关于玛丽抹大拉的一些混乱和错误信息源于以下事实:新约中有很多玛丽。希伯来语的名字米雅姆(Miryam)后来被翻译为玛丽(Mary),在第一世纪对犹太妇女来说非常普遍,因为这是摩西姐姐的名字。这是新约中提到的所有玛丽:
- Mary the mother of Jesus
- 玛丽·抹大拉
- Mary of Bethany
- 玛丽的妻子
- 詹姆斯和何塞的母亲玛丽
- 马克的母亲玛丽
众多的玛丽部分解释了玛丽·抹大拉(Mary Magdalene)如何被称为“罪人”甚至妓女。混乱是在福音书中三次描述的一集中,但从未完全以相同的方式进行。在每个福音帐户中,都是前几天逾越节耶稣停在家里吃饭。饭期间,一个女人用石油涂抹耶稣,无论是头上还是脚。这个女人仅在其中一个帐户中命名,约翰福音12:
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
我们从其他福音书中知道,这个玛丽不是玛丽·玛格达琳。她是玛莎和拉撒路的姐姐伯大尼的玛丽。但是,此事对这种膏膏的其他说法很复杂,尤其是路加福音7中的一个。
[A]在这座城市的女人,她是一个罪人,他得知自己在法利赛家吃饭,带来了一罐雪花石膏的药膏。她站在他的脚下,哭泣,开始用眼泪给他的脚洗澡,然后用头发擦干它们。然后她继续亲吻他的脚,用软膏膏了他们。
Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him — that she is a sinner."
Jesus defends the woman, saying that her actions demonstrate her love for and faith in him. But the imagery in these verses — of a woman weeping at Jesus' feet, anointing him with perfumed oil and her own tears, while kissing his feet and drying them with her hair — is striking and would have been even more striking back in Jesus' day.
詹姆斯·卡洛尔(James Carroll),在史密森尼杂志上写作, says that this scene would have had clear sexual overtones to early Christian readers. Men of Jesus' day would never see a woman with her hair down outside of their wife or a prostitute. And then there's the kissing of Jesus' feet, an intimate act if there ever was one.
But what does any of this have to do with Mary Magdalene? She wasn't the one with loosened hair weeping at Jesus' feet. She wasn't a prostitute. Well, not yet.