The DaVinci Code may spark renewed interest in Mary Magdalene—considering that the film claims that she and Jesus married, had children and that their descendents are still alive today.
This won’t be the first time Magdalene’s story has been distorted. The original distorters were pillars of the early Church who found the fact that Jesus included women in his inner circle an obstacle to institutionalizing Christianity in a hostile world. Her marginalization was accomplished by conflating her character with that of the woman who bathed Jesus feet with her tears. This transformed the woman who supported Jesus’ ministry financially, followed him to the foot of the cross, and was—according to John—the first witness to the Resurrection, into a prostitute.
Joan Accocella has a solid summary of the mess that the Church has made of the Magdalene’s background, and the uneven attempts by recent scholars to redeem her, in this week’s issue of The New Yorker.
My concern about the next wave of interest in Mary Magdalene is that it will be made up of those following Dan Brown’s flights of fancy, rather than those interested in relocating her where she and many other women of her time truly lived—at the center of Jesus’ earthly ministry.