Mary the Tower
AM Psalm 119:49-72 • PM Psalm 49, [53]
Job 29:1,30:1-2,16-31 • Acts 14:19-28 • John 11:1-16
There is recent scholarship by Elizabeth Schrader, PhD student at Duke, that suggests that the “Mary and Martha” stories found in both Luke 10 and John 11 are not actually the same story told separately, but rather two separate stories about two separate families. Various traditions, manuscript edits, and translation confusions, have led us to conflate them. Potentially, the story told in John 11 could be about a singular woman named Mary, a sister of Lazarus, not two separate women named Mary and Martha.
Diana Butler Bass further teases out this research to suggest that this Mary is Mary Magdalene*. If so, then one of two Christological confessions found in the New Testament belongs to her (the other coming from Peter, see Matthew 16:13–20, Mark 8:27–30 and Luke 9:18–21). Bass suggests that Mary’s title can be translated as “the Tower” the same way in which Peter is called the Rock.
Bass asks, “What if Mary in John 11 hadn’t been split into two women? What if we had known about Mary the Tower all along? What kind of Christianity would we have if the faith hadn’t only been based upon, “Peter you are the rock and upon this Rock I will build my church...what if we’d always known, “Mary, you are the Tower, and by this Tower we shall all stand?”
When presented with new ideas about traditions held as concrete, I get excited. Because ultimately, faith is a mystery. Not a mystery to be solved, like by a detective, but a mystery to dwell in and find hope in. What other mysteries of faith await us? How might we be open to their possibilities? Mary the Tower gives me permission to confess Christ in ways that are not always seen or obvious.
*Full article and quotes can be found here: https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/mary-the-tower
Written by Emma Mitchell
When not serving the youth and their families at St. Paul’s, I can be found reading non-fiction, thrifting, and attempting to spend less time on social media.