What Have They Done with Jesus? – III

I continue blogging through What Have They Done with Jesus by Ben Witherington with chapter 2. In the first chapter we were introduced to two women, Joanna, whom Witherington connects with Junia (Acts 16:7) and Mary Magdalene. This second chapter focuses on Mary Magdalene and what we can know about her, not to mention things we can know are not so.

This is a long chapter, beginning on page 27 and ending on page 51. The reason for this is that Witherington has to provide the background of the documents that are used in fashioning various stories of Mary Magdalene. Few characters in literature have received the type of attention that she has. She is seen as everything from a prostitute to the wife of Jesus.

It’s interesting that I just read Bart Ehrman’s book on Judas, and he also says that pretty much everything said about Mary Magdalene in literature is false. Note that on other points Ehrman and Witherington would disagree substantially.

So what is Witherington’s approach? First he goes over the background of the gnostic documents and makes his case that they are largely later than the canonical materials. He also contends that they are much too different from the canonical gospels to come generally from the same source. I think he is on fairly solid ground in maintaining that the gnostic materials are late and have little claim to be good sources for the historical Jesus. The one exception here is the Gospel of Thomas, which I think has some value.

Second, Witherington presents a highly negative view of gnosticism in general and asks why so many modern scholars, and particularly feminists tend to like it. I honestly find many negative things about gnosticism, but there are two potential problems here. First, we can just as easily judge gnosticism unfairly by modern standards. Second, most readers today will have a perspective that is more sympathetic to the orthodox viewpoint as it has been passed down. If we got the orthodox viewpoint in a more raw form, we might be less sympathetic. Asceticism and patriarchy were characteristics of both.

There are a few pages in which it almost seems that Witherington is trying to give us a negative view of the value of the gnostic literature by means of giving us a negative view of gnosticism itself. That is not, in fact, his argument, but you have to read through the section to get to the point, which is that these folks were not primarily concerned with historical events.

The one gnostic document that requires more discussion is the gospel of Thomas. I could wish Witherington had spent more time establishing the priority of ‘Q’ over the gospel of Thomas. As it is, the case is reasonable, even though Q is hypothetical. If Q did exist (something of which I’m not 100% convinced), then it would necessarily be quite early, and there is little likelihood that Thomas would be older.

At the same time it is worth considering that if there were sayings collections, Thomas could also go back to an older source. That would be hypothetical, but certainly not out of the question. I personally would treat Thomas as largely independent source for sayings, though I wouldn’t accept it as sole evidence, and it certainly appears to be a 2nd century compilation.

It’s a bit odd to discover at the end of this chapter that all this discussion results in the simple conclusion that we know remarkably little about Mary Magdalene. Witherington then makes a number of strong statements about the historicity of the canonical statements about her, and based on those statements about the historicity of the resurrection itself. On this point I think he is on less solid ground. He is right to apply a full measure of skepticism to the gnostic gospels.

I find it remarkable that so many scholars regard them as highly as they do with reference to the historical Jesus. Yet a historian must use similar skepticism on the canonical gospels. Witherington himself says much the same thing. Yet I don’t see it in practice up to this point. (Please remember that I’m blogging through and not reviewing. I am reporting my state of mind at this point, not my final conclusions.) I will be watching for a similar level of analysis of the canonical sources as I continue to read.