Josephus: A Valuable Historical Source

The Jewish historian Josephus was a first-century spin doctor who can be counted upon to put himself and his people in a favorable light, even if it means fudging the facts at times.

But how accurate is Josephus when neither his nor the Jewish people’s reputation is on the line?

After all, the majority of the historical statements he makes in his writings don’t have a direct bearing on making someone look good.

 

What Day Was the Temple Destroyed?

What should we make of it, for example, when he tells us the date on which an event occurred, such as his statement that Roman forces under the leadership of Titus burned the Jewish temple in Jerusalem on the tenth day of the Macedonian month of Loos (War 6:5:4[250])?

In this case, we’re fortunate to have other information we can use to evaluate Josephus’s statement.

In the first place, he’s undeniably right that the temple was destroyed by Romans, as we have references to this in other sources (e.g., Cassius Dio, Roman Histories 69:12:1).

The Macedonian month of Loos fell in the July/August timeframe, and it was equivalent to the Jewish month of Ab. Here again, we find Josephus confirmed by other sources, for the Rabbis commemorated the destruction of the temple in Ab.

But what about the day? On this subject, there is a discrepancy between Josephus and other sources, but only a slight one. According to Josephus, the temple was burned on the tenth day of Ab, while according to the rabbis, it was the ninth day.

What could account for this discrepancy?

One proposal is that Josephus adjusted the date by one day, because Jeremiah indicates that the original temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians on the tenth of Ab (Jer. 52:12-13). Perhaps Josephus wanted to underscore the divine drama of the situation by having the second temple destroyed on the same day as the first.

This is a possibility, but it is not the only one. It may not have been Josephus who harmonized the dates of the temple’s destructions, but the Rabbis, for the Babylonian Talmud lists both as occurring on the ninth of Ab (b. Ta‘anit 4:5[C]).

It is possible that Josephus, the rabbis, or both are harmonizing the dates of the temple’s first and second destructions by adjusting by one day—or it is possible that the temple was destroyed on the same day both times. If so, it remains ambiguous whether one or both destructions occurred on the ninth or the tenth.

But notice what we’re contemplating here—the difference of a single day!

In the grand scheme of things, that is not a lot. What we can say is that we have confirmation that Josephus was right that the temple was destroyed by Romans, he was right about the month in which it occurred, and that—with a possible variance of a single day—he was right about when in the month it took place.

That’s quite substantial accuracy for an ancient historian!

 

Quirinius’s Taxation

Josephus mentions numerous other things that can be confirmed from other sources, including several that will be familiar to readers of the New Testament.

For example, he mentions a taxation that took place under the Roman governor Quirinius “in the thirty-seventh year of Caesar’s victory over Anthony at Actium”—i.e., A.D. 6 (Antiquities 18:2:1[26]).

This taxation is also mentioned in the Gospels (Luke 2:2), though there are questions about precisely what Luke is saying about it.

 

John the Baptist

Josephus also mentions John the Baptist, who he says “was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away of some sins, but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness” (18:5:2[117]).

Josephus also records that John was killed by Herod Antipas, for he “feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), [so he] thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause. . . . Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God’s displeasure against him” (18:5:2[118-119]; cf. Luke 3:1-14, Mark 6:14-29).

 

The Death of Herod Agrippa I

In addition, Josephus reports an event mentioned in the book of Acts (12:20-23), which is the unusual death of King Herod Agrippa I in A.D. 43.

Josephus’s account is significantly longer than Luke’s, and he adds additional details not mentioned in Acts. Both state that Herod was stricken ill at a meeting with dignitaries, which Josephus indicates was a festival in Caesarea.

Luke mentions that Herod was wearing royal clothing, and Josephus states: “On the second day of which shows he put on a garment made wholly of silver, and of a contexture truly wonderful, and came into the theatre early in the morning; at which time the silver of his garment being illuminated by the fresh reflection of the sun’s rays upon it, shone out after a surprising manner, and was so resplendent as to spread a horror over those that looked intently upon him” (19:8:2[344]).

Both accounts indicate that the crowd then acclaimed Herod a god, with Josephus saying, “and presently his flatterers cried out, one from one place, and another from another (though not for his good), that he was a god; and they added, ‘Be thou merciful to us; for although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man, yet shall we henceforth own thee as superior to mortal nature’” (19:8:2[345]).

Both accounts state that Herod did not reject this divine acclamation, and that his refusal led to his death as a divine punishment. Josephus states: “A severe pain also arose in his belly and began in a most violent manner. He therefore looked upon his friends, and said, ‘I whom you call a god, am commanded presently to depart this life; while Providence thus reproves the lying words you just now said to me; and I, who was by you called immortal, am immediately to be hurried away by death.’ . . . And when he had been quite worn out by the pain in his belly for five days, he departed this life” (19:8:2[346-347, 350]).

 

Conclusion

As one would expect from different historical sources, Josephus mentions different details than are provided in other sources—including the Gospels and Acts—and offers his own interpretations of events.

However, the fact many of Josephus’s statements can be verified from other sources provides historians with a significant level of confidence in what he records.

As with any source, it is necessary to know both the way in which ancient history was written and the idiosyncrasies of Josephus as an author—allowing him to be read in a critical manner—but he remains an extremely valuable historical source for this period.

A New Approach to Sola Scriptura? Can It Be Saved by Changing Its Definition?

Sola scriptura is Latin for “by Scripture alone,” and it’s one of the key slogans of the Protestant Reformation.

I often explain it by saying that it’s the idea we need to produce Christian doctrine “by Scripture alone,” meaning—among other things—that every Christian doctrine must be explicitly or implicitly contained in the Bible.

This is how I understood it as an Evangelical, and this understanding seems confirmed by experience, as Catholics are regularly confronted by Protestant Christians with the question, “Where is that in the Bible?”—a demand to produce Scripture verses as proof of some particular Catholic belief or practice.

In recent decades, a common response by Catholic apologists is to turn this question around and say, “Where is sola scriptura in the Bible?” It’s then pointed out that, if every doctrine must be provable from the Bible, then sola scriptura also must be provable. If it isn’t, then it’s a self-refuting doctrine.

How can Protestants respond to this challenge? One approach is to point to verses that a Protestant thinks prove sola scriptura, but this has not been very successful. There are no verses that outright state the doctrine, and the arguments by implication are weak and unpersuasive.

 

A Narrower Definition

Another approach that I’ve seen in recent years involves what seems to be a redefinition of sola scriptura.

For example, in his book Scripture Alone, James White writes: “Sola scriptura literally means ‘Scripture alone.’ Unfortunately, this phrase tends to be taken in the vein of ‘Scripture in isolation, Scripture outside of the rest of God’s work in the church.’ That is not its intended meaning; again, it means ‘Scripture alone as the sole infallible rule of faith for the church’” (ch. 2).

The key part of that is the last bit: the idea that sola scriptura means that Scripture is the only infallible rule of faith.

This is a narrower understanding of the doctrine than the common one, and I’ve seen it suggested that this is the historic Protestant understanding, based on appeals to Protestant confessional documents like the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith—both of which use exactly the same language in key passages to articulate their teaching on Scripture.

 

Why This Is Attractive

It’s easy to see why the narrower definition would be attractive. The less that is claimed for sola scriptura, the smaller an apologetic target it presents and the easier it will be to defend.

I’ve even seen it suggested (not by White but by others) that when it is understood in this narrow sense, sola scriptura does not need to be taught in Scripture.

And that creates a rhetorically attractive situation for a Protestant apologist. Instead of needing to produce verses of Scripture that state or imply sola scriptura, he can simply say, “Name another infallible rule of faith,” thus putting the burden of proof back on a Catholic.

A Protestant apologist can even concede that perhaps in the apostolic age there was an additional infallible rule of faith in the form of apostolic Tradition, but he can assert that we don’t have that today. Scripture is all we’ve got that’s infallible.

Despite its attractiveness, there are several problems with this approach.

 

Actually, We Have Three Such Rules

The first problem is that, even if we grant this understanding of sola scriptura, the argument is answerable.

A “rule of faith” is something that is authoritative for faith, and we have two infallible authorities for the Faith in addition to Scripture. Apostolic Tradition is an infallible source of information regarding it, and the Magisterium is an infallible interpretive authority.

A Protestant may not be convinced that we have these two authorities or that they are infallible, but it is nonetheless true, and so a Catholic can meet the challenge of naming additional infallible rules of faith.

Unfortunately, if he takes this approach, the discussion is likely to degenerate into quibbling about the accuracy of particular Traditions or magisterial acts, so it’s better to take a different approach, however sound this one is in principle.

 

Not as Historical as Claimed?

A second problem with the reduced definition is that it doesn’t seem to accurately reflect the historic Protestant view.

Not only does it not reflect the way sola scriptura is used in practice today, it also does not reflect what is written in historical explanations like those found in the Westminster Confession or the London Baptist Confession.

It is true that the London Baptist Confession says that “the Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience” (1:1).

This uses the words “only,” “infallible,” “rule,” “of,” and “faith”—and in that order—but it also uses other words, and one is particularly important: “sufficient.”

Sufficient for what? The answer provided in this passage is that Scripture is sufficient for “knowledge, faith, and obedience,” but this is not to be understood too expansively.

Nobody thinks that Scripture is sufficient to give you knowledge of geometry or engineering or medicine. The knowledge in question is what is required for Christian doctrine concerning faith and morals.

This is reflected later in the London Baptist Confession when it states that “the whole counsel of God concerning . . . faith and life is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture” (1:6).

The same is indicated in the Westminster Confession with almost identical phrasing, although the latter is a bit more explicit, saying that the whole of God’s counsel regarding faith and life “is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” (1:6).

“The whole counsel of God” means everything that God has told (counselled) us—everything he wants us to know about “faith and life,” or “faith and morals” to put it in more Catholic terms.

So, we find that, in their teaching on Scripture, these confessions assert more than that the Bible is the only infallible authority for Christian faith. They also say that it is sufficient in that it contains—either expressly or by implication—everything God has revealed to us concerning doctrine on faith and morals.

This raises serious questions about whether it’s accurate to characterize the historic Protestant understanding of sola scriptura as being limited to the idea that Scripture is our sole infallible rule of faith. It appears that the historic sources also indicate it’s a sufficient rule for Christian doctrine.

 

Shifting Definitions?

A fourth problem I’ve noticed about the restricted definition of sola scriptura is that it isn’t used consistently.

In Scripture Alone, after offering the narrow definition of the term, White goes on to say that “the corollary of sola scriptura is that all a person must believe to be a follower of Christ is found in Scripture and in no other source” (his emphasis).

That’s a clear statement of the sufficiency of Scripture, and here White presents it as a corollary of sola scriptura, though it’s not—at least under the dictionary definitions of a corollary as “a proposition inferred immediately from a proved proposition with little or no additional proof” or “something that naturally follows” (Merriam-Webster.com).

Even if Scripture were our sole infallible source of authoritative information about the Faith, that doesn’t require it to contain everything God wants us to know.

It would be possible for God to give us other authoritative, accurate information about doctrines he wants us to know and believe—even if this information is not contained in an infallible collection like Scripture.

What’s significant is that, instead of simply defending sola scriptura on its own, White feels the need to link it to the doctrine of Scripture’s sufficiency.

The reason for that is clear: Scripture’s sufficiency is important for Protestant theology. Among other things, you wouldn’t be able to ask questions like “Where’s that in the Bible?” as a demand for scriptural proof of a doctrine if there were no claim that Scripture states or implies all of Christian doctrine.

While White seems to keep sola scriptura and the sufficiency of Scripture distinct here, other authors are not as particular.

My observation has been that when they are on the defensive in a discussion—when scriptural proof is asked for sola scriptura—they use the narrow definition.

But in other circumstances—when they are on the offensive and questioning Catholics about some matter—they use sola scriptura more expansively, as if it includes the idea of sufficiency.

It’s as if the understanding they have of sola scriptura conveniently shifts depending on the context, and it’s fair to point this out in a discussion and ask for an explanation.

 

It Doesn’t Matter

This brings us to a fifth problem with the narrow definition, which is that it doesn’t really matter whether a person uses it consistently or not—as long as he also believes in the sufficiency of Scripture.

I could imagine a Protestant saying, “When I refer to sola scriptura, all I ever mean by the term is that Scripture is our sole infallible rule of faith. That doesn’t stop me from also appealing to the sufficiency of Scripture to grill you about your Catholic beliefs.”

And that’s fine. I would challenge the idea that other Protestants commonly understand sola scriptura the as narrowly as he does, but that doesn’t prevent him from using the term in an idiosyncratic fashion.

As Humpty Dumpty says in Through the Looking Glass, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

In philosophy, that’s known as a stipulative definition—a meaning that you stipulate a term to have, whether other people use it that way or not. And that can be okay as long as you realize that’s what’s happening.

But it won’t save sola scriptura.

 

Sola Scriptura vs. Sufficiency

If you restrict the definition of sola scriptura to the claim that Scripture is our only infallible rule of faith, and if you believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, then you’re still going to need to be able to prove sola scriptura from Scripture alone.

You’re going to need to find the idea that the Bible is our only infallible rule of faith–as the London Baptist Confession put it–“expressly set down or necessarily contained” in Scripture.

Or you’ll need to be able to show that this claim “is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture,” as the Westminster Confession puts it.

How on earth can you do that? There are no passages in the Bible that expressly say, “The Bible is our only infallible rule of faith.” Neither are there passages that allow you to deduce this so that it is “necessarily contained” in Scripture.

Indeed, the argument that is usually envisioned is historical rather than scriptural, with Protestants seeking to poke holes in various post-biblical patristic and magisterial texts in an effort to show that only Scripture must be infallible.

But that won’t do if Scripture is sufficient. You’re going to need to find verses that state or imply Scripture is the only infallible source for Christians—at least in the post-apostolic age.

 

Sufficiency vs. Sufficiency

The problem is actually worse, because you’ll also need to find verses that state or imply that Scripture is sufficient—that it contains all doctrine regarding faith and morals.

There is simply no way to do this. Not only are there no verses that say this outright, there also are no verses that imply it.

Putting yourself in the position of a first century Christian will make this clear. In the first century, much of Christian doctrine was passed on in the form of oral Tradition rather than Scripture (1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:15, 3:6), for the simple reason that much of it had not yet been written down.

But to show that Scripture is sufficient today, you’ll either need to find passages that say or imply that all such doctrinal traditions will be written down by the end of the apostolic age or that they will lose their authority after the apostolic age, leaving Scripture as sufficient for Christian doctrine today.

There are no passages that say or imply anything close to this. Indeed, the New Testament authors tended to assume that they would be alive at the Second Coming (“we who are alive, who are left”; 1 Thess. 4:17), meaning that they weren’t envisioning a post-apostolic age.

Eventually, Paul and Peter became aware that they would die (2 Tim. 4:6-8, 2 Pet. 1:14-15), but that didn’t mean all the apostles would be dead by the time Jesus came back.

The only passage in the New Testament that unambiguously envisions a long period of time before the end is John’s discussion of the millennium (Rev. 20:1-10), and this passage says nothing about all apostolic Traditions eventually being written in Scripture or anything about them losing their authority.

As a result, the doctrine of scriptural sufficiency refutes itself. Scripture is not sufficient to teach its own sufficiency.

So, whether or not the doctrine of sufficiency is included in the definition of sola scriptura or not, the doctrine falls. Sufficiency means that Scripture must teach both that Scripture is our only infallible rule of faith and that it is sufficient for Christian doctrine.

It teaches neither, so both are refuted.

How Reliable Is Josephus?

The Jewish historian Josephus is an extraordinarily important author. Without his writings, we would know little about several centuries of Jewish history.

His works provide valuable insights for both Old and New Testament scholars. And he provides the earliest discussions of outside the New Testament of figures like Jesus, John the Baptist, and James the Just.

Josephus was born in A.D. 37 into a priestly family, and he served as a general in the Jewish War of the 60s, went over to the Roman side, and began a literary career after the war. He died around 100.

 

Josephus’s Works

As a historian, Josephus is known principally for two works—a seven-volume history known as The Jewish War, which provides an eyewitness account of the conflict in which he served, and Antiquities of the Jews, a twenty-volume history of the Jewish people.

He also wrote a two-volume apologetic work called Against Apion and a one-volume autobiography known as the Life of Flavius Josephus.

Given his importance, a question naturally arises: How reliable is he when he tells us something?

The answer is more complex than you might suppose. Josephus is not totally accurate, as quickly becomes clear if you read him in-depth rather than looking at isolated passages.

It could be tempting to dismiss him altogether, but that would be a mistake. Serious scholars of all persuasions recognize that—despite his flaws—Josephus is an extremely valuable source.

 

Josephus Gets Defensive

So, what are the limits of his reliability? One of the first things a reader of Josephus discovers is that he is extraordinarily defensive, and about two things: his people and himself.

He’s defensive about his people because he was living in an ethnically tense world, with friction between different groups in the Roman empire. Jewish people, in particular, were viewed as arrogant and standoffish because they did not participate in many Gentile practices. And their reputation only declined after the disastrous war of the A.D. 60s.

Why is he defensive about himself? The fact his Gentile readers knew Josephus to be a Jew would be enough, but he’s also acutely aware that his fellow Jews regarded him as a traitor.

After serving as a general in Galilee, Josephus was captured and managed to survive by allying himself with the Romans. He was even given Roman citizenship and—as was customary—took the name Flavius in honor of the emperor who granted it to him (Titus Flavius Vespasianus).

Consequently, two of Josephus’s overarching themes in his writings are making his people look good and making himself look good. There are passages where his desire to do this is so palpable that the reader realizes he’s either exaggerating or lying.

 

Josephus the Wonder Child

For example, in his Life, Josephus begins by stressing the nobility of his priestly family and the fact he had royal blood from the Hasmonean dynasty that sprang from the Maccabees. This was a way of silencing Jewish critics by cowing them with his dual lineage, which was both sacred and royal.

He’s undoubtedly telling the truth about this. These facts were too well known and confirmable for his critics to deny them. But then Josephus starts making self-aggrandizing claims that strain credulity.

He writes: “While still a mere boy, about fourteen years old, I won universal applause for my love of letters; insomuch that the chief priests and the leading men of the city used constantly to come to me for precise information on some particular in our ordinances” (Life 2:9).

Really? The chief priests and civic leaders used to consult a 14-year-old boy to find out the precise details of Jewish law? And they did that constantly? Josephus may have been a studious lad, and maybe someone having trouble remembering something ask him a question occasionally, but at a minimum this claim involves exaggeration.

So does his next set of claims: “At about the age of sixteen I determined to gain personal experience of the several sects into which our nation is divided” (2:10). He then began studying the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. “I thought that, after a thorough investigation, I should be in a position to select the best. So, I submitted myself to hard training and laborious exercises and passed through the three courses” (2:11).

(Notice that this would suggest that the chief priests and leading men were regularly consulting him about finer points of Jewish law even before he acquired a technical knowledge of how the Law was interpreted by the three schools. Yeah, right.)

As part of his training, Josephus began living in the desert with a hermit named Bannus and undertaking ascetical practices. “I became his devoted disciple. With him I lived for three years and, having accomplished my purpose, returned to the city. Being now in my nineteenth year I began to govern my life by the rules of the Pharisees” (2:12).

If Josephus came back to the city and decided to be a Pharisee at age 19, after living with Bannus for three years, then he must have begun his desert sojourn at age 16. But that’s the same age he said he started “hard training and laborious exercises” in the three Jewish schools of thought.

So, which was it? Was he living with a hermit in the desert or getting a thorough training in the thought of three different sects during this period?

Josephus probably did live with a hermit for a while, but he probably only gained a passing familiarity with the thought of the three sects—and it’s possible that all the training he got in their beliefs came from a single guy: Bannus. The account of studies of the sects is at least exaggerated.

 

Josephus: “I’m not a traitor! No! Really!”

When it comes to his wartime activities, Josephus portrays both himself and the wise leaders of the Jewish people as opposing the outbreak of the rebellion, and he lays the blame for it at the feet of certain younger hotheads.

One strongly suspects that both Josephus (a general!) and various Jewish leaders were rather more willing to rebel than he makes out and that he’s minimizing this to counter their warlike reputation in Gentile eyes—as well as relieving himself of responsibility for the disastrous outcome of the war for his Jewish readers.

After Josephus was captured by the Romans, he was in danger of being put to death, and at this point he announced that he’d received a divine revelation and told the Roman general Vespsian that he and his son Titus would become emperors.

At the time, Rome was engaged in a series of civil wars, and Vespasian was a respected general who could plausibly become emperor.

But “to this speech Vespasian, at the moment, seemed to attach little credit, supposing it to be a trick of Josephus to save his life” (War 3:8:9[404]). And that’s exactly what most commentators have concluded. Josephus didn’t receive a revelation but made the prediction as a desperate gamble.

And the gamble paid off, because when the legions acclaimed Vespasian emperor, Josephus’s fortunes rose dramatically!

These examples let us identify the main situations when we should be skeptical of what Josephus says. When he lies or exaggerates, it’s for defensive reasons. He’s either defending himself—like preserving his life or reputation—or he’s defending his people by seeking to rehabilitate them in the eyes of Gentiles.

But how reliable is he in other situations? That’s what we’ll look at next time.

The Great Flood & Science (Noah’s Ark, Rainbows, Genesis) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

What does the scientific and historical evidence say about the Great Flood in Genesis? Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli discuss whether there was a worldwide Flood, whether Noah was a historical person, and how we should understand the biblical passage on Noah, the Ark, and the Great Flood.

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The Bible and the Great Flood (Noah’s Ark, Rainbows, Genesis, Faith) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

Genesis records that God sent the Great Flood to wipe out mankind because of sinfulness, but that he preserved Noah, his family, and pairs of every animal in an ark. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli look at the questions of whether Noah was a real person, was the flood worldwide, and more.

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Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World is brought to you in part through the generous support of Aaron Vurgason Electric and Automation at AaronV.com. Making Connections for Life for your automation and smart home needs in north and central Florida.

Catechism Class, a dynamic weekly podcast journey through the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Greg and Jennifer Willits. It’s the best book club, coffee talk, and faith study group, all rolled into one. Find it in any podcast directory.

Fiorvento Law, PLLC, specializing in adult guardianships and conservatorships, probate and estate planning matters. Accepting clients throughout Michigan. Taking into account your individual, healthcare, financial and religious needs. Visit FiorventoLaw.com

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The Exodus! (Did It Happen?) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

The Bible records the story of Moses and Exodus, the foundational event in the Jewish faith, but some skeptics say it never happened. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine the evidence to determine whether the Exodus really occurred.

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Catechism Class, a dynamic weekly podcast journey through the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Greg and Jennifer Willits. It’s the best book club, coffee talk, and faith study group, all rolled into one. Find it in any podcast directory.

Best-selling Christian author Jacqueline Brown. Get a free audio copy of her award-winning novel “The Light”. Who do you become when the world falls away? Get the book at SQPN.com/TheLight. Appropriate for mature teens and adults. Learn more at jacqueline-brown.com.

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Who Was the Man Who Ran Away Naked?

Mark contains a brief story not found in the other Gospels. Immediately after Jesus’ arrest, the Eleven scatter, and we read:

And a certain young man was following him, clothed only in a linen cloth on his naked body. And they attempted to seize him, but he left behind the linen cloth and fled naked (14:51-52, LEB).

People naturally want to know who this young, anonymous man was.

 

Was it Mark?

Today, many say it was Mark himself—that he recorded this incident the way medieval artists sometimes put tiny portraits of themselves in their paintings or the way Alfred Hitchcock briefly appears in his films.

Some may even suppose this is the traditional answer that has always been believed, but it’s not. The Church Fathers made other proposals, and this theory only became common in the late 19th century.

There also are problems with it. One is that the Greek word for “young man” (neaniskos) indicates a man who is past puberty and thus in his late teens or early 20s.

But when we meet Mark in Acts 12:12, it is the year A.D. 43—a decade after the Crucifixion—and it appears that Mark is a young man then, not one pushing or over 30.

We also have testimony from a first century figure named John the Presbyter, who says Mark “had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him” during his ministry (Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).

Finally, we don’t have evidence of an ancient literary tradition of authors giving themselves brief, anonymous appearances in their works. That isn’t what Mark’s audience would expect, so this theory reads a much later artistic and cinematic technique into ancient literature.

 

A Curious Stranger?

Another proposal is that this was a random person—not a member of the Christian community—who happened to be following out of curiosity and got nabbed.

This isn’t impossible, but the argument for it is weak. The argument is that people normally wore two garments, an inner one and an outer one. So, perhaps the young man was asleep, heard the noise, quickly put on a single garment, and when to see what the commotion was.

The problem is that people also sometimes wore just one garment, so the man was not clearly underdressed.

Further, if he were not a Christian, why would the authorities grab him? Mark tells us that “a crowd” was present for the arrest (14:43), and a person walking along with the crowd would not be grabbed unless he previously had been seen among Jesus’ followers.

Also, if this man had no connection with the Christian community, how did this story get preserved? The way Mark tells it, the Eleven had already fled, and the arresting party would have no reason to tell the story to the Christian community later on.

The preservation of the story—and its use by Mark—would be more logical if the person was known to the Evangelist and his audience.

In that case, the question would be: Why isn’t his name mentioned?

 

Protective Anonymity

Scholars have noted that, in the Synoptic Gospels, certain people remain curiously anonymous in the Passion narrative.

These include the woman who anoints Jesus (Mark 14:3), the owner of the house where Jesus eats the Last Supper (14:14-15), and the disciple who strikes off the ear of the high priest’s servant (14:47).

What these figures have in common is that they committed acts that would be considered seditious by the Jerusalem authorities. The woman anointed Jesus, which could be seen as consecrating him for his role as the anointed Messiah, the king of the Jews. The householder then hosts the new rebel king. And the last takes up arms in defense of the rebel king.

When the story of Jesus’ Passion was first being told in the Jerusalem church, it would not be safe to publicly name these people—not if they still lived in or visited Jerusalem, where the Jewish authorities could get them.

Neither would it do to write their names in a Gospel that would find its way to the Jerusalem church. So, the theory is that the Synoptic Evangelists give these people “protective anonymity.”

But when John was written, the individuals may have moved away, died, or already been taken into custody, so they didn’t need protection.

That’s why some are named in John. The woman who anoints Jesus is revealed to be Mary the sister of Lazarus (John 12:3), and the disciple who wielded the sword is revealed to be St. Peter (John 18:10).

But their identities were known in the Christian community from the beginning. Jesus had said, concerning Mary, “wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (Mark 14:9), and when Peter was preaching the gospel orally, he would have identified himself as the man with the sword.

Yet in Mark, Mary is simply “a woman” (14:3) and Peter is “a certain one of the bystanders” (14:47).

 

Someone we know?

Could Mark be withholding the identity of the “certain young man,” though it was known to the Christian community? Might we have heard of him? If so, who might it be?

St. Ambrose suggested that it might be John son of Zebedee, but it’s hard to see why he would need protective anonymity. People knew he was one of the Twelve, and Mark names him as present at the time of the arrest (14:33). He already was in danger as a known supporter of Jesus, and merely escaping an arrest was not a seditious act.

Theophylact of Ohrid suggested the man might be James the “brother” of the Lord. However, Jesus’ brethren didn’t believe in him during his ministry (John 7:5), so he was unlikely to be following Jesus that night.

Some have proposed that the “beloved disciple” was actually John the Presbyter, who was from an aristocratic Jerusalem family and personally knew the high priest. He may have been the host of the Last Supper, which is why he was seated next to Jesus (John 13:23).

If so, there could be reason to shield his identity, and he never names himself in the Gospel!

However, he doesn’t identify himself as the man who ran away. And, after Jesus is arrested, he follows Jesus to the high priest’s house and even gets Peter access to the courtyard (18:15-16). This makes it unlikely he had just escaped arrest.

 

The ideal candidate?

The ideal candidate for the young man would be someone who (a) was not one of the Twelve, (b) lived in the Jerusalem area, (c) was a follower of Jesus, and (d) was already wanted by the authorities, since he doesn’t do anything criminal in Mark.

Is there such a person? Yes, and it’s Lazarus. Immediately after John records Mary anointing Jesus, he says:

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus (12:9-11).

The authorities thus were already looking to kill Lazarus. But he may not have known this, which could explain why he thought it would be safe to follow, only to be seized and forced to flee naked.

Lazarus—like his sister Mary—was known to the early Christian community, and when the Passion was retold in the Jerusalem church, people would have known the parts they played. Yet, it wouldn’t have been safe to name them publicly, such as in a Gospel, as long as they remained alive and in the Jerusalem area.

This doesn’t prove Lazarus was the man who ran away naked, but it fits the evidence, and it’s an intriguing possibility!

How Not to Fight About Words

In his final letter, St. Paul gives Timothy an important exhortation for those under his pastoral care:

Remind them of this, and charge them before the Lord to avoid disputing about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers (2 Tim. 2:14).

In his previous letter, Paul gives an even more strongly worded warning:

If anyone . . . does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing; he has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among men who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth (1 Tim. 6:3-5)

As you can see, Paul is not a fan of fights about words.

Yet Paul’s letters are filled with arguments about various issues. How can we square these two facts?

The basic resolution is that Paul cares about substance—that is, what a person believes—and he’s willing to argue about that. But he doesn’t want to argue about expression—that is, how a person phrases his beliefs. Paul is concerned about substance rather than style. As long as the substance of what a person believes is correct, Paul doesn’t want to quibble about how expresses himself.

I’m sure there would have been limits to this. I can imagine situations where Paul would have thought a person was expressing a true thought in a manner that was so misleading that he would have considered it worth discussing.

However, the principle remains: We shouldn’t be quarreling about words in the Christian community. We should recognize that a true belief can be expressed in more than one way, and the mode of expression is not what we should be concerned about.

This is especially true in discussions among different groups of Christians. Because language naturally changes over time, it is only to be expected that different Christians will develop their own ways of using language and their own nuances for terms.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of arguing about words in the Christian community today, and a good bit of it comes from not recognizing how flexible language can be.

People have a natural tendency to assume that words are just meant to be used the way they use them, and if somebody is using them differently, that person must be wrong.

So, let’s look at how some terms have changed over time, and see what conclusions we can draw.

We may learn something about how not to fight about words.

 

Words that Change Meaning in the Bible over Time

Though it may be surprising, there are terms that shift in their meaning even during biblical history.

That’s what you’d expect, since the Scriptures were written over a period of about 1,100 years, and nobody should expect a community’s mode of expression to stay static over that length of time. (Just look at how English has changed since the year 800!)

The matter is complicated by the fact that, not only did terms change meanings over this period, but the language itself shifted, with God’s people first speaking Hebrew, then Aramaic, and then Greek.

Nevertheless, we can track changes in meaning across biblical vocabulary:

Salvation: The basic meaning of this term is “to rescue” or “to make safe,” but there is a dramatic shift in how it is used between the Old and the New Testaments.

In the Old Testament, salvation is connected almost exclusively with being rescued from temporal dangers—ones we encounter in this life, like war, defeat, famine, plague, or death.

However, in the New Testament, the focus has shifted from this life to the next, and the salvation that is primarily under discussion is being rescued from the consequences of sin so that we can share eternal life with God.

One way of expressing this is that the Old Testament is principally concerned with “temporal” salvation, while the New Testament is principally concerned with “eternal” salvation.

Forgiveness: A corresponding shift is the way forgiveness of sin is understood.

In the Old Testament, being forgiven of a sin principally means not being punished—or fully punished—for it in this life. In particular, it means not dying as a result of the sin.

Thus, when David repents of having brought about the death of Uriah the Hittite, we read:

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against Yahweh!”

Nathan said to David, “Yahweh has also forgiven your sin; you shall not die. But because you have utterly scorned Yahweh in this matter, the son born for you will certainly die” (2 Sam. 12:13-14, LEB).

David had been forgiven in that he would not die, but that doesn’t mean he would escape all punishment. He would be forced to witness the death of his son.

Notice that both of these penalties—David’s death and the death of his son—are temporal rather than eternal.

By contrast, when forgiveness is discussed in the New Testament, it is principally in connection with being forgiven the eternal consequences of our sins, so that we can be eternally saved.

 

Words that Change Meaning in Different Biblical Passages

Even within a single time period, words can be used in different senses in different biblical passages.

Faith/Belief: A classic example is the term “faith” or “belief” (Greek, pistis). In many New Testament passages, this concept involves trust in God. Thus, when Jesus has rebuked the wind and the waves, he turns to the disciples and says, ““Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” (Mark 4:40).

However, a different sense of the term is on display in James, who informs us that “Even the demons believe—and shudder” (Jas. 2:19). Here “faith” is understood as a purely intellectual one. Demons know the truths of Christian doctrine, but they lack the more robust faith that involves trust in God.

Still a third usage is found in St. Paul, where he says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). Here we have faith formed by love (Latin, fides formata caritate), which combines intellectual assent, trust, and charity—the three theological virtues (1 Cor. 13:7).

 

Words that Change Meaning Between the Bible and the Fathers

Of course, language did not stop developing with the close of the apostolic era, and so we find terms continuing to change in meaning:

Witness/Martyr: The Greek term martus originally meant “witness,” and in this sense we find St. Paul writing:

For God . . . is my witness [martus], how constantly I make mention of you, always asking in my prayers if somehow now at last I may succeed to come to you in the will of God (Rom. 1:9-10).

However, this term came to be associated with those who served as witnesses to the truth of the Faith by giving their lives for it and so being “martyred.”

Following the age of persecutions in the early Church, the term became so associated with being killed for the Faith that people who were not killed became known by other terms, such as “confessors” (those who confessed the Faith under persecution, even though they were not killed).

Today, a popular Christian audience would never understand the term martyr to refer simply to a person who bore witness to something.

Sacrament: The term sacrament (Greek, musterion, Latin, sacramentum) originally meant “secret” or “mystery,” and it occurs in this sense in the New Testament, as when Jesus tells the disciples, “To you has been granted the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside everything is in parables” (Mark 4:11).

However, in the era of the Church Fathers, the term came much more to be associated with various rites of the Christian faith, such as baptism and the Eucharist.

Eventually, this usage came to predominate, and today nobody would know what you meant if you translated Jesus as saying, “To you has been given the sacrament of the kingdom of God.”

 

Words that Change Meaning Between the Fathers and the Scholastics

The Middle Ages also saw shifts in terminology that had been present earlier in the tradition:

Anathema: Though this term is found in the Greek New Testament (Gal. 1:8-9) and even has roots in the Old Testament, it shifted meaning over time, and by the Middle Ages it had come to refer to a special form of excommunication.

This form had to be performed by a bishop, who imposed it with a special ceremony. (There was a parallel ceremony for lifting the anathema once the offender had repented—which was a key goal of excommunicating him, to prompt him to repent of sin and come back to God.)

Unfortunately, knowledge of this meaning has been lost in many circles, leading to enormous confusion about the meaning of the phrase anathema sit (Latin, “let him be anathema”) in Church documents.

For example, many in the Protestant community understand anathema to mean something like “damned by God,” and take anathemas to be something that takes effect automatically and is pronounced upon all Protestants.

None of these things are true. In ecclesiastical usage, anathema referred to a special, ceremonial form of excommunication. Because it involved a ceremony, it did not take place automatically, and it was not applied to non-Catholics. Eventually, it was abolished, and it no longer exists in current canon law.

Elect/Chosen: By the Middle Ages, the term elect came to be used for a specific group of people—those who will be saved on the Last Day.

This meaning has been inherited by most contemporary doctrinal traditions, including both Catholic and Protestant ones.

However, this is not how the term is used in the Bible or the earliest Church Fathers—as I document in a study I did of this question. Instead, the primary meaning of elect was being chosen to have a special, intimate relationship with God, but not one that implied salvation on the Last Day.

The model was Israel’s status as God’s “elect” or “chosen people,” which implied a special relationship between them and God but not the final salvation of every single Israelite.

 

Words that Change Meaning Among Doctrinal Traditions

The fragmentation of Christendom into different doctrinal traditions—especially the fragmentation that occurred following the Protestant Reformation—has led to further developments in how terminology is used:

Law and Gospel: For example, while Law and Gospel are important concepts in the Bible, they have taken on unique usages in the Lutheran tradition. Thus, the Lutheran Book of Concord states:

Anything that preaches concerning our sins and God’s wrath, let it be done how or when it will, that is all a preaching of the Law. Again, the Gospel is such a preaching as shows and gives nothing else than grace and forgiveness in Christ.

It is certainly possible to go through the Bible and identify passages which speak of sin and divine wrath and compare them to passages that speak of grace and forgiveness in Christ, but these are not the primary ways that the biblical authors use the terms law and gospel. They are distinctively Lutheran usages.

In the Bible, the primary conceptualizations of law are either as divine principles given to guide human conduct or, specifically, the Law of Moses (Gen.-Deut.). Similarly, the principal focus of the gospel is God and his actions through his Son, especially Christ’s death and resurrection.

While law is related to sin and wrath, and while the gospel is related to grace and forgiveness, Lutheran theology has developed its own uses for these categories that do not map directly onto the thought worlds of the biblical authors.

Justification: A notable difference has developed in how the term justification is often understood in Protestant and Catholic communities.

The Catholic community uses justification to refer to “not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man” (CCC 1989). It also uses the term justify to mean “to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ” (CCC 1987).

Two elements are thus found in the Catholic use of justification:

1. The remission of sins/being cleansed from sins

2. Inward sanctification/renewal/reception of righteousness from God

For the most part, the Protestant tradition has focused on justification as involving the first of these (with a corresponding understanding of justification as the impartation of legal righteousness), but not the second.

Instead, Protestant schools frequently refer to the inward renewal of the Christian using a second term: sanctification.

 

Words that Change Meaning Among Theological Traditions

Even within a given doctrinal tradition, different theological schools develop their own nuances for terms:

Regeneration/New Birth: For example, in Protestantism the term regeneration has taken on several meanings.

In Calvinist circles, regeneration is used to refer to a transformative reception of grace that occurs prior to the expression of personal faith and which makes explicit personal faith possible.

In Lutheran circles, regeneration is used to refer to a transformative reception of grace that occurs in baptism, regardless of whether explicit personal faith is present.

In Baptist circles, regeneration is used to refer to a transformative reception of grace that occurs when a person makes an explicit act of personal faith.

Predestination: Similarly, in both Protestant and Catholic circles the term predestination is understood in different ways among different theological schools.

Thus, in the Protestant tradition, Calvinists understand predestination differently than Arminians.

And in Catholic circles, Thomists understand it differently than Molinists.

 

Some Conclusions

Having gotten a sense of the ways religious terms change across time, what conclusions can we draw?

Principally, we’ve seen that there is no single way to use terms, which is the fundamental reason for Paul’s dictum not to engage in word fights.

The Bible itself shows different usages, both across times and by different authors living in the same time.

Given this diversity in Scripture itself, we should not expect doctrinal vocabulary to be frozen at any given moment in history.

What is normative is the fundamental doctrinal substance of the Faith, which was frozen with the end of public revelation at the conclusion of the apostolic age.

Even then, that fundamental content remained to be meditated upon and further elaborated, with its implications being fleshed out through the process of doctrinal development (which any accurate understanding of the history of Christian doctrine and theology must recognize).

But what are we do to about the different usages that have grown up in the Christian community?

Lest confusion result, each communion should in general retain the usages that have developed within it, though even these are not frozen and are subject to further development with time.

For the sake of accurately understanding of the Bible, of history, and of each other, there also should be an awareness of the way terms have shifted and continue to shift.

  • Exegetes need to be aware of how terminology is used in the Bible and how to translate it into the vocabulary of their own traditions—without forcing their tradition’s meanings back onto the biblical text.
  • Patristic scholars need to do the same thing with respect to texts from the Church Fathers.
  • Historians of doctrine and theology need to do it with the historical texts they study.
  • And Christians in dialogue among different doctrinal and theological traditions need to be able to do it across the biblical, historical, and contemporary texts.

Part of learning how not to fight about words is learning to translate between these vocabularies.

For example, when it comes to the terms like justify and justification, we should not suppose that there is only a single way that these can be used—or that Scripture uses them in only one sense (it does not; Scripture has multiple uses for them).

Instead, we should be able to explain how our tradition uses the term and what we mean by it—and be prepared to explain the basis for what we believe.

Catholics and Protestants typically believe in both the forgiveness of sins with an accompanying legal status of being righteous—and a renewal of the inner man by God’s grace.

We do not need to be divided by the terminological issue of whether our community uses justification to refer to just the first of these or to both, as long as we agree on the substance—the fact that both occur.

When it comes to the biblical texts, we need to be prepared to recognize that Scripture may or may not use terms the way that they have developed in our communities. We should not force our doctrinal or theological uses back onto the text.

Instead, we should seek to determine—as best we can—what the biblical authors meant, regardless of whether it corresponds to later uses.

Sometimes, it will. The different uses of faith that are emphasized in different schools today are all found in Scripture. But the conventional meaning of the term elect is not.

It is good—to the extent possible over time—to steer our vocabularies so that they correspond to the way terms are used in Scripture, but language change requires time and cannot be suddenly imposed without causing tremendous confusion and dissension.

Such dissension is precisely what St. Paul sought to avoid by prohibiting quarrels about words. As long as we agree in substance, precisely how we express that substance is a secondary matter, and—even if we think another school is departing from the language of Scripture in how they express themselves and it would be better if they didn’t—we should still be able to recognize it when they are correct in substance.

When Were the Gospels Written? (The Dates of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

The four Gospels have been a primary source of information about Jesus Christ for 2,000 years, but in recent times, some skeptics have said they were written so late after Jesus, they aren’t reliable. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli find out what tradition, Church teaching, and historical sources tell about when the Gospels were really written.

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Mary Magdalene and Mary the Sister of Lazarus

Recently, Pope Francis added a memorial for the Bethany family—Martha, Mary, and Lazarus—to the General Roman Calendar.

The General Roman Calendar is the international liturgical calendar used in the Latin Church, and it is the basis of the particular calendars used in different countries.

A memorial is a liturgical commemoration ranking below a solemnity and a feast but above an optional memorial.

Given the prominence of the Bethany family in the Gospels—they are mentioned as friends of Jesus in both Luke and John—it may come as a bit of a surprise that they didn’t already have a place on the calendar.

And there’s a reason for that.

 

Which Mary?

The decree announcing the new memorial indicates that the reason the Bethany family didn’t have a common spot on the calendar up to now was due to uncertainty about how three biblical women should be identified:

The traditional uncertainty of the Latin Church about the identity of Mary—the Magdalene to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection, the sister of Martha, the sinner whose sins the Lord had forgiven—which resulted in the inclusion of Martha alone on 29 July in the Roman Calendar, has been resolved in recent studies and times, as attested by the current Roman Martyrology, which also commemorates Mary and Lazarus on that day.

The three women were thus:

  1. Mary Magdalene (John 20:1-18)
  2. Mary the sister of Martha (Luke 10:39, John 11:1-12:7)
  3. And the woman whose sins Jesus forgave (Luke 7:36-50)

In the Latin Catholic Church, there has historically been a question of whether these three figures are actually one person, with various authors holding that they were.

 

Why Would This Cause a Problem?

The reason this would cause a problem for giving the Bethany family a common slot on the calendar is that Mary Magdalene already had one.

Mary Magdalene is mentioned in all four Gospels as one of the witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection, and her liturgical day is July 22. What’s more, it’s a feast, which outranks a memorial.

So, it would be odd to have a second liturgical day dedicated to the Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, since Mary would be appearing on the calendar twice.

As a result, Martha alone had a day on the liturgical calendar—July 29—though in the current Roman Martyrology (the Latin Church’s official list of saints and martyrs) also lists Mary and Lazarus on that day.

 

Why the Question?

Why has there been a question about the identification of the three women?

Part of the reason is that the sinful woman that Luke mentions wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair is unnamed (Luke 7:36-50).

However, John says that Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair (John 11:2), and that could mean that they are the same person.

On the other hand, it may not, because in the very next chapter, John tells us the story of Mary wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair (John 12:3), and he does not present her as a sinner. Luke also mentions the woman weeping over Jesus’ feet, but John doesn’t mention Mary doing this.

Also, since Luke does mention Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus in his Gospel (Luke 10:39), you’d think that he’d mention her by name if she was the sinful woman.

Further, Luke presents the hair wiping incident as occurring at a very different point in Jesus’ ministry. In Luke, it’s early on—before Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for Passion week, while in John, Mary wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair the day before the Triumphal Entry.

That could be because the Evangelists aren’t required to keep events in a strict chronological order, but it also could be that two different women performed similar actions to honor Jesus.

As a result, this matter is still ambiguous. There is evidence that points both ways.

 

One Mary or Two?

The identity of the sinful woman has not been the key obstacle to giving the Bethany family a spot on the calendar, though. Instead, it’s been the question of whether Mary Magdalene and Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus are the same person.

There are, after all, multiple women named “Mary” in the New Testament.

In fact, more than one in five Jewish women in first century Palestine were named Mary (see Richard Bauckham’s outstanding book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, ch. 4).

With a name that common, people in the first century Jewish community needed ways to tell them apart, and since they didn’t have last names like we do, they needed to use something else.

 

How They Did It

One of the most common ways of telling one person from another was to use a patronym—that is, to refer to them in connection with their father.

This is why Peter’s birth name is Simon bar-Jona, or “Simon the son of John.” It would distinguish him from other Simons, since most of their fathers wouldn’t also be named John.

But, if you didn’t know someone’s father, you might refer to them by a different relative—say, a brother. Thus, Peter’s brother Andrew can be referred to as “Andrew the brother of Simon” (Mark 1:16).

Uniquely, in Jesus’ case, he is referred to as “the son of Mary” (Mark 6:3).

In the case of women, you might refer to them by the names of their husbands. Thus, Luke refers to “Joanna the wife of Chuza” (Luke 8:3) and John refers to “Mary the wife of Clopas” (John 19:25).

But what do you do if you aren’t acquainted with a person’s relatives?

In that case, they were probably from somewhere else—since you’d know everybody in your own village—and so you could use their place of origin as a substitute.

This is why Jesus is known as “Jesus of Nazareth,” because outside of Nazareth, people didn’t know his family and so used the town in which he grew up. (Inside of Nazareth, they wouldn’t have called him this and would have used his family instead.)

This gives us the information we need to figure out the puzzle.

 

Mary the Sister of Martha and Lazarus

Both Luke and John refer to Mary as the sister of Martha, and John adds that she was the sister of Lazarus also.

They thus follow the standard naming conventions of the time.

Modern scholars often refer to them as “the Bethany family,” because that’s where they lived.

Bethany was a small village just outside Jerusalem, on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives.

And this was their stable place of residence. In fact, John introduces Lazarus by referring to him as “Lazarus of Bethany” and follows up by saying Bethany was “the village of Mary and her sister Martha” (John 11:1).

So, they were all identified with Bethany in Judaea. If you were from somewhere else and knew only one of the siblings, you would have used “of Bethany” as their identifier.

In fact, modern scholars often refer to Mary as “Mary of Bethany” to avoid the lengthier “Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus.”

 

Mary Magdalene

This means that, when Luke and John refer to “Mary Magdalene,” they are referring to a different person.

They already have a way of referring to the Mary who was related to Martha and Lazarus.

They’ve already introduced her to their audience using the sibling-identifier, and so they would be misleading their audience if they suddenly switched the identifier to something else and didn’t mention to their readers that they’re still talking about the same person.

In this case, the identifier—“Magdalene”—is a place name. “Mary Magdalene” means “Mary of Magdala.”

Magdala was a major fishing port on the Sea of Galilee, which is—of course, located up north in Galilee, way far away from Bethany down by Jerusalem.

That tells us several things:

  • Mary Magdalene was a Galilean, being associated with a city in Galilee.
  • She had no relatives who were well known to the Christian community (in particular, she had no husband, which fits with the fact she was free to follow the itinerant prophet Jesus).
  • She was a different person than Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who was associated with a village in Judaea.

 

Putting It All Together

And so, the puzzle is resolved. Despite earlier identifications of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, they are really two different people.

This has become clear—as the Congregation for Divine Worship notes—“in recent studies” that have carefully examined the way first century Jewish names worked.

This growing awareness of the fact the two women are distinct resulted, first, in giving the Bethany family a common day in the Roman Martyrology, and now, in giving them a common day on the General Calendar.