Melvin and Magdalene

Some Christians were offended by the airing of Melvin Bragg’s BBC documentary The Mystery of Mary Magdalene on Good Friday.

I was not one of them; possibly because my expectations were so low that I was pleasantly surprised by the affirmation of the Gospel accounts as historical evidence.

Strange ideas

Many people have strange ideas about Mary Magdalene which they have picked up from popular culture, such as Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and the recently revived Jesus Christ Superstar. But I was intrigued that Melvin Bragg presented this documentary in terms of solving a great mystery. Why is Mary Magdalene considered to be a mystery?

The fact that we have limited knowledge about her does not make her any different from the rest of the vast cast in the Gospels, including most of the apostles. Once we start trying to piece together any of their lives we quickly reach a dead end because the Gospel writers were concerned about revealing Jesus not the supporting actors. Yet Mary has been a prominent figure and Melvin Bragg provided an interesting historical survey of the ways in which she has been reinvented over the years. But, as he revealed the agenda-driven interpretations of others, his own underlying bias was exposed. After all why would you want to focus on Mary Magdalene at Easter, and not on her risen Lord?

Speculation

Bragg, who describes himself as a ‘believing unbeliever’, has huge respect for the Bible and the historical validity of the Gospels. He is clear that the Gospels testify to a momentous event. He dates the Gospels as written in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses and has no problem with apparent discrepancies in the accounts which add to their authenticity. Mary Magdalene’s importance lies in the fact that she is in all four Gospel accounts and is the first to meet with the risen Jesus. This, Bragg suggested, makes her ‘the apostle to the apostles’, a phrase that is ambiguous but loaded with significance.

Bragg examined Luke’s account of the women that travelled with Jesus. It reveals that women were included as Jesus’s disciples, a really encouraging picture of women both being taught and actively engaged in service. But what does this passage show us about Mary? Bragg picked up on the fact that she was possibly a wealthy widow with an independent income.

But the crucial evidence here was based on the idea that ‘Magdalene’ was a nickname given to her by Jesus. ‘Magdalene’ means ‘tower’, so some theologians think Jesus perceived Mary as ‘independent and strong’. In passing, Bragg allowed that some still think the name refers to her birthplace. He used this ‘fact’ to proffer the idea that Mary was a trusted figure by Jesus, ‘his tower woman’, and concluded that if this was true it sheds new light on Christ’s ministry. I can’t help thinking that if it were a nickname it might just have come about because she was unusually tall!

Later sources?

At this point the New Testament evidence surrounding Mary is exhausted. Bragg very helpfully showed that there is no basis to attribute other stories in the Gospel to her and so moved on to look at the secondary evidence from the Gnostic Gospels. The Gospel of Mary was written in her name and presents her as a visionary and leader who understands Christ’s message better than the apostles. Bragg conceded that this gospel is dated later than the canonical ones — about 150 years after her death — but he saw it as an important contribution because it reflects a bitter rivalry in the early church over the role and authority of women. He concluded that if the Gospel of Mary were true it would provide a challenge to the church today.

False claims

The Gospel of Philip was his final piece of evidence. He quoted from a fragment found at Nag Hammadi, without acknowledging that ants have made holes in it in crucial places. Filling in the gaps, he intimated that Mary may have had a sexual relationship with Jesus. His expert witnesses surmised that Mary was Jesus’s special companion, with one ironically calling her Jesus’s right-hand man. This was further validation for female leadership and Bragg contemplated what the church would be like now if ‘female leadership could have won out and male domination of the church was defeated at the beginning’. Bragg falsely claimed the alternative ‘Gospels’ were suppressed by Constantine, who wanted to keep the church led by men, disciplined and hierarchal.

Feminist ‘specs’

The problem with his interpretation of the secondary sources is that he read them with a 21st-century feminist lens. He believes Mary’s true role was suppressed by a ‘masculine, misogynist culture’. The role of women in the church may feel like the pressing issue of today, but the early church was not seeking to diminish the value of women by rejecting the Gnostic Gospels. Instead, they were seeking to uphold the truth of Christ. The fight to keep orthodox theology was intense. It was not about the place and role of women, but about the identity and role of Christ.

Reconfigured woman

The rest of the documentary took the line that history recast Mary as a penitent prostitute and repentant saint rather than spiritual leader. It was interesting to see how legends and myths grow once the authority of the Gospels are left behind, and Mary was reconfigured to serve various causes. Tim Rice was very candid about how he wrote the character of Mary. He did not base her on research, but on the needs of his musical.

Bragg’s final verdict on Mary was given as the screen filled with images of women priests: ‘I see Mary as a woman full of strength and purpose, an inspiration for women with a religious calling, much more than the character we see in works of fiction, the enigmatic, misunderstood woman at the heart of Jesus’s ministry — now I understand the most important thing is what she witnessed’.

Ignoring Jesus

He concluded that most of the stories that are told about Mary are probably untrue, but he could not dismiss her prominence in the Easter story. Bragg knows that having a woman as a witness makes the story more credible, because surely, if the Gospel writers were inventing it, they would have cast a man in that role, although he only acknowledges that it is compelling evidence for some. Unfortunately he does not understand what Mary witnessed. He just sees the fact that by being a witness Mary was given a credible authority that in turn should inspire other women. It is heartbreaking to consider that the person to whom she witnessed is reduced to a secondary figure in the story. Bragg in looking at Mary does not see Jesus. I wonder if we all fall into that trap at times — looking at our own agendas as we read the Bible and being blind to the truth God wants to reveal.

Crucial belief

Do we need to address the mystery of Mary Magdalene? No, but we need to listen to her testimony about her Lord. Jesus was raised from death! I find it frustratingly sad that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s resurrection are reduced and co-opted into the debate on women’s ministry. While not addressing it head on, Melvin Bragg’s documentary is implicitly advocating women’s leadership throughout. I hope, however, that his affirmation of the Gospel accounts may lead some to reconsider the extraordinary events of Easter and, instead of looking at Mary, they will begin to look to her master instead. Maybe one day Melvin Bragg will be able to cross into ‘that crucial belief of a godly eternity’.

So let’s not just look at the offence of this programme, but rather use it to point people to the amazing truth of the gospel.

Karen Soole is Chair of The Northern Women’s Convention and blogs at http://karensdesk.co.uk