Week 10: “Canonization and Marginalization: Mary of Magdala -King (Sugirtharajah)

In her discussion on the marginalization of Mary of Magdala, King, brings up an interesting debate on the necessity of orthodoxy and canonization. In her piece King demands that a clearer picture of Mary Magdalane be given based upon the depiction of her in the non-canonical, often Gnostic, texts, notably The Gospel of Mary. King claims that these texts must be added to the discussion of Mary’s character and importance in the Gospel stories. She also goes to state that her identification by the church fathers as well as the canon (outside of the incorrect depiction of her as penatent prostitute) is closer to her original position, but was still canonized within a patriarchial view of women in ministry. I agree with King in the idea that the marginal picture presented of Mary was used to downplay women in ministry, but I believe a more true reading of this would also be to discredit what scholars such as King herself are attempting to do, rewrite canon. The reason that one cannot include non-canonical references to Mary as consistent mainly arise out of questions such as: historicity (many Gnostic texts were written much later than canonical texts), motivation (many Gnostic texts were written to support a specific picture or counter a specific claim made by canonical texts (therefore according to King’s logic these must be thrown out along with the canonical documents)). When scholars attempt, as so many have, to include Gnostic texts in the reconstruction of biblical figures one must first begin to analyze these non-canonical texts with the same skepticism used by these scholars to refute canonization. There were reasons behind canonizations, there were motivations, ideas, and beliefs, I trust these beliefs, mainly because I trust in the sovereignity behind these reasons.