Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute? Photo: Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library/Courtesy of IAP Fine Art.

Was Mary Magdalene a Prostitute?

Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute who repented or simply an influential female follower of Jesus? Mary from Magdala has popularly been saddled with an unfavorable reputation, but how did this notion come about? In From Saint to Sinner, Birger A. Pearson examines how Mary Magdalene’s notoriety emerged in the early Christian tradition. Pearson writes that later interpreters of the Gospels attempted to diminish her “by identifying her with other women mentioned in the Gospels, most notably the unnamed sinful woman who anoints Jesus’ feet with ointment and whose sins he forgives (Luke 7:36–50) and the unnamed woman taken in adultery (John 7:53–8:11).”

Read From Saint to Sinner by Birger A. Pearson as it originally appeared in Bible Review.

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Who was Jezebel? Image: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK/Bridgeman Art Library.

Who Was Jezebel? How Bad Was She?

Who was Jezebel? For over 2,000 years, Jezebel, Israel’s most accursed queen, has been condemned as a murderer, a temptress and an enemy of God. Who was Jezebel, really? Was she really that bad? In How Bad Was Jezebel? Janet Howe Gaines rereads the Biblical narrative from the vantage point of the Phoenician wife of King Ahab. As Gaines writes, “To attain a more positive assessment of Jezebel’s troubled reign and a deeper understanding of her role, we must evaluate the motives of the Biblical authors who condemn the queen.”

Read Janet Howe Gaines’s article How Bad Was Jezebel? as it originally appeared in Bible Review.

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Rahab the Harlot or just the inkeeper? Image: CCI/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.

Rahab the Harlot?

As described in the Book of Joshua, Rahab (a heroine nonetheless known as “Rahab the Harlot”) assisted two Israelite spies in escaping down the city wall of Jericho. Was Rahab a Biblical prostitute? While the Biblical text identifies her as a zônāh, a prostitute (Joshua 2:1), Josephus reports that she kept an inn. Anthony J. Frendo critically examines the textual evidence.

Read about Anthony J. Frendo’s conclusions on Rahab the Harlot.

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Who is Lilith? Courtesy of Richard Callner, Latham, NY.

Who Is Lilith?

Fertile mother, wilderness demon, sly seductress—the resilient character Lilith has been recast in many roles. Who is Lilith? As Janet Howe Gaines writes, “In most manifestations of her myth, Lilith represents chaos, seduction and ungodliness. Yet, in her every guise, Lilith has cast a spell on humankind.” Follow Lilith’s journey from Babylonian mythology, through the Bible, to medieval lore and modern literature in Lilith by Janet Howe Gaines.

Read Lilith by Janet Howe Gaines as the article originally appeared in Bible Review.

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THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE. When Joseph (far left) and Mary (left of center) bring baby Jesus to the Jerusalem Temple, they are greeted by Simeon, who embraces the baby, and Anna, the New Testament’s only prophetess, shown at right with a scroll, in this 1342 tempera painting by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Simeon instantly and independently recognizes Jesus as messiah. Anna begins to preach: “She came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Both are quicker than Mary to comprehend who Jesus is. Uffizi Gallery/Public Domain

Being first to hear doesn’t always mean being first to understand. In Luke’s birth narrative, Mary is the first to be told that Jesus will be the messiah. Luke adds that she “treasures the words” the angel Gabriel speaks to her. But Mary is also puzzled by the divine message; she is “perplexed” when the angel greets her and must “ponder” the meaning of his words (Luke 1:29; see also 2:19). In this, Mary contrasts sharply with Simeon and Anna, two elderly individuals who happen to be in the Temple when Joseph and Mary bring the infant Jesus to Jerusalem for the first time.

According to Luke 2:22–24, “[Joseph and Mary] brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’ [quoting Exodus 13:2, 12]) and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons’ [based on Leviticus 12:2–8].”

At the Temple, the family is approached by a man named Simeon, who has been told by the Holy Spirit that he will not die until he has seen the messiah. (The same Spirit told him to go to the Temple that day, too.) Simeon takes Jesus in his arms and praises God: “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:28–32). Having seen the messiah, Simeon is now prepared to die.

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Anna then approaches the Holy Family. She, too, recognizes Jesus as messiah, but she has a very different reaction: “At that moment, she came and began to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38). She is 84 years old, according to Luke, and she does not want to die: She wants to proselytize. Like the disciples who will follow her, she is driven to bear witness to what she has seen. Mary was the first to have the good news announced to her, but Anna is the first woman to understand fully and proclaim the good news.

This is because in addition to being a proselytizer, Anna is a “prophetess” (Luke 2:36). In fact, she is the only woman in the New Testament explicitly described as a “prophetess.” She then stands in the line of figures like the judge, military leader and prophetess Deborah and the Jerusalem prophetess Huldah, who, in the days of King Josiah, was asked to verify that an ancient scroll (a form of Deuteronomy) discovered during Temple renovations was indeed the word of God (2 Kings 22).

Unlike Simeon, Anna is not just visiting the Temple for the day; she is there all the time. According to Luke, Anna “never left the Temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day” (Luke 2:37). Perhaps she was part of some sort of order of widows (Luke tells us her husband died after only seven years of marriage) who had specific religious functions in the Temple. She may have been able to undertake this role in the Temple because she was no longer in periodic states of ritual impurity caused by menstruation.

Learn more about Anna in Robin Gallaher Branch’s Bible History Daily article “Anna in the Bible.”

Mary startles when Gabriel and God the Father appear in her home and interrupt her prayers. In Lorenzo Lotto’s unusual rendition of the Annunciation, dated to 1535, Mary’s cat is equally frightened by the divine apparition. According to Luke, Mary treasures the angel’s message, but does not fully understand it. Only after years of “pondering the message in her heart” does she become a true follower of Jesus.” Museo Civico, Recanati, Italy/Scala/Art Resource, NY.

Luke may also have seen Anna as the second witness in or around the Temple needed to validate Jesus’ significance. Deuteronomy 19:15 stresses the importance of having two witnesses to validate an event.

The pairing of Simeon and Anna reflects Luke’s penchant for male-female parallelism when he writes about the recipients of divine blessing and salvation. The story of Jesus’ birth is framed by two such stories—that of Elizabeth and Zechariah in Luke 1 and Anna and Simeon in Luke 2. Interestingly, in both, the woman is portrayed as the more positive example of discipleship. The women are not only more receptive to the message, they are more willing to act upon it, with Elizabeth realizing that her cousin is carrying the messiah and praising God for this blessing and Anna spreading the good news.

Alfred Plummer, in his classic commentary on Luke, suggested that the difference between Anna and Simeon provides a clue to Luke as a salvation historian, a chronicler of the mighty acts of God for his people through the ages. Yes, a messiah has arrived, as Simeon recognizes, but, as the prophetess Anna suggests, a new era, with a new and living voice of prophecy, has at the same time dawned.¹ In this new era, the living voice of God will continue to speak about the messianic one. Anna is the first in a line of prophetic disciples who will speak about Jesus to all who were looking for the redemption of Israel.

Not everyone can be a prophet, however. Mary, for example, does not fully understand what Anna immediately recognizes. And she won’t for several years.

Twelve years after the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the Holy Family returns to Jerusalem and Jesus returns to the Temple, this time by himself. Mary and Joseph search for him frantically for three days. When at last they find him listening to and asking questions of the teachers in the Temple, Mary asks, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” Jesus responds, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But, Luke reports, “they did not understand what he said to them … [but] his mother treasured all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:48–51). The late New Testament scholar Raymond Brown wrote: “Luke’s idea is that complete acceptance of the word of God, complete understanding of who Jesus is, and complete discipleship is not yet possible. This will come through the ministry of Jesus and particularly through the cross and resurrection.”

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Clearly, Luke is not painting an idealized portrait of Mary or Joseph. Rather, he paints a very human and realistic picture of Mary and Joseph as good parents, anxious, concerned, striving to be obedient and understanding, but not yet comprehending. Brown adds, however, that “Luke does not leave Mary on the negative note of misunderstanding. Rather in 2.51 [“his mother treasured all these things …”] he stresses her retention of what she has not yet understood and … her continuing search to understand.”²

Of course, in the end, Luke portrays Mary as successfully making the spiritual journey into the family of faith; in Acts 1:14, when the apostles gather in the upper room after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, Mary is with them. But the story of Simeon and Anna suggests Mary had much to learn before she could enter into the Kingdom, and into the spiritual family of faith, which they already belonged to, and which is to be the primary family of Jesus in the eschatological age.

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Luke’s Christmas story is full of surprising reversals of fortunes and roles, in which outsiders become more intimate associates than family members, and in which women play a more active role then men. In this way Luke both prepares for and signals one of his major themes in the Gospel of Luke and in Acts—the least, the last and the lost are becoming the most, the first and the found with Jesus’ coming. Luke portrays the rise of a form of Judaism that would rely on the testimony of women as well as men, and that would empower them once again to fulfill roles like Miriam of old.

The first Christmas and the Christ child come at a particular point in time, but for many, like Mary and Joseph, the significance of the event is only understood incrementally and over the course of many years. But the prophetic insight into God’s intentions is a gift which keeps on giving and renewing the people of God. And at the outset of a long chain of such prophetic insights stand Simeon and Anna, one satisfied that prophecy has been fulfilled and the other pointing to the future, a future as bright as the promises of God.

“Mary, Simeon or Anna” by Ben Witherington III originally appeared in Bible Review, Winter 2005. The article was first republished in Bible History Daily on February 12, 2013.

Notes

1. See Alfred Plummer, Luke, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1905), p. 71.
2. Raymond E. Brown and Karl P. Donfried, eds., Mary in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), pp. 161–162.

Ben Witherington III is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Dr. Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and Biblical meetings in the U.S., England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top Biblical studies works by Christianity Today. In addition to his many interviews on radio networks across the country, Professor Witherington has been featured on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.

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The post Mary, Simeon or Anna: Who First Recognized Jesus as Messiah? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

The Magdala synagogue with the Torah reading table in the center of this image. Photo: Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

But what does the epithet Magdalene mean? A later tradition took it to mean “from Magdala.” The only possible Gospel reference to a place of that name is Matthew 15:39, where we see Jesus coming “to the region of Magdala,” rendered, however, in some manuscripts as Magadan. And it isn’t until the sixth century that literary sources inform us about pilgrimage to Mary Magdalene’s alleged hometown on the shores of the Sea of Galilee called Magdala.

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The place-name Magdala is very likely preserved in the name of Qarīyat al-Majdal, an Arab village, which existed by the Sea of Galilee until 1948. Ancient sources, for their turn, speak of a place called Taricheae, which is a derivation of the Greek “factories for salting fish,” or more precisely, “the vats used for salting fish.”

From these same ancient sources—written in Greek and Latin—it is apparent that Taricheae was a considerable city, likely the most important center on the western coast of the Sea of Galilee until the foundation of Tiberias, in 19 C.E. It is also apparent that the source of the fame and wealth of this former fishermen’s village was fish trade. The population of Taricheae grew to approximately 30,000 by the mid-first century, as a prominent Jewish historian Flavius Josephus implies in his account of the Roman suppression of the First Jewish Revolt in 66–70 C.E.

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Josephus also recorded the abrupt end of the city in the year 67:

“Titus leapt on his horse and led his troops to the lake [the Sea of Galilee], rode through the waterfront and entered the town first, followed by his men. […] Abandoning their posts, [the rebel leader] Jesus and his supporters fled across the country, while the rest rushed down to the lake. There they ran into the enemy advancing to meet them; some were killed as they boarded their boats, others as they tried to swim to those who had put out before. In the town there was a massacre, the same fate befalling the strangers who had not succeeded in escaping—and who tried to resist—and the residents who offered no resistance at all. […] Those who had taken refuge on the lake, when they saw the city had fallen, sailed off and kept as far out of range of the enemy as they could.” (Jewish War 3.10.5; trans. by Gaalya Cornfeld)

Modern archaeological excavations at Taricheae/al-Majdal/Magdala on the shore of the Sea of Galilee confirm the testimonies of ancient authors about the affluence and prosperity of this Galilean city and give more credence to the identification of Taricheae with Magdala.

The Magdala Stone most likely served as a Torah reading table. Photo: Courtesy of Magdala (@experience_magdala).

Following the uncovering of a well-preserved ancient boat near Magdala in 1986, the most exciting discovery took place in 2009, when archaeologists of the IAA—ahead of the development of the local tourist center—discovered a synagogue. One of perhaps only eight synagogues identified so far in Israel as dating from the first century C.E., it provided one splendid find—the so-called Magdala Stone, a Torah reading table sculpted in stone with reliefs depicting a seven-branched menorah and possibly the Jerusalem Temple.

The discoveries in Mary Magdalene’s hometown, by the Magdala Archaeological Project under the direction of Marcela Zapata-Meza of the Anahuac University of Mexico, revealed four ritual baths, or mikva’ot. These baths and the synagogue further strengthen the image of a Jewish city bursting with religious life. But on-going excavations also reveal tangible signs of the reported destruction, indicating that the Jewish population of the city took measures to protect their sacred sites from desecration by the approaching Roman army in 67 C.E.

Mikva’ot, or ritual purification baths, at Magdala. Photo: Marcela Zapata-Meza.

For a full description and discussion of the newly discovered mikva’ot in Magdala and what the Magdala excavations tell us about the moments preceding the Roman conquest of the city on the western coast of the Sea of Galilee, read Marcela Zapata-Meza and Rosaura Sanz-Rincón’s article “Excavating Mary Magdalene’s Hometown” in the May/June 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Magdala 2016: Excavating the Hometown of Mary Magdalene

The Fishy Secret to Ancient Magdala’s Economic Growth

Ancient Bronze Marvels at Magdala

The Magdala Stone: The Jerusalem Temple Embodied

Where Was Mary Magdalene From?

^{A version of this article was published in Bible History Daily in June 2017}

The post Discoveries in Mary Magdalene’s Hometown appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Popular Biblical Archaeology Society speakers and authors Jodi Magness, James Charlesworth, N.T. Wright and Aaron Gale are among the interviewed experts on the program, as well as BAS’s own Sarah Yeomans, an archaeologist and director of our educational programs. Join them as they travel to Israel and explore the cities and archaeological sites such as Bethlehem, Nazareth and Herodium that are so central to the lives of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Join us on an exploration of the Nativity story on Christmas Day at 4:00 PM EST on Fox News Channel. Click here for a sneak peak of “The Nativity: Facts, Fictions and Faith”!

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by Dan Brown

Doubleday; First Thus edition, 2004, 480 pages
$26.40 (hardcover)
 
Reviewed by Ben Witherington, III
 
 

A runaway bestseller that is far closer to pure fiction than to historical fiction.

The runaway fictional bestseller The Da Vinci Code has clearly struck a nerve. As I write, the book has sat atop the New York Times bestseller list for some 40 weeks; it’s number one on amazon.com’s sales list; countless online chat groups have formed to discuss the book; and even churches are finding themselves having to present seminars on the book’s views on Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the history of the canon, the early church, the Holy Grail and a plethora of other subjects.

This might be surprising if the work was meant to be considered a work of pure fiction. However, the book begins with a page labeled “FACT,” which claims, among other things, that “all descriptions of … documents … in this novel are accurate.” This unfortunately is not true. And although this FACT page will surely give many readers the false impression that this novel is based on sound historical research, the truth is, it is based on all sorts of conjectures—some scholarly, some not. And although the book claims to be based on historical texts, especially the Gnostic Gospels,1 it is not based on history. The end result is closer to pure fiction than to historical fiction.

It is not surprising, however, that a powerful and well-written thriller, as good a page-turner as any John Grisham novel, could have such an impact in an age of widespread Biblical illiteracy and of ignorance of early Christian history. Come up with a conspiracy theory, implicate a major world organization like the Catholic Church, focus on long-held secrets, but withhold much of the evidence: Here you have the makings of a potent mix, especially in a culture that is already suspicious of powerful, large-scale institutions, be they governments, churches or something else.

What counts most in our postmodern culture is the power of your rhetoric, not the accuracy of your reporting or analysis. As one of the protagonists says towards the end of the novel: “It is the mystery and wonderment that serves our souls, not the Grail itself.” In other words, it is the thrill of the chase, not the thrill of the truth, that should satisfy us.

Robert Langdon, the hero of the book, himself stresses that “every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith—acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration … The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors … Those who understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.” Such philosophical claims undergird much of what we find in this novel, and it is not surprising that they lead to some clear errors of fact, as well as the misinterpretation of key historical matters. We will deal with this philosophical and religious mishmash in due course, but first a short tour of the historical errors of the book. I will skip the errors relating to the later Catholic Church, various popes, Leonardo da Vinci, the Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, etc., and focus on the fundamental errors that have to do with Jesus, Mary and the canon of Scripture.

Error No. 1. The canonical Gospels are not the earliest Gospels, instead the suppressed Gnostic ones (such as the Gospel of Philip, or of Mary) are. This claim is made more than once by the book’s protagonists, Teabing and Langdon, who are both portrayed as scholars, and thus as credible witnesses on these matters. They also claim that the four canonical Gospels were selected from among some 80 early gospels, the rest of which were suppressed. In fact there were less than half that many documents that might rightly be called gospels (texts telling the story of Jesus’ life). Among the 35 or so extant noncanonical gospels are two Gnostic gospels that Dan Brown depends on most heavily in rewriting Jesus’ life: the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. There is no credible evidence that either of these existed before late in the second century A.D. Indeed many scholars think they come from the third century A.D. By contrast, no scholars that I know, whatever their theological persuasion, think that the canonical Gospels are from any later than the last half of the first century or (in the case of the Gospel of John) the first few years of the second century A.D. Our earliest extant gospel fragment is a portion of a papyrus of John 18 dating to the early second century A.D.

It is no surprise that the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary did not arise earlier since they reflect the Gnostic thought that only came to the fore in the middle and later parts of the second century A.D. and was criticized by the church fathers Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Tertullian, who wrote in the latter half of the second century A.D. The New Testament contains no critique of Gnosticism simply because it was not an issue in New Testament times.

One of the key indicators that Gnosticism is a later development is that it depends on the canonical Gospels for its substance when it comes to the story of Jesus. Even more tellingly, the Gnostic texts try to de-Judaize the New Testament story. By this I mean Gnosticism reflects a belief about the material world that comports with neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament, both of which affirm the goodness of God’s creation, of the material universe, of human flesh, and indeed the goodness of being male or female and the goodness of sexual intercourse between the sexes. Gnosticism by contrast sees spirit as good and matter as inherently tainted and evil. The Nag Hammadi community that created the Gnostic Gospels existed on the fringes of Christianity and seems to have been quite ascetical, to judge from some of their documents.

Dan Brown seems to be oblivious to this fact as he confuses the theological perspective found in the Gnostic Gospels with paganism, a sort of paganism that affirms not merely the goodness but the sacredness of sex as a way to divinize oneself or get in touch with the Sacred Feminine. This is far from an accurate interpretation of the Gnostic Gospels. Yet the book’s protagonist calls these gospels “the unaltered Gospels.” As a rule of thumb, it may be said, the more esoteric and less Jewish a gospel, the less likely it reflects the earliest stages of the gospel tradition.

Error No. 2. Jesus is portrayed as simply a man or as a great prophet in the earliest historical sources, but was later divinized at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. This is patently false. Jesus is called theos (God) some seven times in the New Testament, including in the Gospel of John, and he is called “Lord” in the divine sense numerous times. No historian I know of argues that these texts postdate the Nicean council. The Council of Nicea in the fourth century and the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century merely formalized and clarified these first-century beliefs by making them part of the creeds.

Error No. 3. Constantine was the bad guy who suppressed the earlier (Gnostic) Gospels and imposed the canonical Gospels and the doctrine of the divinity of Christ on the church. In fact, long before the days of Constantine, and even before the Gnostic Gospels existed, the four canonical Gospels were circulating together as authoritative sources in the church. This may have occurred as early as 125 A.D. since Irenaeus knows of this; the Muratorian fragment—the earliest canon list,2 dating to the second or third century A.D.—lists the Four Gospels as authoritative for the church; in the second century, the heretic Marcion accepted the Gospel of Luke alone as the appropriate source for knowledge about the historical Jesus. By 325 A.D. the Alexandrian bishop Athanasius in the East and the papal see in the West recognized only the four canonical Gospels, and indeed only the 27 books we now know as the New Testament. It is simply not true that the Gnostic Gospels were suppressed prior to the formation of the canon: They just weren’t recognized as authoritative either by the eastern or western church. Lack of recognition is not the same as suppression.
Error No. 4. Jesus was married—and to Mary Magdalene at that. Since the New Testament is completely silent and does not support these ideas, of course one has to turn to other, later sources for them, in particular the Gospel of Philip, which was probably written sometime in the late third century A.D. Unfortunately the relevant portion of this text as it has come down to us has gaps. It reads, “And the companion of the … Mary Magdalene … her more than … the disciples … kiss her … on her …” (Gospel of Philip 63:33-36). A parallel passage in Gospel of Philip 58-59 seems to suggest that the kiss would have been on the mouth.

As Professor Karen King indicates in her work The Gospel of Mary Magdala, a chaste kiss of fellowship, the so-called holy kiss referred to in Paul’s own letters (see the end of 1 Corinthians 16), is in all likelihood meant here. What makes this especially likely is that this is a Gnostic document, where human sexual expression is the opposite of the spiritual; it is defiling.

Brown’s “scholarly” protagonist Teabing argues that the word “companion” in this passage means “spouse” because that’s what the Aramaic word really means. Unfortunately, this document was not written in Aramaic. Like the other Gnostic Gospels discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, this document was written in Coptic! The word here for companion (koinonos) is actually a loan word from Greek and is neither a technical term nor a synonym for wife or spouse. It is true the term could be used to refer to a wife, since koinonos, like “companion,” is an umbrella term, but it does not specify this fact. There was another Greek word, gune, which would have made this clear. It is much more likely that koinonos here means “sister” in the spiritual sense since that is how it is used elsewhere in this sort of literature. In any case, this text does not clearly say or even suggest that Jesus was married, much less married to Mary Magdalene.

Error No. 5. Jesus must have been married because he was a Jew. This argument overlooks the fact that there were already exceptions to this sort of rule in early Judaism. The descriptions of the celibate Essenes in Josephus (Antiquities 18.1.5.20-21; Jewish War 2.8.2) and Philo (Hypothetica 11.14-17), and the paucity of female skeletons in the cemetery at Qumran, which many scholars identify as an Essene settlement, may all attest to the fact that some early Jews felt a calling to celibacy. There is no reason why Jesus could not have been one of them. In fact, it would appear that his cousin John the Baptist set such a precedent for his kin group,3 and there were earlier prophetic figures (Samuel, perhaps, and Hosea, until God commanded him to marry Gomer) who may also have remained single. Many scholars, probably rightly, see Matthew 19:10-12, which states that some have chosen to be eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom and presents this as a viable alternative to marriage, as Jesus’ own justification for remaining single. The Kingdom was coming and it was appropriate for him and his disciples to remain single and focus on their call to ministry. This conclusion is probably correct because otherwise it’s an odd teaching, which would have been objected to by ordinary Jews who thought to “be fruitful and multiply” was a commandment for every able-bodied Jew. If it is correct, then the house of cards of later medieval conjecture about Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ spouse and Jesus’ supposed descendants falls down.

Error No. 6. The Dead Sea Scrolls along with the Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, are the earliest Christian records. This one is a real howler, as any student who has taken an introductory course in the New Testament will recognize. The Dead Sea Scrolls are purely Jewish documents. There is nothing Christian about them. There is also no evidence that any of the Nag Hammadi documents were written before the late second century A.D.

Error No. 7. The Church suppressed the idea that Jesus was married and had children because of its ascetical piety and assumption that a divine person or even a truly holy person would not be involved in such activities.

So far we have dealt with historical errors in Dan Brown’s book; now let’s address some of its philosophical and theological underpinnings. Whatever one thinks of the theological beliefs of early Christians, it is an historical error to misrepresent those beliefs.

At one juncture in the book, hero Teabing argues that the church had to suppress the notion that Jesus was married because “a child of Jesus would undermine the crucial notion of Christ’s divinity and therefore the Christian Church.” Teabing seems to be suggesting that if Jesus had sexual relationships with a wife and sired offspring it would be defiling, or perhaps that as a divine being, Jesus couldn’t afford to be fully and truly human. This of course is not what the creeds suggest. They suggest Jesus was both fully human as well as fully divine.

A priori, there is no reason why Jesus could not have been married. Jesus did not teach that sex was defiling; indeed he speaks of it as the means by which the two become one flesh with each other as God intended (see Mark 10). There is thus no reason why a married Jesus could not have had sexual relationships and even offspring. Nor did the earliest Church have problems with the goodness of human sexuality. Thus, there is no good reason why the authors of the New Testament, who were all Jews, with perhaps the exception of Luke, would have suppressed the notion that Jesus was married. This would have just further affirmed his true humanity, not violated or annulled his divinity. After all, it was God who made us all sexual beings in the first place. It is only later (second or third century) ascetical piety (both Christian and Gnostic) that had problems with these things, not Jesus or the earliest church.

Brown’s book inconsistently suggests that historical truth doesn’t matter to faith (remember the hero’s declaration that every faith is “based on fabrication,” and that “the problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors”)—except when it supports his agenda regarding Mary Magdalene or the Catholic Church. Brown seems to fail to grasp that early Christianity, like early Judaism, is not all about symbols and metaphors. It is about truths grounded in historical events, whether the Exodus, the reign of King David, or the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Of course sometimes these truths are expressed in symbols and metaphors, such as in the parables. But the gospel stories themselves are not mere allegories, or cleverly devised fables; they are ancient biographies written according to the historical and literary conventions of the time. They are based, as Luke 1:1-4 says, on the reports of eyewitnesses and early testifiers to these historical facts. Christian faith, like Jewish faith, is not a mere belief in something one imagines to be true. Christianity is based on certain irreducible historical events.

Brown also misunderstands the Biblical portrayal of God’s character. He keeps referring to the church’s repression of the Sacred Feminine—a female deity (or feminine aspect of God?) that he sees behind the Old Testament Shekinah, or Presence of God—the glory cloud that is the outward visible manifestation of God when God chooses to appear (a theophany). The problem with Brown’s reasoning is that there is a clear witness in the Bible that God is neither male nor female. Rather, the creator God is Spirit (see, for example, Genesis 1 and John 4:24). The Bible has not replaced ancient female deities with one or more male ones. Jews and later Christians were a tiny minority that insisted there was only one God who was Spirit. This God was not a mere participant in the cycle and circle of life, like the gods of the crops (Baal) or the fertility goddesses (Magna Mater); this God was the one God who created all life and indeed the whole material universe. Contrary to the The Da Vinci Code, one could not gain union with the God of the Bible through hieros gamos, or sacred sex. Indeed, no self-chosen human process, even intercourse, could divinize human beings. Eternal life was a gift of God to his people, not an achievement or a self-induced experience. Human beings were only created in the image of God, which meant they were created with a capacity for a full personal relationship with God that no other creature has. Being born is seen as a very good thing, being born again, even better, but the latter is not achieved by human sexual expression.

It is no accident that the heroine of this book is named Sophia Neveu—a rather transparent rendering of “new wisdom.” Brown apparently hopes to broker “new religious wisdom” about Christian origins in the form of a belief in the Sacred Feminine. In so doing, he not only demeans the goodness of the theology of creation and Creator found in the Bible; he also diminishes the process of salvation to an act of sexual expression.

In one of Shakespeare’s historical plays about King Henry, Prince Hal comes in from a night of revelry, thinking that he and his chums had redefined the meaning of revelry. The king rebukes him, telling him he has committed only “the oldest sins the newest kind of ways” (2 King Henry IV 4.5.127). The same might be said of the religious agenda underlying The Da Vinci Code. The book is simply a bad amalgam of old paganism and, strangely enough, old Gnosticism, brought to life by a masterful storyteller. It’s all quite entertaining, if it’s accepted for what it really is: not historical fiction, but pure fiction. And as thrilling as the book is, it can’t hold a candle to the thrill of discovering the historical truth about the events that have shaped the very contours of modern civilization.
 

Notes

1. The Gnostic Gospels are a diverse collection of documents, written by the early Christian sect known as the Gnostics, which bear little resemblance to the canonical Gospels, as they have little, and in some cases no, narrative and do not seek to present a biography of the historical Jesus. Their focus tends to be more on esoteric wisdom that the risen Jesus supposedly conveyed to the disciples after Easter.

2. See George Howard, “Canon: Choosing the Books of the New Testament” BR, October 1989.

3. See Otto Betz, “Was John the Baptist an Essene?” BR, December 1990.
 

 
Ben Witherington is professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University, Scotland.

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Claims that the family tomb of Jesus has been found in the East Talpiot section of Jerusalem have sparked bitter debate for a second time by a scholarly conference organized in Jerusalem by the Princeton Theological Seminary to assess the likelihood that the Talpiot tomb is indeed the tomb of Jesus. You can follow the heated discussion using the links below.
 

More on the Talpiot Tomb Controversy

The first furor occurred in March 2007 when the Discovery Channel aired “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” which claimed that the Talpiot tomb not only contained the ossuary (bone box) of Jesus but also that of Mary Magdalene, who the program claimed had been Jesus’ wife, and also that of a Judah son of Jesus, who the program suggested had been the son of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Now a second wave of controversy has been sparked in the wake of a scholarly conference organized in Jerusalem by the Princeton Theological Seminary to assess the likelihood that the Talpiot tomb is indeed the tomb of Jesus.

Even though most of the conference attendees felt that the Talpiot tomb was unlikely to have been the tomb of Jesus, Simcha Jacobovici, director of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” issued a press release claiming that the conference had “vindicated” his program. Several conference participants then issued a statement to the contrary. Here you can read the scholars’ statement, Jacobovici’s press release and initial comments by several scholars. Not surprisingly, those comments have led to more comments and reactions.

In addition to claiming that the Talpiot tomb contained the ossuaries of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Judah son of Jesus, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” program further suggested that one ossuary, originally discovered along with nine others in the Talpiot tomb but which has since been lost, was in fact the “James brother of Jesus” ossuary that first made headlines of its own in late 2002. “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” was directed by filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and produced by James Cameron, the director of the blockbuster movie “Titanic.”

Many scholars immediately criticized the program, saying it contradicted much of what we know historically and that it made numerous dubious assumptions.

At the end of the scholarly conference organized by the Princeton Theological Seminary, Ruth Gath, the widow of Yosef Gat, the original excavator of the Talpiot tomb in 1980, told the audience that her husband had believed that the tomb was indeed that of Jesus but had kept his views private for fear of stoking a worldwide anti-Semitic backlash. Despite Ruth Gath’s revelation, most of the conference attendees felt that the Talpiot tomb was unlikely to have been the tomb of Jesus.

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Princeton Conference Vindicates Associated Producers James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici on “Lost Tomb of Jesus”

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—(Marketwire – Jan. 16, 2008) – Late Wednesday, at the closing session of a conference sponsored by the Princeton Theological Seminary which considered the headline grabbing claims made last year in a documentary film and book that the tomb of Jesus and his family have been found, the widow of archaeologist Yosef Gat, Ruth, rocked the proceedings.

Ruth Gat attended the Princeton conference to accept a posthumous lifetime achievement award for her husband, a major figure in Biblical archaeology. As top scholars from around the world listened she stated, “My husband, the lead archaeologist of the East Talpiot tomb in southern Jerusalem, believed that the tomb he excavated in 1980 was, indeed, the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.” Gat’s widow said that her husband believed that the bone boxes that he removed from the tomb contained the mortal remains of Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene and Judah, son of Jesus. “The reason he never published his opinion,” she said “was because, as a Holocaust survivor, he feared that the announcement might spark anti-Semitism around the world. As a result, he took his secret to the grave.”

Gat’s widow also stated that she was happy that the world has become a more civilized place and that Gat’s opinions could finally be aired at a scholarly conference and in an atmosphere of reasonable debate.

The Princeton conference proved to be a scholarly re-assessment of the evidence. Until now, international perception of the academic consensus has been that the Talpiot tomb “could not be” the Jesus family tomb. In contrast, 50 of the top scholars in the world now concluded that the Talpiot tomb “might very possibly be” the tomb of the “Holy family.” Although some academics continue to deny the possibility, leading New Testament scholars such as Professor Jane Schaberg (Mercy), Professor Claude Cohen-Matlofsky (University of Toronto), Israel Knohl (Hebrew University) and Professor James Tabor (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) all indicated that they thought it was “likely” that the Talpiot tomb was indeed the lost tomb of Jesus.

Another revelation concerned Andrey Feuerverger, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Toronto, who had done the initial statistical study that concluded a 600:1 probability in favor of the tomb being the Jesus family tomb. At the conference, Professor Feuerverger revealed for the first time that his statistical model has now been peer-reviewed and accepted by the leading statistical journal Annals of Applied Statistics and will be published in their first issue of 2008 in February.

The conference concluded with a unanimous vote to empower Prof. James Charlesworth of Princeton to head an archaeological team for the purpose of re-investigating the Talpiot Tomb site.

Reached in Jerusalem, director/author Simcha Jacobovici said, “we feel totally vindicated. My work with James Cameron was the catalyst for an international symposium that has finally considered the evidence and is opening the door for further research. It’s time that the world seriously considered that the Jesus family tomb may very well have been located.”

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