This is an article I found this morning in the Pocono Record, which appears to be a smallish Pennsylvania periodical:

Theologian: Clergy need to learn why ‘Da Vinci’ resonates
by Helen Yanulus

A professor in the Theology/Religious Studies department of the Jesuit school, University of Scranton , Eric Plumer, is apparently working on a book called The Da Vinci Phenomenon: Why the Religious Claims Made in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ Have Struck Such a Chord in America. A rather unweildy title, but my heart sings with the knowledge that an institutional scholar is taking the reaction to DVC seriously in potentially positive ways. He echoes my own sentiment on the phenomenon in some ways:

Eric Plumer…noted that Brown’s religious thriller is “selling like hotcakes” because an element of the book — which was adapted for the big screen and made its debut last weekend — has resonated with readers.

That interest swirls around the role of Mary Magdalene.

Plumer’s belief is that Mary Magdalene’s mistaken reputation as a harlot is behind the resonance as people realize how her faulty identity and the devaluing of women throughout Christian history has damaged the appreciation of the feminine in Western culture. I believe that the appeal of the book goes beyond this into an extra-Christian interest in the “sacred feminine,” but we’re going in the right direction here.

Although Plumer obviously believes that Jesus was celibate, he goes on to reflect on issues of sexuality and the acceptance of women in Jesus’ ministry:

“Many people like the idea that Jesus was more human and capable of understanding love between a man and a woman, although Brown got his facts wrong,” Plumer said. “Jesus was celibate, but that doesn’t mean he had no sexual feelings, or he wouldn’t be human.”

Plumer noted that thoughts of sexuality were at one time regarded as degrading, impure and disgusting. But Jesus didn’t have that fear of women or sexuality.

“It’s not Dan Brown’s fault that the novel is so popular. Churches have to ask themselves, ‘What aren’t we doing?’” Plumer said.

“I think people sense that women were left out. That wasn’t the attitude of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ attitude towards women isn’t fully reflected in the church.”

Well, thank you, Professor Plumer. Although I think there is more to the resonance with DVC than what has been covered in this article, I applaud you for initiating this dialogue from within academia.

I’ve had difficulty keeping up with all of the Mary Magdalene appearances in the media lately since everyone seems to mention her name in association with The Da Vinci Code. Weeding through the casual references to find articles of relevance took a little while. Here, without commentary, is a list of the most on-topic news postings I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks. They are all either about Mary Magdalene directly, or germane to the topics I write about here in The Magdalene Review.

Newsweek
The Faces of Mary Magdalene
May 29, 2006 issue

Houston Chronicle
Gnostic Gospels one key to Da Vinci Code origins
May 22, 2006
By Richard Vara and Tara Dooley

Online Journal
“The Da Vinci Code,” the film, gives the ultimate question (praise Goddess!) a radical answer
May 22, 2006
By Harvey Wasserman
(Also appeared in the Columbia Free Press on May 20, 2006.)

SFGate.com
Finding My Religion: Tau Malachi
May 22, 2006
by David Ian Miller

Toronto Star
Da Vinci Code unsettles church
May 21, 2006
by Joanna Manning

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Brown drew inspiration from local author’s books for ‘Da Vinci Code’
May 18, 2006
By Cecelia Goodnow

Ottawa Citizen
Women might be key to Da Vinci film success
May 18, 2006
By Theresa Tayler, The Calgary Herald

MyrtleBeachOnline.com
‘Code’ stirs quest for knowledge
May 18, 2006
BY Tom Heinen, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The New York Sun
Looking Behind the ‘Code’ (excerpt)
May 17, 2006
By Bruce Chilton

uuworld.org
The Magdalene code
May 15, 2006
By Elizabeth A. Lerner

Hartford Courant
The Curious Case Of Mary Magdalene
May 14, 2006
By Harold W. Attridge

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
‘The Code’: Mary Magdalene — Apostle to the apostles
May 14, 2006
By Ann Rodgers

Contra Costa Times
Career-path renaissance
May 14, 2006
By Randy Myers

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Author Jane Lahr
May 14, 2006
By Jane Henderson

The cover story in the coming week’s issue of Newsweek (available online now) is devoted to Mary Magdalene:

An Inconvenient Woman
by Jonathan Darman

Taking an angle in favor of the modern feminist position on Mary Magdalene, Darman makes an effort to trace Mary Magdalene’s history in Christianity and Western culture. He begins by quoting from the resurrection narrative in John and then from the Gospel of Mary, emphasizing the importance that she had to the earliest Christians as an apostle and leader. Then comes the pivot:

Why, then, did this woman, whom the New Testament tells us was Jesus’ constant companion and whom the Gnostics claim was privileged above all others, disappear after the resurrection? If Mary were so important to Jesus, why is there no mention of her in Acts, or in the Epistles?

Focusing first on the rivalry between Peter and Mary in the Gnostic texts, Darman then makes an unusual correlation. The Jesus that Mary encountered in the garden (“unrecognizable, untouchable”) could be seen as supportive of docetic beliefs, and the risen Jesus encountered by the male apostles (“Handle me and see me…for a spirit hath not hands and flesh”) represented faith in a bodily resurrection. Going on to mention Constantine’s rise to power as the impetus that sent Gnostic monks scrambling to bury their sacred texts, we’re led to believe that the rift that occurred within Christianity over Christ’s nature was related to the conflict between orthodox Christianity and Gnosticism, at the beginning of which were Peter and Mary Magdalene. When Constantine won, therefore, Mary Magdalene lost.

Fearing that bishops enforcing the new orthodoxy would destroy the texts, monks tried to erase all evidence of the Gnostic tradition. They buried the Gospels, with their powerful portrait of Mary Magdalene, in the sand.

The early Church, of course, went on a patriarchal rampage to oppress women in general, and Darman trots out some of the usual suspects: Paul’s letter to the Ephesians on women submitting to their husbands, Tertullian’s “because of you [women] even the Son of God had to die” in his On Women’s Attire, and finally, Pope Gregory the Great’s 6th century homily. Darman lays the blame for Mary Magdalene’s bad reputation squarely at Gregory’s feet:

Gregory created the prostitute, as if from thin air.

I’ve never had any argument with the notion that the Church fathers were misogynistic; they most obviously were, as were most other men of the time. Again, my familiar refrain: Christianity didn’t invent patriarchy. There is no evidence that Mary Magdalene’s reputation was constructed wholesale in an effort to promote a male domination agenda in spite of the fact that it was advantageous to such ends. In this case, Mary Magdalene was a very convenient woman.

Karen King is quoted by Darman in the article. While Dr. King has my utmost respect, I do differ with her and her colleagues on a couple of points. First, their now-standard position on the origin of Mary Magdalene’s reputation, which I touched on above. Second, there is the issue of Mary Magdalene’s newly-appreciated role as wife and mother. For feminist scholars everywhere, this seems to be anathema. Not only because it lacks historical merit, however, but also because it is sexual.

It has taken me quite some time to want to discuss the issue of Mary Magdalene and gender politics here, simply because I do respect the scholars who have written and spoken on this subject. While I agree fully with their assertion that there is no compelling evidence that Mary Magdalene was married, to Jesus or anyone else, much less that she bore any children, I have to step back when people are criticized for holding such thoughts because they are demeaning.

“Why do we feel the need to desexualize Mary?” wonders Karen King, author of “The Gospel of Mary of Magdala.” “We’ve gotten rid of the myth of the prostitute. Now there’s this move to see her as wife and mother. Why isn’t it adequate to see her as disciple and perhaps apostle?”

Note that she doesn’t ask why people insist on holding such beliefs in spite of history, she asks why we can’t appreciate Mary Magdalene as she does, that is, desexualized. The source of female power appears to be acceptable only when it springs from the same sources as male power: authority, leadership, witness. When the source of a woman’s power is her body, it is somehow viewed as illegitimate. Mary Magdalene, in her role as apostle and leader, is acceptable to more conservative feminists because it places her on equal footing with the male disciples. Mary Magdalene, in her legendary role of wife and mother (and prostitute), is problematic because she is being remembered as a woman.

Here is a potentially shocking observation that I’ve made in the last few years: many women enjoy being women. They want to be acknowledged for their reproductive abilities as well as for their intellectual prowess. Where fifty years ago women may have rightfully asked, “do you love me only for my body?” they now may ask if they are wrong for wanting to be loved for anything but their minds. Darman says:

Indeed, for all its revolutionary claims, “The Da Vinci Code” is remarkably old-fashioned, making Mary important for her body more than her mind. In the movie, we see a stricken, shadowy Magdalene with swollen belly being spirited out of Jerusalem by a crowd of attendant men. But we never hear her voice. “The Da Vinci Code” seems to think that the secret tradition of Mary Magdalene speaks to the carnal. In reality, it tells of something far more subversive: the intellectual equality of the sexes. The current Magdalene cult still focuses on her sexuality even though no early Christian writings speak of her sexuality at all.

I wonder, has Darman actually talked to the current Magdalene cult? Or is he simply reading the media reports that obsessively question whether or not Jesus could have been married to Mary Magdalene? If he had taken the time to talk to some bona fide Mary Magdalene “cultists,” he might have heard tales about how thinking of Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ equal and complement is empowering for women who struggle with their everyday relationships with (gasp) men. In spite of Karen King’s witty observation, made more than once since 2003, that viewing Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ wife “makes her the poster child for heterosexual marriage,” most women in America are heterosexual, and they don’t have a solid understanding of history or feminist theory (as I am probably demonstrating here). Not only that, but they continue to struggle within unequal relationships, not only in marriage, but with fathers, brothers, bosses, priests, car mechanics, computer salesmen, and the list goes on. When Jane Doe encounters sexism, she doesn’t always know the approved feminist response. If viewing Mary Magdalene as a woman who could teach, lead, witness at the same time as being loving and nurturing, where is the harm? How is this demeaning? This is, after all, the kind of life that modern women lead.

We’re bringing home the bacon, and by the heavens, we’re still frying it up in a pan. We’re paying bills, buying houses, and wiping snotty noses. Some of us, along with our more enlightened male partners, are attempting to learn how the exchange of traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics may wax and wane within a more egalitarian relationship. Some of us revel in the power that we wield in the boardroom and in the labor and delivery ward.

So yes, a female saint who is sexual is entirely necessary. The important distinction is that today, it is women who are defining Mary Magdalene’s legendary sexual identity. Men promoted a prostitute for women to look up to, and we’ve since discovered a woman red in human experience: strong, independent, intelligent, and sensual. The legendary Magdalene is everything the Virgin was and more, and regardless of the dubious relationship her legend has to history, there is a reason why mythology moves us. Perhaps feminists would be well advised to ask why women are the ones to “re-sexualize” Mary Magdalene. Sure, we could point fingers at Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh, but it was Margaret Starbird who lit the fire of Mary Magdalene as sacred feminine. It was Dan Brown’s book that brought it to such popular attention, but the ideas that are moving women were developed by a woman. (More on that another day; Starbird has been criticized for unwittingly reinforcing ancient attitudes about men and women.) Men aren’t the ones holding women’s retreats and workshops all over the country to learn about a Mary Magdalene who was as complex as they are.

As I’ve said before, there is more to this than history. And certainly, there is more to it than what is politically correct. If I hope to accomplish anything with this post, it is to point out that the complexity of Mary Magdalene’s appeal far exceeds what appears in popular news media, and that there are some potential pitfalls in the current feminist understanding of same.

This is an article, for which I was interviewed, that appeared today in The Columbus Dispatch:

A ‘good tall tale’
by Dennis M . Mahoney

Mahoney obviously talked to quite a few people in putting together this article, to his credit. I think that the only person he spoke to who was favorable to the ideas presented in The Da Vinci Code, however, was Margaret Starbird. This comes as no suprise since many of the ideas in DVC were developed by her.

Some highlights…

From Bart Ehrman:

“They need to approach this movie like they approach Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If you want to learn about the history of the Middle Ages, you don’t want to watch the movie to get your information,” Ehrman said.

“If you want to know about the history of early Christianity, don’t watch The Da Vinci Code. Talk to a historian.”

From Sister Christine Shenk:

Schenk said while Jesus could have been married, it wasn’t to Mary Magdalene. She added that the thought of him being married rubs against a Catholic belief that “You can’t give yourself fully over to the kingdom of God if you’re married.

“If we did have some discovery some day, which I think is unlikely, that Jesus was married, that would be sort of a hard thing for people in that kind of Catholic culture to handle.

From a Focus On The Family representative:

Alex McFarland of Focus on the Family said a positive of The Da Vinci Code is that it is getting teenagers interested in theology and church history.

McFarland, who as director of teen apologetics for the Colorado-based organization runs conferences nationwide, said there’s no reason Christians should avoid the movie.

And finally, from Margaret Starbird:

“But ultimately, it is far more dangerous to hold unexamined opinions based on errors than it is to search for truth. What good is faith if its basic tenets are not true? “

Aside from the potential danger of holding examined opinions that are based on errors, I find the second part of her statement to be the most compelling, and interestingly, the most ironic. What good IS faith if its basic tenets are not true? Starbird could just as well ask the same question about her own faith, and the faith that she is engendering in perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions via her ideas in DVC. Most critical thinkers agree that the ideas presented in DVC and in Margaret’s books are either not true (that is, they are not based on verifiable fact), or even if they were true, could never be shown to be probable. Much of her work is based on mystical exegesis.

Although I don’t find anything inherently wrong with mysticism, it cannot be mistaken for history under any circumstances. You can believe that the name “Magdalene” is inspired by a passage in Micah, but that doesn’t mean it was so. You can believe that the name “Magdalene” was spelled the way that it was spelled because of the numerical value it generates in Greek, but that really doesn’t make it so. You can believe that Mary Magdalene was the “lost bride” of Christ and the representative of the Divine Feminine in Christianity, but again I say, that doesn’t make it so. The evidence that Starbird has compiled to support these ideas was developed after the fact, and remains tenuous at best.

It’s equally true, as far as I’m concerned, that just because something is in the Gospels doesn’t necessarily make it so, but at least we have a something, in writing, much closer to the source. What we have with Starbird’s theories is a lot of “it could have been,” and, based on modern sensitiblities, “it would have made sense if.” As Bart Ehrman pointed out in his recent book, it would “make sense” if natural disasters and disease and war never occured either, but our preferred vision of the world doesn’t usually translate into reality. Wishful thinking, unfortunately, doesn’t make it so.

Lest I come off too harshly where Margaret Starbird is concerned, I should reiterate for readers that I appreciate her ideas very much as mythology, and believe that much of the response we’ve seen to DVC is indicative of the merit of such mythology. However, mythology and history are not the same kinds of pursuits. It appears to me that our obsession with revising history in order to validate our feelings about this new mythology is the result of a human impulse toward literalism. It’s unfortunate, but nothing new.

So, I return to the question: “What good is a faith if its basic tenets are not true?”

It seems to me that it all depends on your definition of “truth,” and the relationship it bears to “fact.” What rings true to one doesn’t necessarily ring true for another. Unless you have a general distrust of historical method and see a conspiracy lurking in every shadow, “fact” is something that isn’t dependent on anything “ringing” at all. It either was or wasn’t. Nothing philosophical about it. Facts can be disputed, but must be done so on credible evidence.

Are there some truths represented in DVC? Probably.

Are they based on fact? Probably not.

You can debunk “fact,” but you can’t debunk “truth.” You can only argue about “truth;” this pasttime has occupied priests, philosophers and theologians for millennia. Ironically, both Christians and DVC people feel that their faith is bolstered by the truth, as they see it, and its relationship to fact. In the case of the DVC people, critics see the “facts” that underpin their “truth” as much less probable than the “facts” that underpin the “truth” of traditional Christianity. This is probably accurate. The question I have is, if you take away the “facts,” in either case, what is left of the “truth?” Does it fall away like a house of cards? Must all of our “truths” be based on literal “fact?”

I think that there is much here worth examining.

According to this article, from The Sydney Morning Herald’s website, The Da Vinci Code left the Cannes audience unimpressed:

The sound of no hands clapping

When, finally, the camera swept back to Hanks, gazing through the glass roof of the Louvre’s foyer to where he had deduced – how is uncertain, but never mind – that Mary Magdalene’s sarcophagus now lay, there was the deathly sound of no one clapping. A few people whistled – a sign of derision in Europe – but, in truth, The Da Vinci Code was not actually bad enough for anyone to enjoy tearing strips off it. Like Hanks, whose face seemed to be pursed in perplexity throughout the film, it just took itself way too seriously. If the novel was popcorn, Howard’s film was a badly overcooked goose.

Of course, this is the Cannes audience, notoriously more picky than the American public (and I say this not to criticize the Cannes audience…*cough*), so it could still go blockbuster here in the United States. I’ll be attending on Saturday, so for better or worse, I’ll post my own thoughts on the film sometime this weekend. In the meantime, there are several brief comments from critics, such as the one that follows, in the article above:

Mike Goodridge, Screen Daily “A pulpy page-turner in its original incarnation as a huge international bestseller has become a stodgy, grim thing in the exceedingly literal-minded film version of The Da Vinci Code.”

It doesn’t sound terribly promising, but on a positive note, it appears that the film contains slight adjustments to deflect criticisms from the Roman Catholic Church and Opus Dei. Little is said, apparently, of any conspiracy by the early Church against Mary Magdalene, and the Opus Dei angle has been softened by making the villains members of an offshoot sect. I’ll be interested in seeing what other compromises, if any, Howard and company have made to minimize the controversy. Of course, it sounds like the biggest controversy of all (and you know the one to which I’m referring) is still present. It wouldn’t really be the same story without it, now would it?

Protests are on the rise against the showing of The Da Vinci Code. Found at CNN.com:

‘Da Vinci’ provokes widespread protests

The movie is premiering at the Cannes Film Festival tomorrow, and it appears that protests are beginning in Europe and Asia.

Anger over “The Da Vinci Code,” premiering Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival, escalated Tuesday as Christian groups from South Korea, Thailand, Greece and India planned boycotts, a hunger strike and attempts to block or shorten screenings.

This article is a brief survey of some groups and individuals that have begun protesting the release of the film. Perhaps not surprisingly, not all offended groups were concerned with the movie’s depiction of Christianity:

Also, while not planning a protest or boycott, members of the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation expressed unhappiness with the film’s heavy, a monk-assassin, being an albino, as described in the book.

No word of any Molotov cocktails yet, but I haven’t heard any news from Paris…

The May 1, 2006 issue of the Sun:

Need I say more?

Probably not, but I will anyway.

On first glance, I supposed that the Sun article would be a sensationalized account of the Gospel of Mary, discovered in the late 19th century and published in English in the 1970s. I was shocked when I opened the rag and found them discussing secret teachings revealed by Christ to Magdalene:

• A war in Baghdad topples a tyrant and tears the city apart.
• Scientists discover a life-extension cure at the bottom of the ocean.
• A “weapon of flame” flies out of the East to destroy the wealthiest city on Earth – possibly a description of a nuclear missle striking New York.
• An African pope is elected leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Apparently, the author of this piece used a few (very few) tidbits of actual information from the New Testament gospels as well as the real Gospel of Mary to introduce a completely made-up “prophecy” gospel. Not surprisingly, I noticed that the article appears in what seems to be a regular section on prophecies.

Hogwash, to be sure, and entertaining if you know better, but downright scary when you think about how many people might actually believe it. I wonder if any of those people will then go on to come across a reference to the real Gospel of Mary and understand it to be the prophecy text mentioned in the Sun?

I shudder to think.

Found at the website for The Tidings, a weekly newspaper by the Los Angeles Archdiocese:

Mary Magdalene: Setting the record straight
by Jerry Filteau

This article focuses on the effort to redeem Mary Magdalene from her reputation as a penitent sinner. Some excellent points are made in the process:

Of the repentant prostitute version of the Magdalene, she said, “What a lot of us who’ve done some work on her say is … it’s a wrong one and in the process it’s robbing us of (appreciation of) women’s leadership at a crucial moment in the early church. In other words, in a way it’s easier … to deal with her as a repentant sinner than as she emerges in the Gospels in her own right.”

The article hits on some salient points of this issue, such as Mary Magdalene’s demon possession, the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, the fact that she witnesses the resurrection, etc. It’s the standard position for Christian feminists on Mary Magdalene, but worth a read. I was particularly impressed by the snappy wrap-up by Sister Elizabeth:

Summing up the real Mary Magdalene with what she called the “w’s,” Sister Elizabeth said, “Let’s get this straight: She was not Jesus’ wife … neither a wife nor a whore, but a witness.”

That’s a newsbite worth repeating.

Also in the news is an article about Margaret Starbird from the website for a local Puget Sound newspaper called The News Tribune:

Steilacoom writer backs mystery of ‘Da Vinci’
by Steve Maynard

(Steilacoom is a place name for those not from Washington State.)

Here the author of this article gives a few details from a local talk given by Margaret last week. Hinging on the references made to her books in DVC, Maynard includes a few quotes from members of her audience about the idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married as well as the upcoming DVC movie.

Before listening to Starbird, Billie Blattler of Steilacoom said she couldn’t wait to see the movie version of “The Da Vinci Code” the day it opens.

But some of her friends – while Christians like her – refused her invitation to go. “They said, ‘It’s all lies,’” Blattler said. “It’s a fictional story,” she said, but “it has a lot of facts in it.”

The article goes on to say:

Boosted by Brown’s references, Starbird speaks around the country on evidence from the Bible, folklore and medieval art that she believes shows Jesus and Mary Magdalene were husband and wife. She also believes Jesus and Mary Magdalene produced a child – a daughter.

Interestingly, I just got a catalog from Margaret’s publisher the other day (Inner Traditions). Since last August, she’s sold 24,000 copies of her most recent book, Bride In Exile. Her first book, The Woman With The Alabaster Jar, one of two of her titles to be mentioned in DVC, has sold 140,000 since it came out in 1993. Previous to the publication of DVC in 2003, it had sold fewer than 50,000 copies, according to the Inner Traditions catalog. So in the last three years, her first book has almost tripled in sales compared to what it had done during the previous decade.

Margaret is the hardest working Mary Magdalene author I know. She tours the country doing speaking engagements regularly, and did so even before the publication of DVC. Even before Dan Brown’s book hit shelves, Margaret was filling workshops from coast to coast. Certainly the number of invitations has increased since 2003, but she is serious about spreading her message. And there are a great number of people listening.

This isn’t all about The Da Vinci Code. The way I see it, DVC is merely shining a great big light on something that has been happening for a number of years. This is why I think that the interest in Mary Magdalene will continue far beyond the DVC mania.

According to the new Google tool, Google Trends, domestic searches for Mary Magdalene are most popular in Raleigh, NC. Globally, the most searches for Mary Magdalene material come from the Philippines:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=mary+magdalene

I never would have guessed.

Given the spread between the Philippines and the United States in Mary Magdalene Google searches, I have to wonder what’s going on there. I once met a nun from the Philippines who lived in an order under Mary Magdalene’s patronage, and there are some towns/villages that count her as a patron, but I never would have guessed that interest in her was so high there overall. (If Google statistics are any indication, that is.)

If anyone has any insight into why this might be the case, I’d love to hear any ideas.

More news about the documentary film that is associated with Dan Burstein’s upcoming book of the same name, Secrets of Mary Magdalene. I found this news at C21Media.net:

3DD tells more secrets
by Jo Anne Kenny

This very short newsbite announces that the UK media company 3DD Entertainment purchased the rights to distribute the documentary DVD outside of North America. The film is summed up thus:

The DVD will include a high-definition 48-minute film, looking at the historical impact and emerging legacy of Magdalene, as well as a Mary Magdalene Roundtable doc special (1×48) that gathers a group of experts to discuss the issues surrounding the ‘bad girl of the Bible.’

I assume that this site is geared toward media industry watchers, given the lingo, but it’s exciting to see that the film is moving ever closer to release.