"Think Different - Accept Uncertainty" Part IV: Expanding the Bankruptcy of Theism

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 16 February 2012 5 Comments
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Question

I have been reading your weekly newsletters with great interest; thank you for articulating faith for the 21st century so clearly.  I have to admit, though, that I’m somewhat perplexed about your series on “The Meaning of the Resurrection.”  I understand that you seek to place Peter at the center of a “resurrection awareness” that took some 6-12 months after the crucifixion.  You quote several references as well as Paul’s, “appeared to Cephas and the Twelve” as firm support.  What I am wondering is – since the gospels are subversive to predominant culture, why downplay all four gospels’ claims that Mary Magdalene, either alone or together with other women, was the first at an empty grave and became messenger of the news that opened the door to a resurrection awareness for herself and others?  Yes, I understand that in Jewish Culture, women’s testimony couldn’t be trusted unless affirmed by a man, but so many stories in the gospels undermine predominant culture especially as it pertains to gender roles that I always thought was God’s last and best joke to give the message of the empty grave to women.  So where is Mary Magdalene, or any of the other women, in this resurrection awareness?  As an aside, you should know that, 25 years ago when I was in seminary in Austin, your brother was one of my most influential teachers.  I remember him fondly. I’m glad you continue to clarify and articulate faith for this time and age.  Thank you for your ministry.

Answer

Dear Stephanie,

I share your sense of distress, but all of my studies led me to suggest that the tomb stories in which the women play major roles are of secondary not primary value.  If you go back to the “where” question in the series to which you refer (which incidentally ran a long time ago), the data reveals the primacy of Galilee over Jerusalem in the Easter narratives.  The Galilee stories are far more primitive and un-doctored than the Jerusalem stories.  Only in Jerusalem do you have sightings of Jesus, conversations with the Risen Christ and even, as the stories develop, increasing physicality.

In Mark, the earliest gospel, the women led by Magdalene come to the tomb, but see nothing except a messenger who directs them to tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee.  They flee in fear and say nothing to anyone.  Matthew changes Mark that he is copying and has the women see the Risen Christ in the garden at dawn.  Luke, also with Mark in front of him, is true to Mark’s story line saying that the women do not see Jesus.  John makes Magdalene the star of his resurrection drama, but John is writing near the end of the first century. Even in John, Magdalene does not see Jesus until her second peering into the tomb.

The better case for the role of women in the gospel tradition can be made not from the resurrection narratives, but from the body of the gospels. Mark, Matthew and Luke all assert that Jesus had female disciples who followed him “all the way from Galilee.”  Paul declares that in Christ there is neither male nor female.  Jesus is portrayed as allowing the touch of a woman with a chronic menstrual discharge; as standing between the woman taken in adultery and her accusers, and supports Mary’s right to sit at the feet of the Teacher as a faithful pupil, capable of learning.  John makes two women, the Samaritan woman by the well and Magdalene, the heralds of his “word.”  I want to celebrate women in the biblical story and in the life of the church itself, but I do not think I can ground that in the resurrection narratives.

Thank you for your words about my brother.  I miss him terribly.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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