Endnote 15 – New Testament: The Case of Mary Magdalene
See Crossan’s response to the following comment, which was made at a symposium on the search for the historical Jesus at the Smithsonian Institution in 1993. “I think,” said the questioner, “you have enunciated a male point of view. It was Mary Magdalene who got to the tomb first, and she was the first person to recognize Jesus.” Crossan replied that the ending of the Gospel of Mark (where the women run away and tell no one) is part of Mark’s polemic against the family and disciples of Jesus, and he doesn’t “put much on that, in itself.” As for John 20, as John depicts the Magdalene “she keeps getting it wrong” when she repeats that the body has been stolen. She is an important leader being downgraded by the Johannine community. Crossan says, if one “wanted to find a woman to exalt” [sic] or “an ideal female Christian hero,” the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus in Mark 14:3–9 should be “claimed” (