The Magdalene Review

About that new job…

And now, after almost two years, I revive my long-lost Mary Magdalene blog. There is much to say after this extreme interval of time, but let me begin by saying that in the last two years, my Mary Magdalene research has been drastically curtailed. By choice, but for good reason, I believe. Let’s call it a sabbatical for now, and discuss it more later.

For now, suffice it to say that I’ve devoted most of the time spent previously on my “second job” as a Mary Magdalene researcher focused on improving stakes in my “first job.” Now that I feel that I’m on stable footing, now that I have cleared my head of some difficulties I was having with the Mary Magdalene community and now that I’ve found some desperately-needed equilibrium, it seems a good time to revive the blog. Not only that, it’s also about time to update Magdalene.org!

(Did I happen to mention that this is Magdalene.org’s 10th anniversary year?)

Many blessings and humble gratitude to my devoted readers who continue to offer encouragement even after a long absence.

As always, live well.

Hey, hey, my, my.

I’ve tried thus far to make it a point to avoid discussing much about my non-Mary Magdalene activities in this blog, because, well, it’s a blog about Mary Magdalene. But in light of my reduced posting frequency, I thought an explanation might be appropriate.

Actually, there are a couple of reasons for the lack of activity here. First, I’ve started a new job that doesn’t have the flexibility for posting during the day, and my evenings are usually devoted to the always-bouncing three-year-old in our house. There is always a period of adjustment when I start a new job until I find a place in my new schedule for Mary Magdalene work. I’m sure it will open up fairly soon.

Second–and this is probably the more relevant reason–I’m still suffering from a bit of Da Vinci Code burnout. It isn’t that Mary Magdalene or Biblical studies or Christian art are any less important to me than they were six months ago, it’s just that I feel like I’m hearing the same song on the radio every time I turn it on. That’s enough to tarnish even a favorite melody for a time.

In spite of my posting inactivity, I do have a couple of things that I’m working on. I’ve started collecting more personal stories about Mary Magdalene for what I hope will be a book-length project. I’ve also started gathering references and resources for a web page / essay about the recent gossip that Mary Magdalene was represented as pregnant in many famous works of art. As far as I know, this rumor started with Margaret Starbird, and it has always bothered me deeply. I think it’s a case of viewing works of art way outside of their intended context, so what I’m attempting to do is establish some context for people who might not be aware of it otherwise. My husband, Chris, has been conversing with some medieval costume historian-types to support me in this endeavor, so we have yet another list of titles to check out from the UW library. I’ve also been in touch with a few art and fashion historians myself, with mixed success.

My to-do list is growing stagnant and neglected (and you should see my email inbox!), so I’ll be trying to get down to more Mary Magdalene business soon!

New theme

Yesterday, while relaxing on the holiday, I decided to do some blog maintenance. I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and changed my theme. When first starting this blog, I felt that I wanted to include as much of everything as possible. Now that I’m a number of months into it, I’ve learned what kinds of things I really care about presenting to readers, and my old theme felt too crowded.

The theme I’m using now is called “Rin,” which has a rather soothing and Zen-like quality to it.  Currently I am working on creating a unique theme for The Magdalene Review, but until it’s ready, I’m quite fond of this one. 

Fodor’s DVC travel book

While I was at Barnes & Noble last night, I noticed that the Fodor’s Guide to The Da Vinci Code: On the Trail of the Best-Selling Novel is finally out. I did an interview for the book last year, and had almost forgotten about it. Thumbing through it, I found a small section on Mary Magdalene, which the author ended with a quote from my interview. They caught me in a “Joseph Campbell” moment, apparently:

Flawed or not, Mary Magdalene’s reputation has an undeniable resonance, says Lesa Bellevie, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Mary Magdalene. “Mary Magdalene the repentant sinner had a profound influence on the direction taken by Western culture,” Bellevie says. “As the Church’s primary example of pious repentance, she became a tremendously popular saint.”

“Mary Magdalene is a woman whose time has come,” Bellevie believes. “We don’t need to make up speculative histories for something to be spiritually meaningful, and neither does something need to be historically accurate for it to be spiritually meaningful–this is the power of mythology.”

Happy Gospel of Judas Day!

Yes, I realize that the publication of the Gospel of Judas by the National Geographic is surrounded by a great deal of controversy, but I am excited about it nonetheless. We have a family outing planned for this evening that includes a stop at Barnes & Noble to pick up a copy for our library.

Some links:

• Roger Pearse’s page on GJudas at Tertullian.org is very well organized: The Coptic Gospel of Judas (Iscariot)
• The new National Geographic page is very nice. It includes some images of the manuscript as well as the Coptic and an English translation: The Lost Gospel of Judas
• A transcription of the Coptic, in .pdf format.
• Jeremy Puma over at Fantastic Planet has a brief commentary (from a modern Gnostic point of view) based on his reading of the text last night: Gnostic thoughts on the Gospel of Judas itself.
• ‘Gospel of Judas’ offers contrarian view of Jesus, MSNBC.
• New Testament: Judas redeemed, by Linda Morris, Sydney Morning Herald.
• In his own words: Judas the betrayer was really Judas the chosen one, by Linda Morris, Sydney Morning Herald.

What is my interest in this text? Initially I had hoped that it would include a mention of Mary Magdalene, or at least some woman disciple, but it sounds as if that won’t be the case. Regardless, I’m eager to read it on its own merits. How often is it that we, the reading public, get access to a new document dating back to the origins of Christianity? Given that we have to wait decades sometimes for translations of important texts to trickle out of academia, it’s a little like Christmas morning when they actually hit shelves.

Magdalene Review an Emergent blog?

According to the 2006 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, as cited by Church Executive Magazine (“Late Breaking News”), my blog is one of those that “are used by Emergent Church practitioners for communication.”

This comes as a complete surprise to me, as it possibly will to a few of the other owners of blogs listed. I first heard about the Emergent movement a few months ago, and although i find the whole concept fascinating, I haven’t run out to my friendly neighborhood Emergent Church to sign up. I’m rather curious about what criteria were used to compose this list and how MR came to be on it. It isn’t offensive in the least, only inaccurate.

Long live the Internet.

* * *
Update (04/02/06): I forgot to mention that I discovered the above at Carmen Andres’ blog, In The Open Space: God & Culture ( 04/01/06, “The Blog and the Emergent Church”).

Blog of the month!

Good news!

I’m happy to announce that The Magdalene Review has been chosen to be blog of the month for April by Jim West and Brandon Wason at Biblioblogs.com.

Please stop by to read my interview, and check out some of the excellent blogs that they have listed there.

Thanks, Jim and Brandon!

DVC fatigue

Today I’m suffering significantly from Da Vinci Code burn-out. Everywhere I turn, DVC is there. It seems that no one can discuss Mary Magdalene without mentioning DVC (myself included), which is profoundly disappointing at times. In fact, at the moment, I wish that the whole question of Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s romantic status would just drop off the face of the earth. There are so many more interesting things to think about!

Normally I have a pretty high tolerance for this subject matter, and I do think that it is necessary to analyze the whole DVC phenomenon, but occasionally, I admit, I just get tired of hearing about it.

It’s a good thing I have time to work this out of my system before my DVC discussion series begins in May.

LibraryThing

For those who haven’t seen it, LibraryThing is a website that allows you to enter all of the books in your personal library in order to keep track of them. You can also share information about your library, compare your collection to those of others, see how obscure your collection is, and more fun.

I’ve set up a LibraryThing catalog for my Mary Magdalene collection. I’ll place it under my Mary Magdalene links on my blog homepage as well.

Magdalene people

Before I post more thoughts on Mary Magdalene inspired by the roundtable discussion from this weekend, I’d like to acknowledge the people I met while I was there. In the photo below, from left to right: Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Deirdre Good, me, Jane Schaberg, Elaine Pagels, Susan Haskins, and Katherine Kurs. (Thanks to Rob Fruchtman for wrangling my cranky digital camera for this photo, and to all of the participants for accomodating my request for a group shot!)

To put this into some perspective, these are people whose work I’ve been reading for many years, some of whom are responsible for my continuing interest in Mary Magdalene. To meet them was a thrill, really, “dream come true” territory if just a little more gushing is permitted. I wasn’t really sure what to expect as far as being an accepted participant, and was delighted to find that, for the most part, everyone was warm and courteous.

The film crew, who is not pictured, as well as others who were involved in the production, were easy to work with and very accomodating. They were all extremely interested in the subject matter, and I heard some great personal stories about experiences and views of Mary Magdalene.

I would have liked to take more snapshots during the whole process, but it was a whirlwind of activity that made it impossible to linger about. If there’s one place I would have liked to linger, though, it would have been in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, on West 46th Street, just off of Times Square. It’s a stunningly beautiful church with several chapels and an exquisite deep blue ceiling covered with gold stars.