the same person. The disambiguation makes it clear that these are distinct persons.

Parallels or Parallelomania?

One of the most difficult aspects of finding what is an apparent parallel is how easy it is to fall into parallelomania, where one can see a parallel where the inference is weak or actually nonexistent. This is often leveled by critics who see a potential literary parallel in a text and then extrapolate a conclusion from this and engage in selective reading to provide their evidence. A common example is when Jesus is compared to “dying and rising gods”.

While that is a negative example, a positive example can be undertaken by believers, for example in the Marian dogmas, parallelomania runs rampant through the use of typology. This can sometimes be referred to as “when all you have is a hammer”-methodology. The question is, where does Wilson’s method fit?

First of all, we need to identify where and when the two anointings happen, especially since he concedes that there are two separate incidents.

Referring again to Luke, his report has the incident occurring in Galilee at a fairly early time in Jesus' ministry. Matthew, Mark, and John, all have the incident occurring toward the end of Jesus’ ministry and have it occurring at Bethany. Moreover, Matthew and Mark have the incident occurring at the house of someone named Simon the Leper, John does not identify the location of the dinner. Luke does not initially identify the host or the location but later potentially mentions the name of the host as someone named “Simon”, points that Wilson also identifies.

When it comes to the identification of “Simon”, Wilson hammers down on the fact that Judas Iscariot is said to be the “son of Simon”, but also stresses that he, “also appears to have been the only one of the Twelve who was from Judea—all the rest were from Galilee. Kerioth was the name of a Judean town, and Ish Karioth means “man from Keriot.” So he was a southerner. We know the other disciples were Galilean because . . . well, that’s what an angel called them at the Ascension.”

There are some problems with this identification, especially since Kerioth is an obscure location name with the only Old Testament reference being to a Moabite city, there is also an apparent relation to “Iscariot” with an Aramaic term which means “bandit” or “assassin”.[8] This secondary aspect of this identification may intend to place him in the Zealot party.[9] This latter identification may be more consistent since in the disciple lists as Matthew and Mark place him alongside someone identified as Simon the Zealot, while Luke (and in Acts) creates space by placing “Judah son of James” between Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot.

We also need to point out the fact that Simon Peter (sometimes simply Peter or Cephas) needs to be distinguished from Simon the Zealot and that Judas Iscariot needs to similarly be distinguished from Judas son of James. This distinction needs to be made because certain names then, as today, were extremely popular and as a result require disambiguation.[10] I highlight this to simply point out that Wilson’s contention that Mary (either Magdalene or Bethany), Judas Iscariot, and Simon (either the leper or Pharisee) were “neighbors” is highly circumstantial, and given the high prevalence of the names “Simon” and “Mary” alone (up to 30% for Simon and close to 40% for Mary) it runs squarely into the danger of parallelomania.[11]

But what other similarities are there?

Wilson identifies a few:

The accounts in Matthew and Mark leave the woman unnamed but add the detail that she brought the ointment in an alabaster box, and the additional fact that she anointed the Lord’s head with it. If you compare the Luke episode with the one in John, in both places the Lord’s feet were anointed, washed with tears, and wiped with hair.

Here we need to understand our setting: in the ancient near east, people didn't sit in chairs at tables to eat, instead they often laid on pillows while propped on their left arm while eating with their right or sitting cross-legged on the floor around a low table. If the former, then this would explain why Jesus’ feet would have been exposed and accessible to the women, after all, Jesus would have removed his sandals upon entering the home.

First, the Synoptics do all describe the container that is used by their respective women as being made of alabaster, after all this was seen by the ancients as the best means of preserving perfumes and unguents while John makes no mention of the container’s construction. So, the fact that a common container is used is merely coincidence and not evidence of continuity or relationship.

Second, the purpose of the anointing is highlighted. In Luke's account the woman’s action is seen as an act of respect that the host neglected to perform if he had actually intended to honor his guest in addition to the fact that it demonstrates that Jesus is presented as being able to supernaturally perceive his host’s thoughts. In Matthew, Mark, and John the act is portrayed as preparation for Jesus’ coming death. In one, the objection is private but publicly exposed, in the others the objection is public and publicly rebuffed. Two different accounts with different purposes, which means that Luke is not a parallel and represents a different incident with different characters and a different purpose.

Sealed with a KISS

There is both a principle of engineering and a principle of reasoning that is best exemplified by the acronym KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid; with the understanding being that the more complicated that you make something, the easier it is to disrupt and the harder to maintain. The philosophical equivalent to this is Occam’s razor: "Entities should not be multiplied beyond what is necessary.”

And from a perspective that wants to flatten the bumps and jumps of the narratives of the Gospels into one, flat, harmonious narrative then smearing different characters into one that is easily identifiable is usually the way to accomplish this. This step is usually seen when a popular novel gets translated from print to screen and two or three characters may get blended into one or a character may be completely altered to “spice up” the narrative.

The problem is with the purists, those who actually appreciate the original narrative, who created the characters and the interactions that made the story interesting to be adapted in the first place. And while for the sake of the narrative efficiency of visual storytelling, it may serve to alter characters or combine them, when it comes to biblical interpretation the danger is in the loss of distinction.

One of the problems with this traditional and contemporary blurring of Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany is that the text doesn’t allow it. Neither does it allow Mary Magdalene to be identified as the woman who anointed Jesus in Luke because neither Luke nor the other Synoptics or John make such a connection.

In other words, the simplest explanation is that Mary Magdalene is a distinct person.

Too High a View of Scripture?

A common response by those who supposedly hold to a high view of Scripture–that hold to its authoritative position in regard to matters of faith and morals–is to argue that if you don’t hold to their particular interpretation of Scripture then you are denying the truth of Scripture and YOU are a heretic. This places the interpretation over the text and makes the text subject rather than the interpretation.

To his credit, Wilson wants to make sure that his reader understands that he recognizes that the anointing stories are in fact TWO separate and distinct events and that anyone who attempts to blur them into a single event is in fact mistaken and does not possess a high view of Scripture, to which I completely agree.

My disagreement is that the same woman is the actor in both instances. 

I agree with Pastor Wilson that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are both portrayed as women of means, at the same time that does not mean that they are the same person.

A high view of Scripture means that we allow the text to define itself. We allow it to inform us. And one thing that stands out is that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are never confused with one another by any gospel author. More importantly, Mary Magdalene is never identified as the woman who anointed Jesus nor is she identified as a sinner–sexual or otherwise. This would be the evidence needed to connect her to the woman in Luke. Similarly, the parallels between Matthew, Mark, and John are connected by their timing and Jesus’ own words.

These are, whether your tradition allows it or not, TWO incidents, and THREE women.

Notes

1. Mary Ann Beavis. “Reconsidering Mary of Bethany”. Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 2 (p.281-97). April 2012. p.294.

2. Grenville Kent. “Mary Magdalen, Mary of Bethany and the Sinful Woman of Luke 7: The Same Person?”. Journal of Asia Adventist Seminary, Vol. 13 No. 1 (p.13-28). 2010. p.28.

3. See Richard Burridge’s What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Greco-Roman Biographies (Eerdmans, 2004) for this discussion.

4. John J. Pilch. A Cultural Handbook to the Bible. Eerdmans. 2012, p. 103.

5. I note this not to assert that the section is unoriginal but that the pericopes may have simply been inserted in as an editorial afterthought rather than part of the narrative flow. This is a worthy subject for consideration that I want to highlight.

6. Michelle J. Morris. “Mary Magdalene”. Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press. 2016.

7. Raymond F. Collins. “Mary”. Anchor Bible Dictionary. Doubleday. 1992.

8. Karelynne G. Ayayo. “Judas Iscariot”. Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press. 2016.

9. William Klassen. “Judas Iscariot”. Anchor Bible Dictionary. Doubleday. 1992.

10. See chapter 5 of Richard Baucham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans, 2017) for a discussion.

11. Richard Baucham. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Second Edition. Eerdmans Publishing. 2017. p.88 (ePub)