The Mystery of Mary and Martha

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The story of Jesus’s raising of Lazarus (John 11) is one of the most memorable in the Gospels. Integral to the narrative are Lazarus’s two sisters, Mary and Martha, who petition Jesus for healing and then bear witness to their brother’s resurrection. But there is manuscript evidence that an early version of the story included just one sister, Mary, possibly Mary Magdalene. Was Martha a later addition to the story?

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Footnotes

1. Joan E. Taylor, “Magdala’s Mistaken Identity,” BAR, Fall 2022.

Endnotes

1. For a detailed study, see Elizabeth Schrader, “Was Martha of Bethany Added to the Fourth Gospel in the Second Century?” Harvard Theological Review 110.3 (2017), pp. 360–392.

2. Tertullian, Adversus Praxean 23. See Ernest Evans, ed. and trans., Treatise against Praxeas (London: SPCK, 1948), p. 117.

3. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer and Joan E. Taylor, “The Meaning of ‘Magdalene’: A Review of Literary Evidence,” Journal of Biblical Literature 140.4 (2021), pp. 751–773.