No one else send me the New Yorker piece on Mary Magdalene! I got it! I’m reading it now! Thanks!

Okay, I’ve read it. Liam’s assesment in the first comment below – I’d agree with. Could have been worse!

It’s a fairly decent overview of some of the contemporary insights on MM, and from a contemporary angle: that is, as LIam notes, a sense that "orthodoxy" is all about politics and power and not at all about what is, you know, true. That whole scenario, so beloved in this modern age, is so illogical, if you sit and think about it for a couple of minutes. The early Christians who happened to buy the "orthodox" story of Jesus only did so because they wanted power within the Christian movement? Why would that story automatically bring "power?" If another story had "won" what would be the difference? It might have even been more powerful, in the short term, at least, and more acceptable to the powers that were. To try to make your lie ascendant, when you know your lie is going to bring you oppression and martyrdom is not something normal people do.

(This, by the way, is one of the reasons I appreciate N.T. Wright so much. He cuts through all of this illogic, and applies Occam’s Razor to the early Christian record, consistently and honestly. All the cant just falls away.)

So, for example, in trying to puzzle out why the misogynist tradition insisted on putting MM at the tomb, this author…has no answer. She muddles through some thoughts, ending up at Gregory the Great’s 591 homily, which makes no sense, considering the presence of MM at the tomb was attested to by 1st century witnesses. I suppose it would just be too much to say, "They say she was there, and because it’s so odd that a woman would be the witness..p’raps it’s true." (She does say that her presence is evidence that..people told stories that she was there. Helpful.)

Further, and most seriously, Acocella really overplays the prostitute hand. She correctly identifies Gregory’s homily as the turning point, the point at which Mary, Martha’s sister, the MM of Lk 8 and the resurrection accounts, and the repentant woman in Lk 7 are conflated. At which point, she asserts, the image of MM as "prostitute" was dominant. This is just not so.

In art and prayer, MM was still, through the early middle ages, predominatly pictured and appealed to as, first, a faithful witness at the empty tomb, and secondarily, a repentant sinner. The "prostitute" factor was barely mentioned, for even Lk 7 doesn’t identify that as the woman’s sin. It was assumed in some quarters, but was definitely not the focus. The focus was the repentance. As that part of the MM story took hold, its appeal was not salubrious – it was that she, a purportedly great sinner, had met Christ, been filled with his grace, and turned her life around. She became, then, an inspiration. If you actually read Gregory’s homily, you see that this was what he was trying to get across to his listeners – the tremendous mercy of God as the life of MM witnesses to.

The author of the piece continues to put the prostitution business at the forefront of MM’s appeal through the Middle Ages, missing the point. Yes, the legendary life of MM – especially as dramatized in some of the mystery plays and legends which took great delight in creating a fascinating, scandalous life for her – was of great appeal and interest, but the ultimate point was always the end of the story, which could be, if we were willing and open, the end of our story, as well.

In addition, the author totally misses the role of the emphasis on the Sacrament of Reconciliation through this period, and how the appeal of MM was intertwined with that, particularly in the work of the Franciscans and Dominicans. 

The change she notes – in the Renaissance and Baroque period – of ever-more revealing and less religious poses of MM in art, was not a function of the Church. It was artistic and patronal trends that we can blame for that, trends which, in fact, some Church officials spoke out against and tried to stop.

Her treatment of the gnostic writings is okay, although, of course, she doesn’t look at them criticially in terms of dating, letting the reader assume that when it comes to telling us about events in 1st century Palestine, they are of equal value with the New Testament record (and other extra-canonical works from the late 1st and early 2nd centuries.) Well, they’re not.

She also assumes that the "mary" figure in this writings is always and every where to be identified with MM. Hmmmm. Should she? I wonder. Sounds intriguing. Maybe someone will examine that question in a book someday…

Finally, what she, and most other modern interpreters ignore, is the prominence of Mary, Jesus’ mother, in the Pistis Sophia, one of the central works to the modern reclamation of MM. In that work, Mary of Nazareth is also privileged with wisdom, also the subject of some jealousy from the male apostles. Why do the contemporary reclaimers ignore her?