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Will the Magdalene go mainstream? Controversial as scholarship, author Margaret Starbird's interpretation of Mary Magdalene is gaining popular influence

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 31, 2003 by Ed Conroy

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Levine added that the statements attributed to Jesus in scripture do not depict someone who regarded the married state as the summum bonum.

"He encourages husbands to leave their wives," Levine said. "He refers to himself as a bridegroom, but there is no bride. He speaks of the end times as coming soon and notes that in the resurrection people will be like the angels, who neither marry nor are given in marriage."

Levine also questions the assertion that Jesus had to be married because he was a rabbi.

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"Not all rabbis in antiquity were married, and we have examples of celibate Jews in antiquity, attested by the Dead Sea community and the group in Egypt mentioned by Philo--the Therapeutae," she said. "To assume that Jesus would conform to social norms in all matters is not consistent with the Jesus we know."

Yet Levine is sympathetic to feminist interpretations of Mary Magdalene.

"There is nothing in scripture to indicate that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute," she said. "This role was ascribed to her by Pope Gregory the Great. There are actually various feminist perspectives on Mary Magdalene. On the one hand, feminists recognize that her reputation has been tarred. On the other hand, I consider myself a feminist, and I recognize how important the image of the reformed prostitute is to women who have to sell their bodies. Mary becomes for them a symbol that there is a way out. I would not want to take that away from them or from Mary Magdalene."

The supposed marriage between Jesus and the Magdalene is not the only reason for the resurgence of interest in Mary Magdalene. The figure of the Magdalene is also being interpreted in a gnostic dimension, both by Starbird and other feminist theologians as well as by grass-roots groups such as the Emmanuel community.

Matthew Fox, a former Dominican priest now president of the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, Calif., sees a special role today for the figure of Mary Magdalene.

"I am very interested in this Magdalene movement, what Jean Schaberg has called the 'resurrection' of the Magdalene that is happening throughout our world, and believe very strongly that she represents a new model for the church in this third millennium," Fox said in an interview from his office in Oakland.

"For the past 2,000 years the Christian world has had the Pauline model, which is Protestant, and the Petrine model, which is Catholic, but the two of them are now running out of steam. I think that Magdalene, as the archetype of Sophia or wisdom, is what the church needs to embody now," said Fox, author of Such popular revisions of traditional Catholic teachings as Original Blessing and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.

Starbird, like Fox, sees Mary Magdalene as an inspiration for contemporary spiritual life. Cognizant of the mainstream of Catholic teaching and New Testament scholarship, she maintains that it is not the Magdalene alone who represents this new model.

Will the Magdalene go mainstream? Controversial as scholarship, author Margaret Starbird's interpretation of Mary Magdalene is gaining popular influence

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 31, 2003 by Ed Conroy

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