“She’s Not Who You Think” with Jennifer Powell McNutt

This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

Hi, I’m Dr Jennifer Powell McNutt, and I’m the Franklin S Dyrness Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Wheaton College.

David Capes 

Dr. Jennifer McNutt, Jennifer, good to see you. Welcome to The Stone Chapel Podcast. Your first appearance. It took two years for us to be able to, do this podcast. We kept missing each other between kids, travel and work. You’re a busy lady. In a minute, we’re going to talk about your book, The Mary We Forgot, and the subtitle is fascinating. We’re going to talk about what the “apostle to the apostles”, teaches the church today. It’s fascinating. I learned a lot just by reading the book and all the things I didn’t know about Mary Magdalene and her significance and her ongoing potential significance, in the church today. 

Let’s start with you.  For those who don’t know, who is Jennifer Powell McNutt?

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

I’ll start with my teaching. I teach at Wheaton College in the Liftin Divinity School, and I run the master’s programs in theology and history of Christianity. You and I have worked together, so that’s delightful. And my husband and I are from California. Originally I went to Westmont College and Princeton Theological Seminary and then the University of Saint Andrews. And I’m married to David McNutt. He is the senior acquisitions editor in theology at Zondervan. And we have McNuttshell Ministries. We love to work together and to do ministry together in our Presbyterian tradition, and we wrote a book together too recently.

David Capes

You’re an author along with a lot of other things. You travel and you speak all over the place. We’ll put a link in the show notes to your McNuttshell Ministries. That’s really interesting, and I’d like to learn more about that someday.

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

Yes, we work to bridge the church and the academy. 

David Capes

That’s what we do at the Lanier Theological Library. That is our mission. And that’s a little bit of a heavy lift at times, but at other times, at least these days, it’s working hand in glove. We’ like to get you down here sometime to be one of our speakers and maybe we’ll even bring David too! Okay, we’re talking about your book, The Mary We Forgot: What the Apostle to the Apostle Teaches the Church Today. 

All I have is a promotional copy. So I’m asking you to send a signed copy my way. I’ll have the full version at that point. All right, let’s talk a little bit about the fact that you have done a lot of work in reformation studies, and now all of a sudden, you’re heading back to the early church, and that tradition. What was the impetus for you to move from a focus on later church history, back to the beginnings?

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

For this book, it was just tracing the history of Mary Magdalene’s interpretation. And also, not only across time, but also across the different traditions and branches of the church. So, I’m looking at the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox and the Protestant. But of course, I’m writing from a Protestant perspective and experience of her. We have to go back to the beginning to see these early interpreters and how they are addressing Mary Magdalene, how they’re highlighting her role, what they’re thinking about exegetically and theologically, about her presence. 

Then I was hoping to see how that eventually gets us to the point where we are today. There were surprises along the way, and there were other things that we will be familiar with, especially this idea of her as a prostitute, which is very well known in our modern popular cultural world. I’m seeing how that happened, but then also some of the complexity behind the reading of her importance and significance and role in the Christian life. 

David Capes 

You begin with Jesus Christ Superstar, and any book that begins with Jesus Christ Superstar is going to get my attention. I was a musician back in those days and played it a few times and had fun with it. You know, it was an interesting bit of music. I didn’t understand it completely. I just thought it was about Jesus! I was into it for that. 

So, you refer to her in the subtitle as the apostle to the apostles. What do you mean by that? That’s not a phrase a lot of people have heard,

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

It is interesting to discover that in our western tradition, we do have evidence and examples, though inconsistently, of understanding her role in Jesus’s ministry as apostolic. I had always heard that that was only part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and that they were very clear on Mary Magdalene, not a prostitute but as apostle to the apostles. And so it was really exciting to discover in the Western tradition how she has, importantly, also been recognized as apostle to the apostles, and some of the reasons why that happens in the history of interpretation. 

Part of it has to do with just the flourishing of medieval mysticism in the West and the attention that was put on the importance of preaching. And we see, the Mendicant orders, especially, really identifying with Mary Magdalene. Seeing her encounter with Jesus in the garden in John 20 as really the basis and foundation for sending her as apostolic witness. And that goes all the way back to Irenaeus of Leon, this reading of her role as bringing the good news to the other apostles, and therefore being the apostle to the apostles. 

So that was my first discovery. But then the second discovery was to see that even in the Protestant tradition, even among the reformers, there is recognition of her activity in the gospels as apostolic and again, inconsistently and certainly something that we have forgotten over time, but nonetheless, there and present. One of the other things that I’m doing in the book is to say that according to Scriptures own standards for apostolicity, Mary Magdalene qualifies. It’s not just in the history of our traditions, across the traditions, but also based on what the Bible sets out for us.

David Capes  

Now, one of the things that people still aren’t settled on is the idea of Magdalene itself, just the name Mary Magdalene. First of all, Mary itself is a very common name, right?

Jennifer Powell NcNutt 

That’s right. It’s the most popular name, as I understand it, in first century Palestine, for women. So, I really appreciated that as a “Jennifer” from the 80s.

David Capes  

How many Jennifers are there in the 80s? 

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

About four in every class!

David Capes 

We go through times when names become very familiar. Even the name Jesus, Joshua, Yeshua is a very common name at the time, so he had to be designated something other than Yeshua. So, he’s designated Yeshua of Nazareth. What about Mary? What does Magdalene mean?

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

I’m using a lot of different research and biblical studies on this topic, but the reason why the name is highlighted in part, is to distinguish her from other “Marys”. But also, we would notice that she is being connected to a location rather than to a man. Instead of to a husband or to a father or to a son. We know her by her connection to this place. But also because in Luke 8 especially, she’s Mary called the Magdalene. There is a sense that there’s another meaning to her name. In Aramaic, Migdol means tower, and so she may carry this nickname of “the tower”. This is a conversation going on in biblical studies right now. But what’s interesting is to see that this is how the church has read her name in the tradition. Not just in the early church, but also in the Reformation. She was called “the tower”, and that was intended to signify her strength of faith, that she was known as a model of faith. 

David Capes

She might also have been tall, you never know!

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

Yes, she could have been tall!

David Capes

And when she put on those high heels, boy, was she really up there!  I’ve heard all sorts of things about that, and a lot of it is tied to Magdala, which is a location on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. There’s been a lot of research done there in the last years, a lot of discoveries archeologically. It’s just fascinating how all these things develop. I wasn’t aware that the idea of the tower had that staying power into the tradition.

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

It’s so interesting to discover we’re having this conversation today about how we should understand it, but we should also be aware of how the church has thought about it too, but again, inconsistently.

David Capes  

There’s this conflation of her and the idea of prostitution. First of all, where did that happen? How did that happened do you think from all of your research as a historian.

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

I really enjoyed this part of it, the curiosity of discovering how this story fits together. What I was able to perceive was that some of the hermeneutical approaches that were happening with reading and making sense of the Gospels was to harmonize the Gospels. We can understand and appreciate that. That is a good approach. But nonetheless, what I noted was that the various stories in the Gospel about a woman anointing Jesus became one story. There are four stories and John’s Gospel is the one that names Mary of Bethany. So they are all conflated into one story, rather than interpreting that maybe the other women are different women. The person that I see this happening with is Augustine. He makes this move. And by linking these anointing women with Mary Bethany, he also links Mary Bethany then with the Luke 7 woman, who is described as a sinner woman. That, to him, shows that Mary Bethany had this other story, this other back story to her life. First she is not looked on very well, 

Then the next move that happens, that I would say, formalizes this is with Pope Gregory the Great. He then conflates Mary Bethany with Mary Magdalene. So basically, you have the conflations of the anointings, then you have the conflation of the Marys. Mary Bethany gets absorbed into the Mary Magdalene story. Mary Magdalene is known for having seven demons. Gregory then is trying to understand how that fits into the story. He will describe those as seven deadly sins and interpret the sinfulness of the woman in Luke 7 as prostitution. And actually, that is the conclusion for a lot of interpreters even into the 21st century. 

It’s only been more recently that there have been some questions about the fact that Luke could have used the Greek word for prostitute, if he’d meant that. He uses it otherwise and chooses not to use it here. So maybe her sin is not prostitution. It isn’t necessarily prostitution. That’s where we get that. From the sixth century, and on from there, she really becomes this model of a penitent prostitute who is reflecting basically the epitome of sin. It is a great example of God’s graciousness to choose her and select her to proclaim the good news of Christ’s resurrection. 

And that is not going to be questioned until the Reformation. In the Reformation, they will begin to untie the Mary Magdalene story from Mary of Bethany and from the Luke 7 woman. And this is called the controversy of the three Marys. So the Luke 7 woman isn’t a Mary.

David Capes  

She isn’t necessarily a Mary at all. Once the Pope says something, and once Augustine says something, that’s going to be like law forever [for some].

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

For the west yes. Because it shapes then the liturgy. You think about the feast days, you think about the liturgy, which scripture passages are you reading on which days? The church is going to place the Luke 7 reading with Mary Magdalene’s feast day. And that’s not even going to be changed until the modern era.

David Capes  

If we tell the truth now about Mary and we understand better her story, that’s what your book is all about. In a summary way, what can she teach us today?

Jennifer Powell NcNutt  

Well, I think so much. I think the big takeaway, first of all is we have to recognize that in the Gospels, she is a woman who has been gripped by demons, by seven demons. That’s actually her backstory, and Jesus is healing her from this, and he is definitively delivering her from the grip of that demonic activity, however you interpret that. The Gospels don’t reveal to us her experience of that suffering, so we don’t know exactly what she experienced. We’re meant to remember her as healed. We’re also meant then when we see her in the garden with Jesus, to see what she comes to represent in the story, when she is witness to resurrection. 

And I know you’ll love this part, because I think she is revealing to us who Jesus is. And this is: Jesus is Exorcist, who is truly King. We have really lost that reading of her, and it impacts how we understand the Easter morning. It impacts how we understand why the women are there, what it means when she points us to Jesus. In the early church, when they looked at Mary Magdalene, they read her, they were less focused on her and more focused on what she tells us about Christology. What she tells us about the Trinity. And I think we want to recapture that part of it, not to the detriment of knowing her or seeing her rightly, which I think is biblically right, reading the biblical text clearly. But then also, because her whole role is really like John the Baptist, to point us to Christ in all that he means, so his identity and what he is bringing to us through salvation. That’s one part of it.

I think the other part, though, is that we have been very focused on her being this penitent prostitute, sinner, when her story is very different. And in fact, the Gospels want us to see that as soon as Jesus heals her, she is with him. She is focused on him. She is walking with him. Everything about her life becomes centered around him as we understand it again from the Gospels. Her resources, her time, where she goes. Everything is about being with him. She becomes this witness. She’s really this creedal witness for us. Because she is there in the ministry. She is there at the cross. She sees him die, sees his body put in the tomb, and the tomb sealed. She sees the empty tomb, and then sees the risen Christ, you know? And that’s not even all of it. 

There’s so much about it and the financial part is really interesting, because typically, we probably think that a woman in the New Testament is not going to give us a lot of insight into finances and how we serve faithfully with our finances. But actually, that’s also part of her story.

David Capes

So many takeaways here. I love the fact that you refer to her, and the church does as the apostle to the apostles. As the one who was this initial witness to the resurrection, who now relates this good news, who is sent to tell this good news to others, to the 12 and to others as well.

Jennifer Powell NcNutt

And we have been missing that part of it because of our reading of John 20. Some of the difficulties that we have faced for the church that have obscured that part of it. Clearing some of that away, her tears, her inability to see Jesus immediately, etc, allows us to see what it means when they interact and when he sends her. There’s many different parts to his sending of her that helps us to realize that in the true sense of the term apostle, she is messenger. She is the one who is sent. 

David Capes 

Indeed, indeed. We’re talking with Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt about her book, The Mary, We Forgot What the Apostle to the Apostles Teaches the Church Today. It’s a great book. I would encourage you to get it. It tells us so much about church history, our beginnings, but also about Mary. She was just a remarkable woman who was completely, totally devoted to Jesus. Dr, Jennifer Powell McNutt, thanks for being with us today.

Jennifer Powell NcNutt

Thank you so much for having me. It was delightful. 

TSCP 242 She’s Not Who You Think

With Jennifer Powell McNutt

Description

TSCP 242 She’s Not Who You Think with Jennifer Power McNutt

Historian and Presbyterian church leader, Jennifer Powell McNutt, joins David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcast to discuss her recent book, The Mary We Forgot: What the Apostle to the Apostles Teaches the Church Today (BrazosPress).  Mary Magdalene is one of the earliest followers of Jesus.  Through the twists and turns of history her backstory has been obscured.  She’s not who you think.  

For McNuttshell Ministries click here

The Stone Chapel Podcast is part of the ChurchLeaders Podcast network.