Mary, Founder of Christianity by Chris Maunder

Author:Chris Maunder [Maunder, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780861542659
Publisher: OneWorld
Published: 2022-02-07T20:15:44+00:00

This encounter with the risen Jesus is not recorded in Mark or Luke. Later in tradition, with the growth of Marian devotion, many Christians were keen on including a meeting between the risen Jesus and his mother, adding descriptions of it in apocryphal gospels and other writings narrating the life of Mary. Yet, the New Testament itself may describe this encounter, although only in Matthew.

However, why does Matthew refer to the mother of Jesus as ‘the other Mary’; does this not belittle her? Perhaps he had Mark’s account in front of him as well as a tradition that the women at the empty tomb saw the risen Jesus, and so he may not have known that ‘Mary the mother of James and Joses’ was also the mother of Jesus. Perhaps he did not think that abbreviating the description of Mary to a more manageable ‘the other Mary’ was problematic. Or perhaps he was content to obscure the fact that Jesus’ mother was associated with the tomb and resurrection. We will never know. As far as Mary is concerned, Matthew follows Mark and says very little.

Luke, too, only refers to the Mary at the tomb as ‘(the mother) of James’. This is despite the fact that he has told us all about Mary in the conception and birth narratives, and also in Acts 1.14 that she and the brothers were present in the gatherings of the very earliest Church. So perhaps that is more difficult to explain than Matthew’s omission. It is something of a mystery as to why Luke just does not state that this same woman, whom he has featured more than any other gospel, was the one at the tomb. On the other hand, he has made nothing of her role in the ministry, and so, in this respect, he too follows Mark.

However, there is no mystery as to why Luke includes Mary the mother of James (and of Jesus, we would argue) in the list at 24.10 but not at 8.2–3. The women in Luke 8 are described as being healed, presumably by Jesus. Clearly, Mary the mother of James was not in that category. This is another argument for the case that she preceded the other women and therefore had no need to be called as a disciple, or referred to as being healed or invited to join the ministry in Galilee; she was the mother of Jesus, not a disciple, and already present.

It seems that the cross and tomb traditions about the women were too important and well known to be omitted from the gospel accounts. The Markan tradition of the two Marys at the cross became established, in such a way that the other evangelists had to record their version of it. All in all, we can be reasonably sure that Mary’s motherhood of James (and possibly other brothers) was an important feature of the original crucifixion and tomb stories and was recorded in the synoptic gospels, although omitting any explicit reference to her maternal relationship to Jesus.

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