The gospel of Luke tells a famous story about a woman who did a wonderful thing for Jesus. (Luke 7:36-50).
Jesus had been invited to eat at the home of a Pharisee named Simon, but Simon turned out to be a terrible host. When Jesus came to the house, Simon failed to have a servant wash his feet. Simon also failed to greet Jesus with a kiss. Simon failed to give Jesus oil for his head. Rude, rude, rude!
Jesus said nothing about any of these slights, and he reclined at the table with Simon as if nothing were wrong. But then something extraordinary happened.
An unnamed “sinful woman” crashed the party and made quite a ruckus. She knelt at Jesus’s feet crying, so much that her tears spilled on his feet. She scandalously took off her hair covering, used her hair to wipe his feet, and then kissed his feet. She broke open an alabaster jar of perfume and poured it out on Jesus’s feet.
Jesus accepted all this without any sort of comment. But his host had a cow. Simon couldn’t hide the fact that he thought Jesus was a false prophet for not condemning the “sinful woman.”
Jesus then confronted Simon, pointing out that the woman had made right all the ways in which Simon had failed Jesus as a host. As a reward to the woman, he told her that her sins were forgiven.
That’s a remarkable story, and it’s provided the material for millions of sermons over the centuries. The woman isn’t named, but somehow, most people believe that her name was Mary Magdalene. Most people believe that this story is “proof” that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. But the story doesn’t say that, and all historians know there’s no compelling reason to think this woman is Mary Magdalene. So why do so many people believe it? We’ll get to that, after we look at the similar stories that appear in the other gospels.
Jesus and Simon the Leper
The gospel of Mark tells a similar story, but with some interesting differences. (Mark 14:1-9).
It’s two days before the Passover in the last year of Jesus’s life. He’s come to Jerusalem for Passover, and he’s invited to dinner at the home of Simon the Leper, who lives in Bethany, just up the hill from Jerusalem. Notice that this man is called Simon the Leper, not Simon the Pharisee.
An unnamed woman opens a jar of expensive perfume and pours it on Jesus’s head. Notice that the perfume this time goes on his head, not his feet. And the woman is not labeled a “sinful woman.”
Somebody is angry, but we aren’t told who. They’re complaining that the money spent on the perfume should have been given to the poor. Nobody is complaining that Jesus is a false prophet. Nobody is complaining about the character of the woman. It’s all about the money in this verion of the tale.
Jesus confronts the complainers and tells them that this woman has anointed his body in advance for his burial. Notice that Jesus says nothing about the failings of his host. From all we can see, his host treated him perfectly.
Matthew tells almost exactly the same story. (Matthew 26:6-13). The main difference between Matthew’s account and Mark’s is that Matthew identifies the people complaining about the waste of money—it’s the twelve disciples of Jesus!
And what’s the connection of the woman to Mary Magdalene? We’re getting there…
That Time Mary Anointed Jesus’s Feet
The gospel of John tells yet another version of the story. (John 12:1-8).
Six days before the Passover in the year Jesus was killed, he came to Bethany, to the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. These three were a brother and two sisters who knew Jesus well and probably hosted him often.
There in Bethany, somebody throws a feast to honor Jesus. We aren’t told who is the host, and there’s nobody named Simon in the story at all. Lazarus reclines with Jesus at the table. Martha serves the food. Mary breaks open a pint of an expensive perfume, pours it on the feet of Jesus, and wipes his feet with her hair.
Somebody complains, but it isn’t Simon the Pharisee, and it’s not the twelve disciples as a group. This time, it’s only Judas Iscariot, complaining about the waste of money. He does NOT complain that Mary is a sinful woman, nor does he think Jesus is a false prophet. He complains because he thought the money for the perfume would have been better off in the moneybag that he controlled.
Jesus now confronts Judas and says that Mary has done a beautiful thing—she’s anointed his body for burial ahead of his death. But he doesn’t forgive Mary for her sins, because there is no hint that Mary is a “sinful woman”.
And there’s also no hint that Mary is the woman known as Mary Magdalene.
A Tale of Many Marys
Mary was an extremely common name among Jewish women in the first century. Roughly a quarter of all Jewish women had this name. This can make the gospels confusing, since there were three important women all having the same name. Jesus’s mother was named Mary. So was Mary Magdalene, a wealthy woman who probably came from the largish town of Magdala, about 90 miles north of Jerusalem on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, is usually called “Mary of Bethany” so as to keep her straight from the other Marys. The great majority of biblical scholars think that Mary of Bethany was not the same as Mary Magdalene.
But at some point in history, somebody got confused. Somebody put two and two together and got seven. Somebody thought that the woman who put the perfume on Jesus was Mary Magdalene, a “sinful woman” whom Jesus forgave. Somebody preached a sermon on it. And the myth of “Mary Magdalene the prostitute” was born.
The Problem of Three Stories
As we saw above, part of the problem is that the gospels aren’t all telling the same story. There are three similar versions of the story:
- Luke tells a story set in the home of Simon the Pharisee in an unnamed town at an unknown time, where an unnamed “sinful woman” cries on the feet of Jesus and then pours out perfume on his feet, making up for the failings of his host, causing Simon to think less of Jesus for not knowing the woman was sinful, and leading Jesus to forgive the woman’s sins.
- Mark and Matthew tell a story set in the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany two days before Passover, where an unnamed woman anoints the head of Jesus as preparation for burial, causing the twelve disciples of Jesus to complain about the cost.
- John tells a story set somewhere in Bethany six days before Passover, where Mary (the sister of Lazarus and Martha) anoints the feet of Jesus as preparation for burial, causing Judas Iscariot to complain that the money should have been in his moneybag.
How Do You Solve the Problem?
What shall we make of these three distinct versions of the story? They’re all clearly similar, but the details don’t quite match up.
Nobody knows how to resolve all the discrepancies. Historians typically highlight all the differences and then talk about how the story evolved in different ways over the years until it was written down differently in the four gospels. Some theologians tie themselves in knots trying to resolve the discrepancies. (And other theologians recognize that you can’t solve the problem with the limited data we have.)
As a novelist, my aim is just to make a good story that matches the data as best I can, without worrying about whether I get it “exactly right”. Because nobody knows how to get it exactly right, so there’s no point stressing on that. So here’s how I’ll tell the story:
In Book 1 of my Crown of Thorns series, I put Luke’s version of the story at the home of Simon the Pharisee in Bethany, with Lazarus, Martha, and Mary all in attendance. The “sinful woman” is a local prostitute whom Jesus has recently met and whom he has already helped. Now he helps her some more, reassuring her that her sins are really forgiven.
Then in Book 4 of my Crown of Thorns series (which is not written yet), I’ll have a feast set in the home of Simon the Pharisee, whom Jesus has recently cured of leprosy. The feast will be shortly before Passover, and Lazarus, Martha, and Mary will again be in attendance. But this time, Mary is the only one of the followers of Jesus who takes seriously the warnings he’s been giving of his impending death. So, remembering the previous episode with the sinful woman, Mary breaks out her own bottle of perfume and pours it on Jesus to let him know that he is loved and he will be mourned.
This matches most of the data reasonably well, but it is certainly not the most probable solution to the problem. Nobody knows the most probable solution to the problem. Even if they did, the most probable solution to the problem still isn’t very likely. We don’t have enough information to solve the problem, so there are many possible solutions, all unlikely. (In both history and science, the “likeliest solution” is often extremely unlikely. Every historian and every scientist knows this, and not one of them is perturbed by it.)
As a novelist, I get to decide how the story’s going to go, even if it’s not very likely. Real life is full of improbable events. For proof of that, read tomorrow’s headlines. One of them will report an event that seems very unlikely. And yet it will happen. And in real life, stories get reported in various ways, often contradictory. For proof of that, read the stories behind tomorrow’s headlines from several different sources. They’ll partly agree and partly disagree. And yet the event will have happened.
