Mary Magdalene wasn’t hidden because she wasn’t in the story—she was hidden because her authority was stripped from it.
The institutional church rebranded her as a prostitute, erased her confession in John 11, split her into multiple “Marys,” and passed her witness to Peter like it was a relay race. All because it was too threatening to admit: the first apostle was a woman.
She was the apostle to the apostles. The one who stayed when the men fled. The first to preach resurrection. Possibly the one who uttered the Christological confession in John 11. And yet for 2,000 years, her story was footnoted, fragmented, and spiritualized to death.
Thanks to the work of scholars like Libbie Schrader, Karen King, and Bruce Chilton, we’re finally recovering the reality: Mary Magdalene wasn’t just part of the story—she was the Tower that held it up.
Have you read the Gospel of Mary Magdalene? It circulated in early Christianity and offers a radically different view of her role. It’s not just apocrypha—it’s revelation.
I just reread your Mon for the third time. What does this research say to the Pope? “Hey your reverence it is time for you to resign, and let Mary take her rightful place!”
I can just imagine what would change. Universal approval of women havin choice for one thing. As doctrine is now women have suffered for to long! I ask what else would Mary would RIGHT.
o wow, I just wrote on getting stuck in the Martha role ( https://almutfurchert.substack.com/p/on-being-martha-and-mary) when a reader led me to your sermon. No wonder I got stuck. I was missing Mary, the tower! Thanks for this great inspiration, Diana!
These "epic readings" are fun to be in and to listen to. I wish this would be used more as a strategy for educating young people.
Diana, you should plan to attend a Network of Biblical Storytelling festival gathering. Brian McLaren was a keynote speaker a few years back - and he told us he was going to an event the next week called the Wild Goose Festival.
Tom Boomershine, an American Baptist minister, founded the Network back in the 1960s, being inspired by renewed interest in African griot tradition of storytelling. Tom has always maintained that there be a strong connection between performing storytellers and contemporary theologians.
The Network of Biblical Storytellers Festival Gathering from July 31 to August 2 at Baltimore, will feature an "epic telling" of the the first 12 chapters of the Gospel of John. My assignment will be to tell John 11:1-16.
So much to appreciate here, Diana! The Rock and the Tower. It makes sense. It is powerful in image and meaning. Thank you for these insights and all you do to bring us closer to being more thoroughly informed and inspired.
Question: Have Libbie or any of the scholars taken a stab at dating the editorial redaction? I ask, because recall that in 325 ce Constantine declared Christianity to be the religion of the State. Immediately it became a public and political entity, as opposed to a domestic gathering. In the culture, public and politics was the purview of men, explicitly not women. (Cf. Karen Jo Torjesen's When Women Were Priests.) Is it possible that the redaction occurred at the time all women were being excluded from leadership in the Church because of this public v. domestic segregation?
Wow! If only this sermon and the research within had been available to the Women's Ordination Committee at Spiritus Christi 20 some years ago when we were attempting to study the role of women in the early church with the goal of finding a way to ordain Mary Ramerman! I've shared it today with as many as I could think of on that committee and others who were instrumental in that ordination. Thank you, Diana!
I am not a theologian or a master's student of the Bible, nor do I know other languages. I'm ordinary, 64, have been a believer since I was a child, am a God fan, who tries to grow and stay faithful. If all Libbie's new discoveries are true, and I am not doubting them, really, they are just on a much higher thought level than I'm on, how many more new discoveries are out there? What do new discoveries like this do to what I have always thought was my "firm foundation?" Can the Bible be counted on if the next new discovery is right around the corner?
I absolutely know that Libbie's passion is making the Bible MORE trustworthy by assuring us that our texts are the most ancient, most textually accurate. If you consider it for a moment, excellent scholarship doesn't undermine scripture. Rather, it ensures that the Bible can be counted on as a reliable text for generations to come. Also, I trust that the Holy Spirit is involved in a process of historical work and archaeological discoveries that reveal deeper truths when we humans are ready to embrace them. In the field of textual criticism and early Christian history, "new" discoveries are yielding the most ancient of truths! Thanks for bringing this up!
This is a beautiful testimony of inspired & inspiring scholarship! Kudos to Libbie and thank you for sharing it. 18 months ago I took Cynthia Bourgeault’s CAC course on Mary Magdalene, which introduced Mary the Tower. Your last word all in caps here sums up the life-changing learning I got: IMAGINE. I had a fabulous TA named Cassie who encouraged me to try Ignatian imaginative prayer, explicitly with the Luke story of Mary & Martha, an experience that will forever change how I read (& pray) the Bible. I never got carried away with the 20th c pop lit on MM, but this new line of study is something else. I’ve begun searching for icons of MM. It is wonderful to read this, an historic turning point! and I look forward to more.
This is a fascinating article that could profoundly reshape our thinking, not only about ‘Mary the Tower’ but of the editorial changes which ‘split one woman’ (Mary) into two (Mary & Martha) and the dualism which has so profoundly shaped our thinking and practice (ie. ‘Doing’ and ‘Being’) and the endless conflict of which is the ‘better’ path 🤔
This is simply astonishing. Thank you so much, and please thank your friend, for her amazing work. It truly boggles the mind to think how things might have been different. It also validates so much of the work of the 20th century that finally got women into leadership in most of the protestant church. I am one of those. I went to seminary in my early 40s took my first full-time position in my early 50s and now in my retirement — actually second retirement! I stepped back in voluntarily for a few years — I’m doing a bit of spiritual direction. This after having been raised in an extraordinarily conservative, fundamentalist Methodist Church in downtown Los Angeles, but blessed with parents who were open to questioning and read widely. That paid position I took? It was here in Santa Barbara, very soon after your sad departure. I have regretted not knowing you for 25 years!
Mary Magdalene wasn’t hidden because she wasn’t in the story—she was hidden because her authority was stripped from it.
The institutional church rebranded her as a prostitute, erased her confession in John 11, split her into multiple “Marys,” and passed her witness to Peter like it was a relay race. All because it was too threatening to admit: the first apostle was a woman.
She was the apostle to the apostles. The one who stayed when the men fled. The first to preach resurrection. Possibly the one who uttered the Christological confession in John 11. And yet for 2,000 years, her story was footnoted, fragmented, and spiritualized to death.
Thanks to the work of scholars like Libbie Schrader, Karen King, and Bruce Chilton, we’re finally recovering the reality: Mary Magdalene wasn’t just part of the story—she was the Tower that held it up.
Have you read the Gospel of Mary Magdalene? It circulated in early Christianity and offers a radically different view of her role. It’s not just apocrypha—it’s revelation.
Maybe read or listen before mansplaining
Pope Gregory I sent Christian missionaries to what is now England. On the other hand, he defamed Mary Magdalene.
I just reread your Mon for the third time. What does this research say to the Pope? “Hey your reverence it is time for you to resign, and let Mary take her rightful place!”
I can just imagine what would change. Universal approval of women havin choice for one thing. As doctrine is now women have suffered for to long! I ask what else would Mary would RIGHT.
o wow, I just wrote on getting stuck in the Martha role ( https://almutfurchert.substack.com/p/on-being-martha-and-mary) when a reader led me to your sermon. No wonder I got stuck. I was missing Mary, the tower! Thanks for this great inspiration, Diana!
These "epic readings" are fun to be in and to listen to. I wish this would be used more as a strategy for educating young people.
Diana, you should plan to attend a Network of Biblical Storytelling festival gathering. Brian McLaren was a keynote speaker a few years back - and he told us he was going to an event the next week called the Wild Goose Festival.
Tom Boomershine, an American Baptist minister, founded the Network back in the 1960s, being inspired by renewed interest in African griot tradition of storytelling. Tom has always maintained that there be a strong connection between performing storytellers and contemporary theologians.
The Network of Biblical Storytellers Festival Gathering from July 31 to August 2 at Baltimore, will feature an "epic telling" of the the first 12 chapters of the Gospel of John. My assignment will be to tell John 11:1-16.
Oh yes! Have FUN!
So much to appreciate here, Diana! The Rock and the Tower. It makes sense. It is powerful in image and meaning. Thank you for these insights and all you do to bring us closer to being more thoroughly informed and inspired.
Blessed be God
Praise be Mary the Tower...
Glory be to knowing the truth!!
Question: Have Libbie or any of the scholars taken a stab at dating the editorial redaction? I ask, because recall that in 325 ce Constantine declared Christianity to be the religion of the State. Immediately it became a public and political entity, as opposed to a domestic gathering. In the culture, public and politics was the purview of men, explicitly not women. (Cf. Karen Jo Torjesen's When Women Were Priests.) Is it possible that the redaction occurred at the time all women were being excluded from leadership in the Church because of this public v. domestic segregation?
Wow! If only this sermon and the research within had been available to the Women's Ordination Committee at Spiritus Christi 20 some years ago when we were attempting to study the role of women in the early church with the goal of finding a way to ordain Mary Ramerman! I've shared it today with as many as I could think of on that committee and others who were instrumental in that ordination. Thank you, Diana!
I am not a theologian or a master's student of the Bible, nor do I know other languages. I'm ordinary, 64, have been a believer since I was a child, am a God fan, who tries to grow and stay faithful. If all Libbie's new discoveries are true, and I am not doubting them, really, they are just on a much higher thought level than I'm on, how many more new discoveries are out there? What do new discoveries like this do to what I have always thought was my "firm foundation?" Can the Bible be counted on if the next new discovery is right around the corner?
I absolutely know that Libbie's passion is making the Bible MORE trustworthy by assuring us that our texts are the most ancient, most textually accurate. If you consider it for a moment, excellent scholarship doesn't undermine scripture. Rather, it ensures that the Bible can be counted on as a reliable text for generations to come. Also, I trust that the Holy Spirit is involved in a process of historical work and archaeological discoveries that reveal deeper truths when we humans are ready to embrace them. In the field of textual criticism and early Christian history, "new" discoveries are yielding the most ancient of truths! Thanks for bringing this up!
This is a beautiful testimony of inspired & inspiring scholarship! Kudos to Libbie and thank you for sharing it. 18 months ago I took Cynthia Bourgeault’s CAC course on Mary Magdalene, which introduced Mary the Tower. Your last word all in caps here sums up the life-changing learning I got: IMAGINE. I had a fabulous TA named Cassie who encouraged me to try Ignatian imaginative prayer, explicitly with the Luke story of Mary & Martha, an experience that will forever change how I read (& pray) the Bible. I never got carried away with the 20th c pop lit on MM, but this new line of study is something else. I’ve begun searching for icons of MM. It is wonderful to read this, an historic turning point! and I look forward to more.
Marvelous research by Libbie; thanks so much for sharing.
This is a fascinating article that could profoundly reshape our thinking, not only about ‘Mary the Tower’ but of the editorial changes which ‘split one woman’ (Mary) into two (Mary & Martha) and the dualism which has so profoundly shaped our thinking and practice (ie. ‘Doing’ and ‘Being’) and the endless conflict of which is the ‘better’ path 🤔
I am in tears. Thank you.
This is simply astonishing. Thank you so much, and please thank your friend, for her amazing work. It truly boggles the mind to think how things might have been different. It also validates so much of the work of the 20th century that finally got women into leadership in most of the protestant church. I am one of those. I went to seminary in my early 40s took my first full-time position in my early 50s and now in my retirement — actually second retirement! I stepped back in voluntarily for a few years — I’m doing a bit of spiritual direction. This after having been raised in an extraordinarily conservative, fundamentalist Methodist Church in downtown Los Angeles, but blessed with parents who were open to questioning and read widely. That paid position I took? It was here in Santa Barbara, very soon after your sad departure. I have regretted not knowing you for 25 years!