We often speak of the importance of going back to original sources, rather than taking what we are told at face value. That usually comes in the context of social media posts that often distort the original material, by mistake or willfully; but it applies to anything to we read that makes reference to earlier works. It is especially important when the material is translated from another language.
A young student, Elizabeth “Libbie” Schrader — now Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, Ph.D. — made a major discovery while doing research for her master’s thesis in New Testament studies. Looking at newly digitized files of the earliest New Testament texts in existence, she found evidence that the story of Lazarus had been altered.
Diana Butler Bass, delivering the closing sermon at the Wild Goose Festival on July 17, 2022, described what Libbie encountered:
And so Libbie looked at Papyrus 66, which is the oldest and most complete text we have of the Gospel of John. It’s dated around the year 200. Now this is what happens when you put a set of new eyes on an old text, Papyrus 66 had been sitting in a library for a very, very, very, very long time. We’ve had it for a while, but you had to go to it in order to see it. But Libbie was sitting in a library in New York City and Papyrus 66 came to her. This is an historic moment in New Testament studies. When any one of us could have access to texts that have been only be used by people if they had a lot of money, a lot of degrees, and a lot of time to travel….
[The English version states,] “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha.” But the Greek text, the oldest Greek text in the world doesn’t say that. The oldest Greek text in the world says, “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, at the village of Mary and his sister, Mary.” There are two Marys in this verse. And Libbie went, “What the heck? What is going on here?” And she started digging into the text, zooming in on it to try to see what she could see over the digitized version in the internet. And lo and behold, Libbie noticed something that no New Testament scholar had ever noticed.
And that is, in the text where it had those two Marys, the village of Mary and his sister, Mary, the text had actually been changed. In Greek, the word Mary, the name Mary, is basically spelled like Maria in English, M-A-R-I-A. And the I, the Greek letter I, is the letter Iota. And it looks basically like an English I. Libbie could see by doing this textual analysis that the Iota had been changed to the letter TH in Greek, Theta. That somebody at some point in time had gone in over the original handwriting and actually changed the second Mary to Martha. And not only had that person changed the second Mary to Martha, but that person had also changed the way it comes out in English. … Someone had also changed that “his” to “her”….
She went through the whole manuscript of John 11 and John 12, and lo and behold, that editor had gone in at every single place and changed every moment that you read Martha in English, it originally said, “Mary.” The editor changed it all.
There is an account of a Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke, and many scholars have assumed that they are the same sisters mentioned in the story of Lazarus. Perhaps the anonymous editor who changed one Mary to Martha in the Gospel of John made that same assumption and thought he was fixing mistakes. Libbie’s discovery indicates that they were not the same and that Lazarus had only one sister, Mary — something that is supported by early artwork. Libbie wrote, “[T]he majority of ancient fourth-century sarcophagi have only one sister in their depiction of the Lazarus story.”
Libbie went on to successfully defend her discovery in her doctoral dissertation at Duke University. The Nestle-Aland committee of the Greek New Testament, the organization that seeks to make sure Bibles in all languages adhere as closely as possible to the original manuscripts, is now considering what to do with Libbie’s textual work — how it may (or may not) appear in the New Testament.
Diana Butler Bass makes the case that Libbie’s discovery alters our understanding of major underpinnings of the Christian faith. John 11 provides one of two Christological confessions in the Gospel. “And until this point, it has belonged to a minor character named Martha and we didn’t even know who she was. Jesus raises her brother from the dead and they have this conversation. And then finally this woman says, ‘Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah, the son of God, the one who is coming into the world.’”
The other Christological confessions are recorded in Mark, Luke, and Matthew. “Peter and Jesus have a conversation. And Jesus turns to Peter and says, ‘Who am I?’ And Peter actually says, ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.’ And Jesus turns around and says to him, ‘You are Peter, upon this rock I will build my church.’”
Diana points out that the Mary of the Lazarus story has long been suspected of being Mary Magdalene, and if so, “the most important statement in the entirety of the New Testament” belongs to the same woman who is the first witness to the resurrection.
You see how these two stories work together. In John 11, Lazarus is raised from the dead, and who is there but Mary Magdalene? And at that resurrection, she confesses that Jesus is indeed the son of God. And then you go just 10 chapters later and who is the person at the grave? She mistakes him, at first, thinks he’s the gardener. She turns around and he says, “Mary,” and she goes, “Lord.” It's Mary Magdalene. It is Mary Magdalene….
Mary is indeed the tower of faith. That our faith is the faith of that woman who would become the first person to announce the resurrection. Mary the Witness, Mary the Tower, Mary the Great, and she has been obscured from us. She has been hidden from us and she been taken away from us for nearly 2,000 years. This is not a Dan Brown novel. This is the Nestle-Aland Translation Committee of the Greek New Testament. This is the Harvard Theological Review. This is some of the best, most cutting edge historical research in the world. And we are living in the moment of most radical transformation in the understanding of the Gospel accounts, of who Jesus Christ is, and who holds authority.
Original sources always provide great insights, but in this case, Libbie’s work is truly revelatory. Two millennia of misunderstanding are being erased. “What if the other story of Mary hadn’t been hidden?” Diana writes. “What if Mary in John 11 hadn't been split into two women? What if we’d known about Mary the Tower all along? What kind of Christianity would we have if the faith hadn’t only been based upon, “Peter, you are the Rock and upon this Rock I will build my church”? But what if we’d always known, “Mary, you are the Tower, and by this Tower we shall all stand?”
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