Qué se sabe de … María Magdalena by C. B. Ubieta (review)

Carmen Bernabé Ubieta, full professor in the Department of Sacred Scripture at the School of Theology in the Universidad de Deusto (Bilbao, Spain), has recently published a well-written and insightful study on (the significance of) Mary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala. Ubieta has been researching this intriguing character since her earlier years as a Ph.D. student, almost three decades ago, which was later published in book form in 1994, as Las tradiciones de María Magdalena en el cristianismo primitivo("The traditions about Mary Magdalene in Primitive Christianity"), when it was rare, at least in Spain, in her own words, to write about a female biblical character.

Her interest goes beyond a historical reconstruction of the character and strives towards the detailed study of the written sources, as they were received and transmitted in the early centuries in the church, as a way to remember Mary, and moreover, the role of women in these formative years of the church. Her research is filled with interesting insights and it is indeed a call for new generations to pay heed to a more congruent Christian historical faith that does not leave anyone behind. For Ubieta the study of the memory of Mary Magdalene seeks to trace her (strongly communal) historical memory both through communicative memory and cultural memory theories. This means that the Magdalene transcends her historical character to become a symbol for early (and contemporary) Christianity.

The book is divided, as is normative in this collection, in four distinct parts. The first, "How did we get here?" analyses the most common ways in which the Magdalene has been interpreted throughout history, in literature, art, etcetera, from a penitent anchorite, a prostitute, to a lover of Jesus, as some other narratives show. These various portraits correspond to the enormous tensions that were experienced within the Christ movement, which either aimed at silencing this "radical" memory by placing her within a proper female category or tried to affirm her active participation as an equal to the male disciples in the early stages of the movement. Part two focuses on the central aspects of the issue, that is, how Mary is remembered and communicated in the Gospels. Here the author makes use of the social sciences to shed light onto this character and distils important evidences: she is presented as follower and disciple of Jesus already in the Galilean ministry and as eyewitness both at Jesus's death and in the placing of his body in the tomb. There was not a feminine term for "disciple" until the second century (μαθήτρια), but in light of the different lists that enumerate both her and other women and the use of key verbs ("follow" and "serve," etc.), it is clear that she could indeed be considered as a close follower and apprenticeof Jesus. This is quite insightful, for some (mostly male) exegetes obviate this fact about the use of key verbs related to discipleship when associated with female characters. It is timely that we get our exegesis right and put behind outdated and male-dominated interpretations.

Having said this, however, I sense that at times her eagerness to "prove the evidence which is there" may read or project too much into sources, but this is a real danger to which no modern interpreter is immune. In pages 95ff., she discusses a third verb, "going up" (συναναβαίνω), that purposely would place the Magdalene on step with the rest of the disciples as they go up to Jerusalem accompanying Jesus, through a literary topos, the flashback, which feels really as too technical for an audience to recall. The author makes the connections as if earlier readers/hearers of the story would immediately understand it, connecting the mention of the verb almost at the end of Mark's Gospel (ch. 15) with the earlier mentions of the verb (chs. 8 and 10), but I am not...