I found a post in this blog from several years ago, in which I commented that it was odd that most Google searches for the keyword “mary magdalene” came from the Philippines and Raleigh, NC. Today I revisited Google Trends to see if the same is still true.

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It seems I’ve had no success in reviving this blog, in spite of my best intentions. Given that I’ve channeled the energy formerly devoted to my Mary Magdalene work into my day job, I’m left with little time or energy to pour back into this blog or Magdalene.org.

That problem aside, it occured to me today that *should* I begin any project for this blog in the near future, it would be interesting to survey and compare the state of Mary Magdalene culture and studies today versus when this blog was most active, as the Da Vinci Code craze was winding down.

Just as a parent who sees a child every day doesn’t appreciate his/her growth as much as an aunt or uncle who only sees the same child every two (three?) years, perhaps examining Mary Magdalene opinions after an interval of two years would be useful in some way.

How have things changed? What Magdalene discussions are occuring in academic circles today? Are they occuring at all? What about popular culture? How about Mary Magdalene “movement” devotees? What related web searches are being performed? What art has proliferated? What books have been written?

I, for one, would be interested in seeing the results of this sort of survey.

From The Australian:

Righting wrongs about Mary
by Jill Rowbotham

Focusing on the opinion of one Elizabeth Fletcher, author of a book and website about women in the Bible, Rowbotham emphasizes Mary Magdalene’s Gospel importance and makes a few arguments against the DVC perspective, including:

The chief reason to believe Mary did not have a sexual relationship with Jesus was that his enemies never accused him of sexual misbehaviour.

After his death they accused him of illegitimacy, regarded as scandalous for a religious teacher, and of being “too fond of eating and drinking, especially with the wrong kind of people”.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but if Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene, he wouldn’t be accused of sexual misbehavior either. The above represents a rather weak argument, in my opinion. Still, it’s interesting to see the creativity being exercised in addressing this question.

I was happy to see the following article at Everything Alabama this morning (from The Birmingham News):

Jungian realizes pull of `Da Vinci’
by Kathy Kemp

Birmingham resident, Nancy Qualls-Corbett, is a Jungian psychologist whose perspective on ideas of masculine and feminine principles/qualities I find deeply interesting. Author of The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine, it seems to me that Qualls-Corbett has come the closest to putting her finger on why Margaret Starbird’s “sacred union” mythology has struck a nerve in our society. From the article:

She’s particularly interested in Mary Magdalene’s role in the story and the world’s increasing fascination with her. “My speculation is that people are seeing the need for balance in the world, and that would be the feminine side – of relating to each other, of appreciating the arts as well as science.”

A vast simplification, but very in line with my thinking as well.

Dr. Qualls-Corbett is giving a lecture in Birmingham on Friday; details are in the article.

In the article that follows, found at the CatholicHerald.com, we see a member of Catholic clergy defending Mary Magdalene’s traditional reputation as a sinner. This is interesting to me since it seems that the choices on this issue are:

1. Disregard the tradition entirely
2. Embrace the tradition and defend it

Embracing the tradition simply because it is tradition, without defending its historical likelihood, doesn’t appear to be an option.

Here is the article:

Straight Answers: Myths, Truths about Mary Magdalene
by Fr. William P. Saunders

Not a word uttered about the fact that Rome has distanced itself from the tradition. After concluding his defense of the sinner reputation by agreeing with Pope Gregory the Great, Fr. Saunders goes on to say (emphasis is mine):

As far as The Da Vinci Code is concerned, what one cannot construe is some of the misconceptions they erroneously present: for instance, that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus, the mother of Jesus’ child, a participant at the Last Supper, His prophetic successor, and a priestess. Such conclusions, despite the best efforts of pseudo scholars, have no foundation in sacred Scripture, sacred tradition, other historical resources or even heretical texts.

I find this amusing for some reason, even though he is clearly echoing the most commonly cited reasons for Mary Magdalene’s conflation with the other women. Maybe because one tradition is being overwritten by another for which there is about just as much evidence.

From DelawareOnline:

‘Code’ has women tapping into faith
By Gary Soulsman
The News Journal
05/19/2006

In response to the DVC movie, a local parish in Delaware has taken the opportunity as a so-called “teachable moment” rather than boycotting the film. Journalist Soulsman takes the opportunity to lightly address some questions of alienation that women feel toward Christianity and points toward Mary Magdalene–both in her Gospel role and her legendary roles–as an inspiration for empowerment.

“The Da Vinci Code” deepened Melissa Cox’s appreciation of Mary Magdalene as an apostle of Jesus.

Now that the best-selling novel is a film, the 23-year-old Newark woman plans to see it tonight with friends, hoping the film continues to fuel her passion for one of Christianity’s most debated figures.

“I see Mary Magdalene as a woman living in a patriarchal world, and standing up in the face of all those who hated her because she was a woman with her passion to live a spiritual life,” Cox said. “I am really happy that she’s being rediscovered for the amazingly powerful person she was.”

There are a couple of quotes from my interview with Mr. Soulsman in the article, and a good little sidebar about Mary Magdalene that he put together, citing me as a resource. I always appreciate good links.

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.

Today, in spite of a mean headcold, I caught a matinee showing of The Da Vinci Code. I probably would have waited to see it, but darn that Fandango.com, they just make it too easy to buy tickets in advance. I purchased them on Thursday just in case the theater was sold out, given that this is the opening weekend for the “biggest film event of the year.” I needn’t have worried; the theater was only filled to about 60% of capacity.

The most remarkable thing I can say about the movie is that it played out on the screen almost exactly like it played out in my head as I read Dan Brown’s novel. Now, this can mean a couple of things. Either Dan Brown is very good at generating in his readers the setting he has in mind, or Ron Howard was so painstakingly faithful to the book that not a prop was out of place. Perhaps both possibilities are true, but whatever the case, the end result is that I watched the movie feeling like I had already seen it. Sure, it was fun to see Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen and Jean Reno acting out the characters that had mostly remained faceless in my mind’s eye, but I was also perfectly comfortable getting up for some popcorn during the film without feeling like I would miss anything important.

Dull, plodding, boring, literalistic; these are all adjectives used by critics when referring to the movie. I had hoped that having lived my life with DVC for the last few years would have rendered the experience a bit more exciting, but what I found was that the criticisms of the movie were perfectly warranted. I was impressed by the film’s deft avoidance of the more controversial dialogue in the novel, though, and was almost interested by a few flashbacks of a pregnant Mary Magdalene with curly red hair. I’ll admit that the hair on the back of my neck stood up at least once during a couple of dramatic pans of Mary Magdalene’s sarcophagus, heightened as they were by a fantastic film score. Magdalene’s alabaster jar even made more than one appearance in the movie, but tragically, it contained a single red rose. (Could there be anything more cliché than a single, long-stemmed red rose, under any circumstance? Hello, Phantom of the Opera. Why not a lily? It would have even been appropriate given the importance placed on the fleur-de-lis in the story.)

The buzz on the Mary Magdalene email lists about the movie is generally supportive. A few people have gushed about how beautiful and empowering it is to see the sacred feminine making such an appearance in popular culture, but it just didn’t have that vibe for me. It felt tired. Overwrought. Milked dry. When I left the theater with my husband, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the movie will do more to end the DVC phenomenon than to perpetuate it. It was as preachy as the book, minus the action and excitement. Although I suppose it is a cultural marker to see goddess-worship and Christianity mingled in this manner on the big screen, it didn’t feel momentous in the least. As the audience filed out after one of the most anti-climactic final scenes ever, I caught mumbles of how long and boring the experience had been.

My advice? Wait for DVC on DVD.