I love, love love it when she mentions about the wounding of the text. In our times, there are many viable information sources on theology and history and we have so much more available to us now. Many forget, have forgotten and will forget how easy it is to be puffed up with knowledge and spend much less time being "puffed up" with the Spirit. I am one of those that Libby mentioned being ready to receive what she is saying. Of course, God knew that the texts would be misused and therefore knew how they would be misused and what would follow because of it. This is simply amazing and thank you again for having that conversation with Libby and for the many that have followed and are to come!
Ms. Schrader makes a compelling case for changes in John 11:1-5, but says nothing about the subsequent verses, 11-28 where It would apperar that "text corrections" would be more complex. How would she explain these verses?
"The Word is vulnerable"--it would be interesting to get Bart Ehrman's take on that fine theologion. He recounts that his own decision to specialize in textual criticism of the Bible followed from the urgent question that occurred to him, back when he was at Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College: If God is good and wise and powerful and loving enough to inspire the Bible, every word of which Christians believe to be inerrant, why wasn't he also able, or willing, to prevent it from being distorted into countless variant readings? Maybe Ehrman should have learned to be more Pauline!
On John 11: Many of us have come to accept that the Gospels according to Luke and John were both composed at places in the Aegean basin, Luke a few years earlier, and John specifically at Ephesus, though Luke too may have been in Ephesus. There are a few noteworthy correspondences between those two gospels. And it seems evident that there is some sort of sharing of sources, or cross-influence, in the matter of the three characters Lazarus, Mary and Martha. In Luke, not only is there the fascinating little story about the two sisters, visited by Jesus, at 10.38-42, but there is also the great parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus the Beggar, at 16.19-31, which ends with the suggestion that Lazarus, who has died in the course of the story, should be restored to life. So the suggestion that an originally Martha-less John 11 might be redacted in one textual tradition--one which came to prevail--so as to add Martha and thus do a bit of harmonizing with the Lucan pair of sisters is not at all incredible.
A difficulty of one kind with the idea of an originally Martha-less John 11, apparently focused on just the verses of the opening section of the chapter, is having to explain what was the original state of verses 28 to 32, in which the two sisters are plainly different characters relating to Jesus in different ways. In particular Mary in verse 32 speaks in a way that would seem to be impossible for someone who just a short while before uttered the christological confession of verse 27. Is there any indication what the full text of John 11 was for those Church Fathers who attribute the christological confession to Mary, not Martha? Was Martha present at all in this story for them?
(BTW, on Tertullian: If the word is out that he was something of a misogynist, sure, why not; anyway there were hardly many outspoken advocates for women's rights among that crew. But to complicate things a bit, let's remember that Tertullian came to admire the Montanists greatly, mostly because of their great asceticism; and the Montanists were especially popular for promoting the Spirit-inspired "revelations" of two women of Asia Minor, Prisca and Maximilla.)
A difficulty of a different sort, for those who like to practice "canon criticism," is that there is something delightful in meeting the two sisters in both those places, in Luke and again in John. Many have observed that their respective personalities, so well drawn in the Lucan story, are developed further in the story in John. In fact Diana shared a lovely poem a while ago that was based on that observation. No doubt it would be unpleasant for them to be told they must forget about Martha now as Lazarus' sister.
As for Mary Magdalene, the suggestion that she is in fact the Mary in John 11 remains as unconvincing now as it was before. And in any case, whether it is Mary or Martha who makes the christological confession, she is still a woman making it--and if male Christians in the second century were alarmed by one woman's saying those words, why would their minds be put at rest once they were told that in fact it was another woman who said them?
(Regarding the wording of the christological confession at 11.27: We need to distinguish its significance in its original Johannine Christian context, from what it sounded like among the dominant Petrine Christians who came to adopt the Gospel of John as a true Scripture. Yes, the confession resembles Peter's famous confession at Matthew 16.16, where it has terrific importance--and so Libbie Schrader is quite right to tell us that those words coming from the mouth of a woman might very well startle a Petrine Christian, especially perhaps a male one, who heard John 11 and remembered Matthew 16. But I disagree with Sandra Schneiders (in "Written That You May Believe") that this utterance is a pinnacle of Johannine Christology. The thing is, Jesus was already called "the one who is to come," "the Christ," and "the Son of God" in the very first chapter of the gospel, and the latter two titles are the subjects of dispute toward the end of chapter 10. So Martha's confession, following her misunderstanding of Jesus' earlier promise that Lazarus would be raised, comes across as the perfect statement of a Christian believer who uses the common terms that Petrine Christians use. But the gospel was written in part to build a bridge of peace between Johannine and Petrine Christians, so those terms can be used in John 11, and they can return in the story of Thomas in 20.)
Libbie thinks the similarity of the scene of the raising of a dead person at a soon emptied tomb in John 11 to that in John 20--the one raised being Jesus, and the slightly belated witness being MMag--is so great that MMag must in fact be present in both scenes. Well, I suppose that's not impossible, but it seems hardly necessary. Biblical literature has examples of similar narrative situations involving different characters, e.g. the stoning of Stephen in Acts, resembling in some detail the crucifixion of Jesus in Luke; and in Torah there are several instances of eligible young(ish) men meeting their brides at wells.
On the epithet "Magdalene": I wrote about this before, and was totally dismissed; nevertheless, though mad be my mission, let me try again. The word is a "gentile" or toponymic adjective, indicating where someone is from, and composed of the root of the place in question's name, plus the suffix "-ênós" if masculine, "-ênê" if feminine. Adjectives of this type were common in Hellenistic Greek, not least for people from the Levant and Asia Minor: cf. Nazarene, Gerasene, Gadarene, Damascene, Palmyrene, Antiochene, Edessene, Pergamene, Lampsacene. Any Greek-speaking reader of the Gospels in Greek would at once interpret "Magdalene" to mean "a woman (more precisely, a feminine-gender being) from (a place called something like) Magdala." So contemporary admirers of MMag are perfectly justified to go on calling her "Mary of Magdala," even if the identification of Magdala, e.g. as Magdala Nunnaya, is not so secure as it once was thought to be.
No Greek-speaking Christian had any way of suspecting there might be a nickname meaning "the Tower" hidden behind "Magdalene." Jerome here is not a reliable source. He was not suggesting "tower" as if he knew of a tradition behind it; rather, he was being a rhetorical Roman, trying to impress his readers with his knowledge of Semitic languages and his interpretative hagiological creativity. If MMag's contemporaries, Christian speakers of Aramaic, ever referred to her as "tower," that memory was lost to Greek-speaking Christians. If there were any interest in preserving the nickname "tower" in referring to her in Greek writing, it is very unlikely that they would have hit upon the word "Magdalene" to do so.
I have been following Elizabeth's work for almost a couple of years now, and I wait with bated breath for every new insight she brings. One thought I had while listening, if the text was "allowing its own wounding," what are the possibilities that Mary Magdalene - on some level - was a contributing author to Papyrus 66 or other potentially earlier manuscripts? I suppose we can't know of anything earlier, but I have to wonder if she in her lineage somehow told the story, only to have it edited by the threatened patriarchy.
I listened to this on the way to the office this morning, and I was struck (as it appears others were) by Dr. Schrader's preaching option, which was utterly beautiful. Most of the folks I serve are not ready to hear the truth of what we have done to the text and because of the text, but the journey toward that place where they might be ready is one worth taking.
How wonderful to have the truth shining! As the beloved companion, the author of what we have read as from John seems most likely to have been from this Mary.
Could Lazarus be the disciple that Jesus loved throughout the scriptures, vs the assumption it was John? When my pastor was in seminary, one of his fellow students put forth a strong case for this.
Mar 20, 2023·edited Mar 20, 2023Liked by Diana Butler Bass
Finally heard this evaluation of ancient texts from Diana's colleague, Elizabeth Schrader - having heard Diana preach on this theory of John 11 at the closing worship of the 2022 Wild Goose Festival. As a Biblical storyteller, I have seen a relationship between Luke and John such that some stories complement each other to provide us with fuller portraits of some of the people characterized in the Gospels. I believe this is true for Peter the Rock - and Mary the Tower. I won't argue that here, because I love what Elizabeth has done - and with Diana's affirmation, in bringing this fresh interpretation to light. I love the implication of the anticipated 'illness'/wound, and God's anticipation that someone would unravel the mystery one day.
This whole interview is incredible but the last 8 minutes (ways to preach this) is life changing. What an incredibly beautiful and authentic way to wrestle with the humanness of scripture and how it is still inspired/inspiring us today! Brilliant!
Diana I listened to your sermon based on Elizabeth’s work. I think you preached it at Wild Goose. It talked about Martha and Mary being just one person.
If I remember correctly Elizabeth stated the why Martha was even listed.
Can you explain why Martha was added. I don’t think she discussed this in the present podcast.
I have only watched the first episode, but the series about Jesus on Netflix called "The Chosen" starts with Mary Magdalene's emotional turmoil, and his intervention in her life. Have you watched this, Diana?
I’ve been enthralled with the historical fiction of Kathleen McGowan’s work on nature of the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus in her trilogy of novels on the subject This is highlighted by John’s accounts as well and, based on culture of the time, leads one to believe there is a much more intimate relationship than the church will embrace. It answers a lot of questions for me and brings a completeness to the trinity in a way that I have never felt until now. Thank you for this.
I love, love love it when she mentions about the wounding of the text. In our times, there are many viable information sources on theology and history and we have so much more available to us now. Many forget, have forgotten and will forget how easy it is to be puffed up with knowledge and spend much less time being "puffed up" with the Spirit. I am one of those that Libby mentioned being ready to receive what she is saying. Of course, God knew that the texts would be misused and therefore knew how they would be misused and what would follow because of it. This is simply amazing and thank you again for having that conversation with Libby and for the many that have followed and are to come!
Ms. Schrader makes a compelling case for changes in John 11:1-5, but says nothing about the subsequent verses, 11-28 where It would apperar that "text corrections" would be more complex. How would she explain these verses?
"The Word is vulnerable"--it would be interesting to get Bart Ehrman's take on that fine theologion. He recounts that his own decision to specialize in textual criticism of the Bible followed from the urgent question that occurred to him, back when he was at Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College: If God is good and wise and powerful and loving enough to inspire the Bible, every word of which Christians believe to be inerrant, why wasn't he also able, or willing, to prevent it from being distorted into countless variant readings? Maybe Ehrman should have learned to be more Pauline!
On John 11: Many of us have come to accept that the Gospels according to Luke and John were both composed at places in the Aegean basin, Luke a few years earlier, and John specifically at Ephesus, though Luke too may have been in Ephesus. There are a few noteworthy correspondences between those two gospels. And it seems evident that there is some sort of sharing of sources, or cross-influence, in the matter of the three characters Lazarus, Mary and Martha. In Luke, not only is there the fascinating little story about the two sisters, visited by Jesus, at 10.38-42, but there is also the great parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus the Beggar, at 16.19-31, which ends with the suggestion that Lazarus, who has died in the course of the story, should be restored to life. So the suggestion that an originally Martha-less John 11 might be redacted in one textual tradition--one which came to prevail--so as to add Martha and thus do a bit of harmonizing with the Lucan pair of sisters is not at all incredible.
A difficulty of one kind with the idea of an originally Martha-less John 11, apparently focused on just the verses of the opening section of the chapter, is having to explain what was the original state of verses 28 to 32, in which the two sisters are plainly different characters relating to Jesus in different ways. In particular Mary in verse 32 speaks in a way that would seem to be impossible for someone who just a short while before uttered the christological confession of verse 27. Is there any indication what the full text of John 11 was for those Church Fathers who attribute the christological confession to Mary, not Martha? Was Martha present at all in this story for them?
(BTW, on Tertullian: If the word is out that he was something of a misogynist, sure, why not; anyway there were hardly many outspoken advocates for women's rights among that crew. But to complicate things a bit, let's remember that Tertullian came to admire the Montanists greatly, mostly because of their great asceticism; and the Montanists were especially popular for promoting the Spirit-inspired "revelations" of two women of Asia Minor, Prisca and Maximilla.)
A difficulty of a different sort, for those who like to practice "canon criticism," is that there is something delightful in meeting the two sisters in both those places, in Luke and again in John. Many have observed that their respective personalities, so well drawn in the Lucan story, are developed further in the story in John. In fact Diana shared a lovely poem a while ago that was based on that observation. No doubt it would be unpleasant for them to be told they must forget about Martha now as Lazarus' sister.
As for Mary Magdalene, the suggestion that she is in fact the Mary in John 11 remains as unconvincing now as it was before. And in any case, whether it is Mary or Martha who makes the christological confession, she is still a woman making it--and if male Christians in the second century were alarmed by one woman's saying those words, why would their minds be put at rest once they were told that in fact it was another woman who said them?
(Regarding the wording of the christological confession at 11.27: We need to distinguish its significance in its original Johannine Christian context, from what it sounded like among the dominant Petrine Christians who came to adopt the Gospel of John as a true Scripture. Yes, the confession resembles Peter's famous confession at Matthew 16.16, where it has terrific importance--and so Libbie Schrader is quite right to tell us that those words coming from the mouth of a woman might very well startle a Petrine Christian, especially perhaps a male one, who heard John 11 and remembered Matthew 16. But I disagree with Sandra Schneiders (in "Written That You May Believe") that this utterance is a pinnacle of Johannine Christology. The thing is, Jesus was already called "the one who is to come," "the Christ," and "the Son of God" in the very first chapter of the gospel, and the latter two titles are the subjects of dispute toward the end of chapter 10. So Martha's confession, following her misunderstanding of Jesus' earlier promise that Lazarus would be raised, comes across as the perfect statement of a Christian believer who uses the common terms that Petrine Christians use. But the gospel was written in part to build a bridge of peace between Johannine and Petrine Christians, so those terms can be used in John 11, and they can return in the story of Thomas in 20.)
Libbie thinks the similarity of the scene of the raising of a dead person at a soon emptied tomb in John 11 to that in John 20--the one raised being Jesus, and the slightly belated witness being MMag--is so great that MMag must in fact be present in both scenes. Well, I suppose that's not impossible, but it seems hardly necessary. Biblical literature has examples of similar narrative situations involving different characters, e.g. the stoning of Stephen in Acts, resembling in some detail the crucifixion of Jesus in Luke; and in Torah there are several instances of eligible young(ish) men meeting their brides at wells.
On the epithet "Magdalene": I wrote about this before, and was totally dismissed; nevertheless, though mad be my mission, let me try again. The word is a "gentile" or toponymic adjective, indicating where someone is from, and composed of the root of the place in question's name, plus the suffix "-ênós" if masculine, "-ênê" if feminine. Adjectives of this type were common in Hellenistic Greek, not least for people from the Levant and Asia Minor: cf. Nazarene, Gerasene, Gadarene, Damascene, Palmyrene, Antiochene, Edessene, Pergamene, Lampsacene. Any Greek-speaking reader of the Gospels in Greek would at once interpret "Magdalene" to mean "a woman (more precisely, a feminine-gender being) from (a place called something like) Magdala." So contemporary admirers of MMag are perfectly justified to go on calling her "Mary of Magdala," even if the identification of Magdala, e.g. as Magdala Nunnaya, is not so secure as it once was thought to be.
No Greek-speaking Christian had any way of suspecting there might be a nickname meaning "the Tower" hidden behind "Magdalene." Jerome here is not a reliable source. He was not suggesting "tower" as if he knew of a tradition behind it; rather, he was being a rhetorical Roman, trying to impress his readers with his knowledge of Semitic languages and his interpretative hagiological creativity. If MMag's contemporaries, Christian speakers of Aramaic, ever referred to her as "tower," that memory was lost to Greek-speaking Christians. If there were any interest in preserving the nickname "tower" in referring to her in Greek writing, it is very unlikely that they would have hit upon the word "Magdalene" to do so.
I have been following Elizabeth's work for almost a couple of years now, and I wait with bated breath for every new insight she brings. One thought I had while listening, if the text was "allowing its own wounding," what are the possibilities that Mary Magdalene - on some level - was a contributing author to Papyrus 66 or other potentially earlier manuscripts? I suppose we can't know of anything earlier, but I have to wonder if she in her lineage somehow told the story, only to have it edited by the threatened patriarchy.
I listened to this on the way to the office this morning, and I was struck (as it appears others were) by Dr. Schrader's preaching option, which was utterly beautiful. Most of the folks I serve are not ready to hear the truth of what we have done to the text and because of the text, but the journey toward that place where they might be ready is one worth taking.
How wonderful to have the truth shining! As the beloved companion, the author of what we have read as from John seems most likely to have been from this Mary.
This was powerful. Thank you Elizabeth for your work.
Eliz Schrader's conclusion here , her surmise was so powerful it made me cry with joy.
Could Lazarus be the disciple that Jesus loved throughout the scriptures, vs the assumption it was John? When my pastor was in seminary, one of his fellow students put forth a strong case for this.
Thanks. Dorinda Dunlap
Finally heard this evaluation of ancient texts from Diana's colleague, Elizabeth Schrader - having heard Diana preach on this theory of John 11 at the closing worship of the 2022 Wild Goose Festival. As a Biblical storyteller, I have seen a relationship between Luke and John such that some stories complement each other to provide us with fuller portraits of some of the people characterized in the Gospels. I believe this is true for Peter the Rock - and Mary the Tower. I won't argue that here, because I love what Elizabeth has done - and with Diana's affirmation, in bringing this fresh interpretation to light. I love the implication of the anticipated 'illness'/wound, and God's anticipation that someone would unravel the mystery one day.
This whole interview is incredible but the last 8 minutes (ways to preach this) is life changing. What an incredibly beautiful and authentic way to wrestle with the humanness of scripture and how it is still inspired/inspiring us today! Brilliant!
Diana I listened to your sermon based on Elizabeth’s work. I think you preached it at Wild Goose. It talked about Martha and Mary being just one person.
If I remember correctly Elizabeth stated the why Martha was even listed.
Can you explain why Martha was added. I don’t think she discussed this in the present podcast.
Having trouble locating the link for the full recording w/ the Q&A
I have only watched the first episode, but the series about Jesus on Netflix called "The Chosen" starts with Mary Magdalene's emotional turmoil, and his intervention in her life. Have you watched this, Diana?
I’ve been enthralled with the historical fiction of Kathleen McGowan’s work on nature of the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus in her trilogy of novels on the subject This is highlighted by John’s accounts as well and, based on culture of the time, leads one to believe there is a much more intimate relationship than the church will embrace. It answers a lot of questions for me and brings a completeness to the trinity in a way that I have never felt until now. Thank you for this.