Site historique consacré à Marie, surnommée "la Magdaléenne" (alias Marie de Magdala, alias Marie-Madeleine)
9 Décembre 2021
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Günter Stemberger, Review of Marie appelée la Magdaléenne, entre traditions et histoire, Ier-VIIIe siècle (Thierry Murcia, Aix-en-Provence, Presses universitaires de Provence, 2017), Henoch 43, 2 (2021), p. 365-366.
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Günter Stemberger (1940- ) is Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Vienna
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Historical and Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Judaism and Christianity Studi storico-testuali su giudaismo e cristianesimo in età antica e medievale BIANNUAL JOURNAL FOUNDED BY PAOLO SACCHI
Th. Murcia, Marie appelée la Magdaléenne. Entre traditions et histoire. Ier-VIIIe siècle (Héritages méditerranéens ; Aix-en-Provence : Presses Universitaires de Provence, 2017)
Thierry Murcia is an expert in New Testament and Rabbinic studies ; he recently published the comprehensive monograph Jésus dans le Talmud et la littérature rabbinique ancienne (2014). In the present volume he proposes a thesis which may seem provocative: Mary Magdalene (Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή: John 19:25; 20:1) is not named after the village Magdala, she is not to be mixed up with the anonymous sinner of Lk 7:39 nor with Mary of Bethany (John 12:3, for Murcia 37 a literary creation of John); only the Latin tradition, starting with Gregory the Great, identifies these three women. In modern exegesis this identification is almost commonly rejected. Murcia offers another identification: The Magdalene is in reality Mary, Jesus’ mother, and this in spite of John 19:25: “standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (NRSV). Murcia reads this enumeration as a chiasm, identifying the first and the last person mentioned in this verse (231ff in much detail and very speculative as to the wider ramifications of this chiasm in the symbolism of the cross). The difficulty that thus two sisters would have the same name Mary (“his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas” being seen as a single person), is solved by the suggestion that “sister” here means “sister-in-law” (186), married to Mary’s brother Clopas, the same as Cleopas (Lk 24:18), one of the two disciples to whom Jesus appeared on their way to Emmaus (189ff). This and similar proposals how the persons mentioned in the gospels are related to each other, are supported by patristic sources, but still remain in the realm of speculation.
As in many other discussions of his book, Murcia here too turns to rabbinic traditions (42f). The Talmud (bShab 104b) calls Jesus’ mother “Miriam, the women’s hairdresser” (megadla [seʿar] neshaya, see also Rashi and the Tosafot). It thus seems that the rabbinic tradition regarded Mary the Magdalene as Jesus’ mother. But also the oriental Christian tradition, beginning with the Diatessaron, Ephrem the Syrian and many others, supports this identification, regarding Mary the Magdalene, to whom the risen Christ appears (John 20:1; Mt 28:1), as the mother of Jesus. The pilgrim’s account of Theodosius (ca. 630 CE) says of the village of Magdala, ubi domna Maria nata est, clearly referring to the mother of Jesus (129f). The later Byzantine tradition also claims that the risen Jesus first appeared to his mother, but without identifying her with the Magdalene. The gospels never explicitly identify the mother of Jesus with the Magdalene because at the time of the writing this was still absolutely clear to all readers; only later this became a source of misunderstanding (271ff). As to many other persons where the gospel traditions seem confusing, Murcia tries to solve them by assuming two different traditions behind the gospels, the family tradition of Jesus and his relatives and the apostolic tradition. The gospel of John obviously is very close to the family tradition: “pour Jean, Marie de Magdala est manifestement la mère de Jésus” (284).
A major problem that remains is the meaning of the name. Mary would be the only biblical woman to be named after a place and not after her father or her husband. Lk 8:2 speaks of Μαρία ἡ καλουμένη Μαγδαληνή, “Mary, called the Magdalene”. The phrase ἡ καλουμένη introduces a second name or a nickname of a person, but never the place of origin. Only since the fourth century is it understood as the name of a place. Against the Talmudic tradition of Mary as megadla neshaya, “hairdresser”, ἡ καλουμένη also never refers to a profession. Megadla may also be understood as “the great one, the honoured one”, or even, with the same meaning, “the tower” (migdal), as Mary is frequently called in the Syrian tradition (292-6). This is certainly a proposal worth of serious consideration.
A special chapter is dedicated to the seven demons which had gone out from Mary, called the Magdalene (Lk 8:2, cf. Mk 16:9). Based on a number of texts, Murcia identifies them as phenomena of fever or malaria, thus removing from Jesus’ mother any possible negative evaluation (see already Murcia’s earlier book, Jésus. Les miracles élucidés par la médecine, 2003, where, however, he does not deal with this passage).
Murcia also devotes a detailed discussion to the question, unavoidable in view of a number of recent popular publications, whether Jesus was married (159ff). He discusses Jewish traditions according to which a man has to be married, but also refers to rabbinic texts that Moses after the revelation on Sinai separated from his wife, and to Jesus’ comparison with John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah (Mt 16:13), all of whom according to tradition remained unmarried.
It is impossible in a brief review to present all the topics dealt with in 24 chapters and many appendices, normally dedicated to single passages of the gospels and to persons named in them. They are all replete with discussions not only of the New Testament traditions, but also of their reception in later Christian traditions, with special emphasis on the Syriac traditions, but also covering the better known church fathers, later Byzantine literature and even seemingly remote Coptic or gnostic traditions. He also competently deals with contemporary Jewish texts and the full range of rabbinic literature (although sometimes dating them too early), using these texts in their necessary context and not simply as “background” to New Testament passages. One cannot but be impressed by the wide range of Murcia’s erudition. Not all of his conclusions will convince everybody. There are many, sometimes unavoidable, hypotheses, and many textual problems resist the razor’s edge of his sharp logic. But even if one does not accept all of his solutions or even his main thesis, there is so much to be learned from his wide-ranging discussions and the many Christian and Jewish traditions he quotes in order to contextualize questions arising from the New Testament. The thesis is well presented, step for step in brief chapters and very readable in spite of the density of sources he cites in support of his thesis. It is a fascinating and thought-provoking book which will appeal not only to New Testament scholars, but to all readers interested in the history of Jewish and Christian traditions over the first centuries.
Günter Stemberger, Universität Wien
The full text of the article is available as a PDF document (free download)
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Thierry Murcia is an expert in New Testament and Rabbinic studies ; he recently published the comprehensive monograph Jésus dans le Talmud et la littérature rabbinique ancienne (2014). In the ...
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Recommended Book on Academia / Livre recommandé sur Academia About the Author Thierry Murcia is a french historian (Doctor in History with highest honors, unanimous jury congratulations and special
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