Chester Brown is one of the most renowned and respected cartoonists in the world; he and I first met online about four years ago and quickly became friends. And while I did give him a little help with his revised edition of Paying For It, and he drew the cover for my book Ladies of the Night, his new book is the first one I’ve been privileged to see developed from the very first kernel of the idea (shared in a letter to me several years ago) all the way to distribution and book signings. So once the initial release whirlwind had died down and I figured he might have some time, I asked him if he’d like to do a guest column introducing the book; he sent this the very next day. Oh, and one more thing: Chester now has a Patreon account, and if supporting outspoken allies of sex workers is important to you, you really should consider signing up to that. Just sayin’.
While the subtitle of my new book is Prostitution And Religious Obedience In The Bible, and there are stories about several biblical prostitutes in it, Mary Wept Over The Feet Of Jesus is mostly about the connections that Jesus had to prostitution. I’m proposing three interrelated ideas:
- Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a prostitute.
- Mary of Bethany, the woman who anointed Jesus as a christ, was a prostitute.
- Jesus’s parables about The Prodigal Son and The Talents indicate that he didn’t see prostitutes and their clients as sinners to be forgiven but, rather, saw paying for sex as socially beneficial.
I’m not going to try to convince you that I’m right about all that here; that’s what the book is for. Instead I want to talk about the issue of bias. Some critics have dismissed my ideas because I have a bias; for example, see this piece in the A.V. Club. It is true that I have a bias; I’ve been a client of sex workers for seventeen years and do happen to see the profession as socially beneficial. I’ve made no attempt to hide that fact. The question is, does having a bias on a particular subject necessarily invalidate one’s views on that subject? Should Martin Luther King Jr’s views on civil rights have been dismissed because, being a black man, he had a bias? I think it’s precisely because I have a bias that I was able to see certain things in the Bible that haven’t been obvious to others. And it’s not like others who’ve written about Jesus and prostitution before me did not have a bias on the subject of sex work; in fact, I’d venture to guess that the vast majority of biblical scholars, past and present, had and have a whorephobic bias against sex work.
Let’s talk about two relatively recent examples that I came across while researching for my book. Karen King is a biblical scholar whom I have a lot of respect for. Her fascinating book What Is Gnosticism? transformed my understanding of that subject. In 2003, she published a book titled The Gospel of Mary Of Magdala. In it, King translates and analyzes an ancient text known as The Gospel Of Mary, which presents a woman named Mary as Jesus’s wisest disciple. Most people assume that the woman is Mary Magdalene, and they’re probably right; I would recommend King’s book to anyone who wants to understand this difficult text. On page 3, King writes that The Gospel Of Mary “exposes the erroneous view that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute for what it is — a piece of theological fiction”. However, reading the text of the gospel, one finds no mention of prostitution; there’s no indication what Mary’s source of income was. (Even a spiritual person in first century Palestine needed some sort of income, whether it was from begging or some other source.) There’s no sign one way or the other in The Gospel Of Mary, as we have it, that Mary was or wasn’t a prostitute, nor is there any mention of sex; furthermore, King doesn’t interpret any of the material as relating to prostitution or sex. Now, since there are many pages missing in the two surviving manuscripts of the text, it’s possible that one of those missing pages mentioned that Mary was a prostitute. (I hesitate to get conspiratorial, but perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that certain pages went missing in both surviving manuscripts.) But even if those missing pages didn’t mention that Mary was a prostitute, that still wouldn’t prove she wasn’t one. So why does King think that the The Gospel Of Mary PROVES that Mary never had sex for pay? King doesn’t explain her reasoning, but there can be only one reason: The gospel presents Mary as the most wise and spiritual of the disciples of Jesus, and King whorephobically assumes that a prostitute could not be wise and spiritual.
In the 2006 book Secrets Of Mary Magdalene, edited by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, there’s an essay by the respected historian James Carroll in which, on page 24, he quotes Luke 8:2-3. In that biblical passage, it’s mentioned that Mary Magdalene and several other women “provided for them [Jesus and the male disciples] out of their own resources.” Carroll reads this as an indication that Mary and the other women must therefore have been “well-to-do, respectable figures.” In other words, they could not have been prostitutes, because, of course, only well-to-do, respectable women had money — prostitutes had absolutely no way to get ahold of money. This isn’t quite as obviously whorephobic as the Karen King example, but it does indicate a desperate over-eagerness to distance Mary Magdalene from prostitution. Why wasn’t it obvious to Carroll that, while evidence that Mary Magdalene had money could indicate that she was “respectable”, it could just as easily be evidence that she was a prostitute? There’s a probably unconscious bias going on there, and one sees it over and over while reading books about biblical prostitutes in general and Mary Magdalene in particular.
On the question of whether Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, I don’t have a definite opinion one way or the other. It’s true that none of the biblical books link Mary Magdalene with the profession, but Jesus was close with Mary of Bethany, who definitely was a prostitute, and it could be that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were the same person. It’s also possible that they were two separate women, since the name Mary was popular at the time. (See pages 245 to 253 of Mary Wept for more on this.) A basic rule: when a scholar claims with certainty that Mary Magdalene absolutely could not have been a prostitute, that scholar probably has a bias against sex work. That doesn’t mean that all of that scholar’s conclusions should be dismissed, any more than my pro-sex work bias means that my conclusions should be dismissed. All it really means is that readers should keep authorial bias in mind when reading any book.
Thanks for this. I, too, have a less whorephobic response than lots of other people and certainly agree with Chester Brown that there’s no shame in the hooker game. Rock on Marys of the Bible. Financial independence for all women throughout history or among the unrecorded also. If Jesus was comfortable around ANY women, more power to him. If he was comfortable around hooker women, even more power to him.
On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 3:02 AM, The Honest Courtesan wrote:
> Maggie McNeill posted: “Chester Brown is one of the most renowned and > respected cartoonists in the world; he and I first met online about four > years ago and quickly became friends. And while I did give him a little > help with his revised edition of Paying For It, and he drew the” >
In my view you don’t need to get into the hot debate of Mary etc., but there is plenty of other evidence in the accepted biblical books that there was nothing wrong with non goddess prostitution. I wrote the following about 10 years ago on libchrist.com and sexwork.com:
There is no biblical basis for the anti-sexual traditions taught by tradition bound Christian Churches. We have a huge section “The Bible, Christianity & Sexual Issues” at http://www.libchrist.com/bible/contents.html which goes into great depth on all the issues.
The only prostitutes condemned in the Bible are those who were priests and priestesses to other gods. Israels neighbors practiced a fertility religion in which prostitution was part of the worship. This led naturally to describing worship of other gods as prostitution (Ex. 34:15-16; Judg. 8:27, 33; Hos. 4:13). This concept is central for Hoseas preaching based on his experience with his unfaithful wife Gomer. Ezekiel also used this concept (Ezek. 16; 23) and extended it to include political treaties with foreign enemies (Ezek. 16:26, 28; 23:5).
Leviticus 18 is specifically designed to distinguish the Jews from the pagans who worshipped the multiple gods of fertility cults. It also is included with other Mosaic laws such as required killing kids who curse their parents, the death penalty for picking up sticks or doing other work on the Sabbath, and under the law, slave-beating was a protected legal right!
Leviticus 19 starts out specially about Idolatry being forbidden
Leviticus 19: 26-28 forbids eating meat, cutting your beard and have tattoos. Than verse 29 not making daughter a harlot – again referring to idolatry of worshiping the gods of Molech via sex.
We also know Jesus and King David were decendants of a prostitute Rahab
1. Judah, the son of Jacob, who inherited the firstborn kingship rights for the whole nation of Israel, fathered Perez and Zerah through whom Jesus came in an act of prostitution with Tamar, his daughter in law.
2. Jesus and King David were both descendants of Rahab. So in Hebrew terms Jesus’ direct mum was a virgin, the virgin Mary, but his greater mum Rahab or Tamar was a whore. Therefore the statement: Jesus’ mother was a ho is technically true. Since to the Hebrew a grandmother is a mother and a grandfather is a father. So there were two prostitutes in Jesus’ ancestral line, Tamar and Rahab. Both are spceifically mentioned in his genealogy in Matthew1. So the holy spirit is not ashamed of either of them. In fact the household of Rahab was the only group to be saved in Jericho is Joshua .
Prostitution served a purpose in Hebrew society just as it serves a purpose today in Western Society and all over the world. It is a partial antidote to sexual frustration.
Regarding prostitution:
“Common” Prostitution Is Not A Biblical Conflict
Just like with other sexually repressive teachings of traditional Christianity much of what you think you know about biblical issues is based on traditional teachings that have no biblical basis. Just as tradition has twisted the original texts to try and argue that singles sexuality is wrong, or that swinging is adultery, they have also hijacked the real meaning of biblical prostitution and how it applies today.
Cultic Prostitution
Biblically cultic prostitution is clearly wrong. Cultic prostitution uses sex as idolatrous worship of the pagan goddess, such as the fertility Gods which the TEMPLE prostitutes had “johns” worshipping by having sex in the Corinthian temples which was what Paul so strongly preached against.
Yes these prostitutes were worshiping the pagan goddesses in the Jewish Temples! Clearly we can understand why this was so upsetting! It as a clear violation of the First Commandment which requires no other gods before the one true God. In New Testament times, Venus and Aphrodite were the main gods of the Corinthian pagans. The temple of Venus was one of the most magnificent buildings in the city and the temple employed over 1000 prostitutes, which were paid for with public funds. Their purpose was to serve men in worship of the fertility gods so their feeds and cattle would be fertile. In Old Testament times, the Canaanites worshipped Baal was the Canaanite god of fertility and Astarte, love goddess of the Phoenicians. It was wrong for the children of Israel to go “a-whoring after other gods” which were these cultic prostitutes.
From “Halley’s Bible Handbook” 1 Cor. 6: 9-20; “Venus was the principal Deity of Corinth. Her temple was one of the most magnificent buildings in the city. In it a thousand Priestesses, Public Prostitutes, were kept, at public expense, there always ready for Immoral Indulgence, as worship to their Goddess.” The Christians continued to go to the temple for sexual indulgences with the priestesses of Venus. This was all Paul was talking about and he says nothing about loving sexual pleasure-sharing with non-goddesses’!
Greek travel-writer, Strabo (ca. 64 Bc-AD 21), regarding ancient Corinth writes: “And the temple of Aphrodite [in Corinth] was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple-slaves, courtesans (hetairai ), whom both women and men had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was also on account of these women that the city was crowded with people and grew rich” (8.6.20; LCL trans.).
The Jews were also involved in such practices. There are about a dozen passages in the Old Testament that revolve around “Qadeshes”, a word for female and male cult practitioners. The Bible calls them “lemans” and “catamites”. In the Fifth Book of Moses, male prostitutes are prohibited from donating their “dogs’ money” to the House of Yahweh.
In Babylon, the historian Herodotus wrote (who is believed to have lived between circa 490 to 425 B.C.), was the widespread practice of prostitution in the Temple of Ishtar. Once in their lifetimes, all women in the country were required to sit in the temple and “expose themselves to a stranger” in return for money.
Deuteronomy 23:16-18
The term “whore” or prostitute clearly mean cultic not common prostitution which is often mentioned with no negative inference.
The subject of these verses is made clear in the Amplified Version: There shall be no cult prostitute among the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a cult prostitute among the sons of Israel.
The meaning is also made plain by the Moffatt Translation: No woman of Israel shall be a temple-prostitute, and no man of Israel shall be a temple-prostitute.
Non Goddess Prostitutes in the Bible
Since men could have as many wives and concubines (for breeding or just sexual enjoyment) as they could afford it may have been only the poorer men who would need prostitutes for sexual variety. They couldn’t afford the “upkeep” of wives or concubines so they went to prostitutes for sexual pleasure and release.
Prostitution in Hebrew society was morally censored at times for legitimate reasons such as the knowing who would own the resulting children, with no effective birth control, but it was not illegal or a sin. Only Israelite priests were prohibited from marrying a prostitute. Listed as wrongs for which God will judge is trading “a boy for a harlot” (Joel 3:3). But being a prostitute (harlot or zonah in Hebrew) herself, if single, is guilty of no biblical crime unless she is a priest’s daughter, in which case says Lev 21:9 she “profaneth her father” and “shall be burnt with fire.”
Prostitution was common in biblical times. In Proverbs men are warned against squandering their money foolishly on prostitutes. But it was a money issue not morality. There was no law against prostitution for non-Hebrew women.
Today prostitution flourishes in Israel. Prostitution is not, and has never been, a crime under Israeli law. Some of the world’s most popular brothels are in Tel Aviv. For Hebrew women it was very important to have a husband to have children with to maintain the Hebrew people. It was never considered adultery for a man, married or single, to have sex with a prostitute, as long as she was single (not owned by another man). It was only wrong if it was for the purpose of pagan goddess worship.
Judah saw nothing wrong in hiring a prostitute for the night.
Rahab “the harlot” was praised in Hebrews 11:31 and Jos 6:17 as an example of faith. Rahab was praised because she helped Israelite spies whom she hid and helped escape but the mention of her as “the harlot” wasn’t a negative reference.
In Hosea 1:3, God commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomez. In Hosea 4:15, God said he would not punish the daughters of Israel when they turned to prostitution. (Someone Commented: These passages are allegories to Gods relationships with Israel, which at the time wasn’t exactly good. The Hosea 4:15 reference I believe is saying that though Israel in general is acting as a harlot, Judah (one tribe of Israel) is not. EG, all of the tribes except Judah are acting as harlots. I think some of this could possibly support the notion that there was clearly a double standard – one for men, and another for women. And it certainly seems to be stating that it’s not OK for women to cheat.) And men could always cheat as long as the “other women” was not married (owned by husband).
Other prostitutes mentioned in the Old Testament were the harlot of Gaza, whom Samson visited, and two squabbling prostitutes who asked Solomon to settle a dispute. It is simply reported the fact that they were prostitutes, no big deal, nothing is ever said in condemnation of their profession.
In fact the Hebrew judge Solomon may have done more whoring than judging (Judg 16:1-4), and Jacobs son Judah, mistaking his own veiled daughter-in-law for a harlot, hired her as a prostitute (Gen 38: 13-18). The leader Gilead fathered Jephthah by a prostitute which resulted in Jephthah’s half-brothers, when dividing up the inheritance, left Jephthah out (Judg 11: 1-2).
Proverbs obviously views the foreign prostitute unsympathetically (oppressor, not victim) who with superior wealth and astuteness manages to seduce simple Israelite boys and husbands. In this trajectory we may also read Paul’s treatment in 1 Cor. 6:9-20, where Christian men (especially husbands, whose wives may have taken vows of sexual abstinence to pray, 7:5) are warned against uniting with prostitutes. As perhaps in Proverbs, the prostitutes apparently are viewed as manifesting the demonic forces of pagan religion (cf. 10:18-22). Christians are exhorted to “flee” both the prostitutes and their idolatrous religion (6:18; 10:14). How Jesus would have managed to become a “friend” of prostitutes by continually “fleeing” from them, traditional sex-negative Augustinian commentators never tell us.
Since wealthy men didn’t need prostitutes (they had plenty of wives and concubines) prostitution was certainly not a high Noble calling. But there clearly was nothing immoral or wrong from a biblical prospective with non-goddess prostitution. Today many men have little opportunity for sexual fulfillment so prostitutes are the only viable option. Sexual frustration results in men that become aggressive and are far more likely to sexually harass, abuse or rape women than men who are sexually happy and fulfilled.
Legal Prostitution in the Bible reflects the cultures double standard that while a wife must be faithful, a Hebrew man can have sex with an unmarried prostitute, or any other single woman, and not be committing adultery. But if the woman is a wife -owned by her husband under the patriarchal system of the Hebrews – then both she and her sexual partners are adulterers, a crime for which the penalty is death (Lev 20:10; Deut. 22:22).
In New Testament times, there also was nothing said about prostitution being wrong and in fact Jesus makes the point that harlots who believed John the Baptist will enter the kingdom of God before the chief priests and elders who rejected John’s message (Matt. 21:31-32).
Today prostitution is not pagan idolatry nor the concubines of biblical times – women as breeders and for sexual pleasure. And nowhere in the Bible is a word said about that being wrong!! Today many women enjoy providing intimacy and sexual pleasure to men based on their choice without being owned as concubines for men and of course always using safe sex to avoid “breeding” and so its a very healthy interaction both physically and emotionally.
Prostitution in Israel Today A June 15, 2000 review sent to me:
The best action in Israel is in Tel Aviv. There are tons of “health clubs” which provide full sex for a price going from 120 to 250 shekels for half an hour (full service) (4.2 Shekels= 1 USD). The best two I have been to are located close to each other, and are in the area of Hamasger street. These are a little more expensive, but the quality is amazing. The first one is called Promise bar (on Hamasger street) and the other one is in Shozino street (3 minutes walking from the first one) and is called Shozino bar. In these places, there is an entry fee of 50 shekels, including a drink. Then you can sit at the bar, and choose the girl you want. The price is 200 shekels for half an hour, and it includes full service, bbbj without and sometime even more. The girls are all russian or from ukraine. ALL of them I found friendly, and most of them like what they are doing. You can also stay for a longer time, the price increases and is 400 shekels for one full hour (this would include more than 1 act, of course)
As I said, there are plenty of “health clubs” but these two are the best I found (after a lot of research!!!). Enjoy it.
Adultery Is Not what you’ve been told it is
The issues of adultery are quite clear. For 2000 years since Moses gave the no adultery commandment, adultery was understood to only apply to married women, and never to a married man. A married man could have as many wives and concubines (single women as breeders) as he wished and this was never considered wrong. Only when the puritanically minded starting taking over Christianity and twisting the original texts did the sexually repressive teachings begin. The lie is that Christian sexuality is allowable only in marriage and only with one partner. Besides being very much against the nature of human kind it just has no biblical basis. More and more theologians are exposing the lies that preach repressive sexuality. More and more Christians are finding more Christlike love in loving more than just their husband or partner. And many are fleeing Christianity for other eastern religions that so wonderfully integrate sexuality with spirituality. Biblical Christianity could do the same, except for the lies of Church traditions that have tried to control people by repressing their natural wholesome sexual desires.
Other Resources:
Countryman, L. William (1988). Dirt, Greed, and Sex Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and their Implications for Today. Philadelphia: Fortress.
Ortlund Jr., Raymond C. (1996). Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Toorn, Karel Van Der (1989). “Female Prostitution in Payment of Vows in Ancient Israel.” JBL 108/2:193-205.
Sexwork even allowed in very strict religions such as Islam in Iran.
Islam of course believes in the same God as Jews and Christians and has similar roots which is why it has relevancy.
BUT…In Islam you marry by reciting certain words. Marriage can be for a few minutes, hours or it can be permanent – your choice! I have heard of sexworkers with an Islam client who recites the fast marriage vows with the time limit, so he feels no guilt since he is married to the sexworker for the time they are having sex. I
In Iran this makes the “arrangement” perfectly legal and is acceptable by the society since you are married! And of course you can be married to many women at the same time. Muhammad is said to have had between 9 and 14 wives, the exact number is not clear.
TEMPORARY MARRIAGE IN ISLAM – It is called “sigheh” and may be arranged for one minute up to 99 years in an official registry. Periods of temp marriage may be renewed or cancelled when time is up. Mohammed, it is said, recommended it to his soldiers and friends. The practice in contemporary Iran is, however, a religious loophole to allow dating and premarital sex without harsh repressive measures.
It is also controversial and condemned by many people, since brides must be virgins. President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is said to have urged the practice in 1990. And it is apparently a common practice of clerics in the Islamic Republic. The open discussion of temp marriage is causing all kinds of social upheaval there. Source: NY Times 10/4/2000
That was very well researched. Far better than certain lying, stat manipulators. (E. G.: Covenant House, The Center for Immigration Studies, The Family Research Council, and the Parents’ Television Council just to name a few.)
Prostitution was common in biblical times. In Proverbs men are warned against squandering their money foolishly on prostitutes. But it was a money issue not morality.
True. In fact, Proverbs goes further than that and points out that sometimes hiring a prostitute is the better option.
In New Testament times, there also was nothing said about prostitution being wrong and in fact Jesus makes the point that harlots who believed John the Baptist will enter the kingdom of God before the chief priests and elders who rejected John’s message (Matt. 21:31-32).
The Greek text uses the present tense of go before (προάγουσιν/proagousin). The NIV translates it thus: “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”
“Yes these prostitutes were worshiping the pagan goddesses in the Jewish Temples! Clearly we can understand why this was so upsetting! It as a clear violation of the First Commandment which requires no other gods before the one true God.”
The first commandment does not mention a “one true god”. It simply stipulates that Jews are to venerate grant their tribal deity Jehovah precedence. Respecting other gods who have particular functions isn’t a problem. This “one true god” business is something they got from the persians during the captivity. There’s even a passage where the priests were to sacrifice one goat to Jehovah and one to the spirit of the wilderness.
“Prostitution is not, and has never been, a crime under Israeli law.”
Israel is doing the British thing – prostitution is technically legal, but “pimping” (aka: having a boyfriend or hiring security) and “brothel keeping” (aka: living with a friend for security and to split rent) are illegal. It’s legal engage in prostitution, but only if you do it in the most unsafe way possible or – as always – cater to the wealthy.
On a funnier note, I believe that muslims do temporary marriages for their camels when they use a stud service.
Nice to see you here, Chester, and thank you for writing (and drawing) “Paying For It.” The world would be a better place if everyone read it.
Interesting. To be sure, every author will have biases. Sometimes an anti-establishment author’s biases against “the established view” will move him/her to publish materials that end up shifting the “establishment’s” views on the point! What matters isn’t whether an author is biased. What matters is whether the author handles the source material well.
On “the Marys” … I haven’t (yet) seen your argument regarding Jesus’s mother Mary being a prostitute, so I have nothing to say there of course.
On Mary Magdalene … the scholarly push-back I have seen against the so-popular view in Western Europe (that she was a prostitute) is based on the late appearance, and the sharply local appearance, of that view.
Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism share many of the extended-biography stories about New Testament figures that bubbled up in the 100s and 200s. These stories mingle biographical information with their theological teachings. The version of Christianity that eventually became the main stream largely rejected the theologies but largely accepted the biographies. This is why they tell the same stories about the life of Mary, mother of Jesus — and about other people.
However they do not both tell this story about Mary Magdalene (I’ll call her “Mary M.”). This is because this story does not come from these relatively early stories. It comes from a sermon by Pope Gregory I, probably composed no earlier than 580 C.E.
In that sermon Gregory apparently confused several women named “Mary”. “This woman,” said Gregory, “whom Luke calls a sinner [prostitute] and John calls Mary [Mary of Bethany], I think is the Mary from whom Mark reports that seven demons were cast out [Mary Magdalene].” (P.L. 76:1239, according to Wikipedia’s article on Pope Gregory)
The first thing to note here is that Gregory did not present this as a fact, or as something that “everybody knew”, or even something that many people knew. He presented it as something *he* had come up with. “I think that this is so,” he said. This is fairly common in sermons, after all: the preacher sets up some wider context for a story, and then uses details from that wider context to get some point across to his listeners. What gets dicey is when a story that has been ‘fleshed out” in a sermon gets accepted as the original story, as the way the original story really came about.
The second thing to note is that only one of Gregory’s several connections seized the popular imagination. We don’t see massive amounts of Western art depicting Mary of Bethany as a prostitute. But we sure do massive amounts of such stuff with Mary M! And that makes sense. Mary M had always been a highly revered N.T. woman, and to present her as a prostitute would have been highly scandalous in Western European society! Having Pope Gregory as the source of this “information” made it an unimpeachable “fact.” “I’m not telling wicked lies about Mary M — I’m just showing us what Pope Gregory taught us!” What an opportunity for sensational art! Woo hoo!
So that scandalous opinion spread like wildfire in Western Europe — among subsequent preachers in the West, and among Western artists who would go on to depict Mary M.
However it was unknown in the East at the time, and it is ignored in the East today. The sermon was composed (or distributed) in Latin, and by that time the East knew only Greek. So, just as Augustine of Hippo (Latin theologian) read few Greek authors and those only in Latin translations, likewise Greek-speaking Christians in the East were unlikely to have read Gregory’s sermon. Today, Orthodox stories about Mary M. say nothing about her having been a prostitute No Eastern icon of Mary M. shows her wiping Jesus’s feet like the woman in Luke. The only Orthodox Christians who know the story are ones who have heard it from Western sources.
So. If Mary M. had been a prostitute … was this something that everybody had known all along, like the stories about the life of Mary mother of Jesus? Or was it simply one man’s opinion, about people who had lived long ago?
This is not an outright proof *against*, of course. But it has weakened the strength of this 1500+year-old version of the Mary M. story. In the last century or so, Western scholars have discovered Eastern Orthodoxy and have discovered where it does (and does not) differ from Western Christianity. These discoveries have given them a perspective that is much wider than their predecessors had had. So today’s scholars are much more likely to be skeptical about the accuracy of this Western European version of the story, much more skeptical about the notion that it had been something that everybody would have known all along.
On Mary of Bethany, “who,” you said, “was definitely a prostitute” … this is the other connection that Gregory drew in his sermon in the late 500s. I suppose that Gregory drew this connection because Mary of Bethany “anointed” the feet of Jesus and wiped them “with her hair” in John 12, while the prostitute “anointed” the feet of Jesus with oil and wiped them “with her hair” in Luke 7. (Quote marks, simply to quote the parallel words used in those passages.)
Hmm. Maybe. And maybe not. I don’t have specific evidence to offer in either direction, except perhaps the same negative as my second point above: that Eastern Christianity never has taught, and still does not teach, the connection that Gregory made in his sermon.
It is true that “bible believing” Protestants will want to base every one of their arguments on verses in the Bible. I have seen one such blog in which the author makes much of the differences in the details of these two “anointing” stories. Yes, the story in Luke differs in many details from the story in John — whose house it was, when it happened (early in Jesus’s ministry or late), what kind of oil it was, and so forth.
However John often differs from Luke and the other Synoptic Gospels in details like these. So those differences don’t conclusively *dis*prove the statement.
But the parallel doesn’t “definitely” prove the statement either, I don’t think. Why would a woman anoint his *feet*? Wasn’t a Messiah anointed by putting oil on his *head*? Was there some custom about anointing the feet, in that place and at that time, that we don’t know about, today? If it was a custom, than should we expect that only one woman would have practiced the custom?
So … I would be cautious about using the word “definitely” about this.
Perhaps you have gone further in your book. I’ll take a look at the book, when it becomes available. (In a local library, I hope — being retired, that’s where I go for most of my reading nowadays.)
Thanks for writing this — it has been fun to think about!
Pope Gregory speculated that Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene were one person, but that doesn’t mean that he was wrong. Speculations are sometimes correct. There are reasons for thinking he was correct that he wouldn’t have considered. I discuss this in my book, see particularly page 253.
On the subject of Mary of Bethany being a prostitute, see pages 245 to 252.
Thank you for your reply! I was able to find a copy of your book in one of our local libraries, and I read it with interest.
I enjoyed your art; I also enjoyed your presentation of your theme, that perhaps God prefers the rule-breakers to the rule-followers.
Perhaps you have heard about one of the rabbinical theories about Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice Isaac? Although Scripture clearly presents Abraham as having passed the test that God set for him, some rabbis have proposed that Abraham actually failed the test. After all, they said, God seems to have wanted his prophets to argue with him.
Abraham did argue with him, earlier in Genesis, when God was going to destroy Sodom. Abraham’s grandson Jacob did: he wrestled with “a man”, and God then blessed him and renamed him “Israel” (sometimes translated, “Prevails with God”) “for you have struggled with God and with man, and have prevailed.” Moses argued with God many times, when God was going to destroy the Israelites.
However, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son on an altar like the gentiles did, Abraham didn’t argue, question, or negotiate; he just went and did it. This time, he “followed the rules;” and perhaps (say these rabbis) he disappointed God.
I also enjoyed seeing what happened, when we replace the anti-prostitute biases held by almost all Christians with pro-prostitute biases. We see that so many interpretations of the bare words of the texts are founded on assumptions that no one has questioned for more than a thousand years! Whether you think something has been proven “definitely” … will depend on the premises you are using when you begin your argument. So … while I don’t think that your arguments proved that any of the “Mary” followers of Jesus was “definitely” a prostitute* …
(*Including Jesus’s mother: Jesus never said (in Gospel of Thomas, 105) that his mother *was* a whore; he only said that such-and-such-a-one “will be called” “the son of a whore.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Jesus did hear that taunt, especially as he became more notorious; it doesn’t follow that the taunt was a true statement. Was it? Maybe, maybe not … but not “definitely” one or the other.)
… I do believe that you did show me that the conventional arguments also do not prove “definitely” that none of them was a prostitute. I don’t know about you, but I score this as A Good Thing.
So … again, thanks. It was a good read.
Trading a ruminant for a sexual encounter seems a bit on the dear side.
But I then remembered a satirical dialogue from ancient Rome that generally went like this:
– Inn keeper, tell me how much I owe you.
– Lemme see…
5 silver pieces for food, drink and board;
1 silver piece for your donkey’s hay;
12 silver pieces for the girl;
In all, that’s gonna make 18 silver pieces please.
– That donkey is ruining me!
You’re kidding, right? I’ve actually owned goats, and I can assure you I never paid anything near $400 (my current hourly rate) for one.