Jesus in the Talmud

The Son/Disciple Who Turned out Badly 29one wants to follow the later identification of Mary Magdalene with theunknown “immoral woman” in Luke (7:36–50), 12 who wets Jesus’ feetwith her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and anoints themwith myrrh (7:38). The Pharisees, who observe this scene, know her as aprostitute (7:39) and want to use this fact as proof that Jesus is no realprophet as he claims (because he did not seem to know what kind ofwoman she was), but Jesus, seeing through their bad intentions, publiclyforgives the woman her sins and thus reveals that he did know of her badreputation. The Talmud could again have inverted this New Testamentstory and insinuated that Jesus indeed knew her—but not in order to forgiveher her sins and to unmask the Pharisees; rather, he knew her forwhat she really was (a prostitute) because he had an affair with her.Another, and slightly different, possible background for the talmudicstory could be the tradition preserved in some gnostic texts about MaryMagdalene. This is the tradition that has even made it into recent fiction,13 namely that Jesus was indeed married—and to no less a personthan Mary Magdalene. The gnostic library from Nag Hammadi containsa “Gospel of Mary Magdalene,” presumably from the second centuryC.E., in which the jealous apostle Peter addresses her as someone whomJesus loved more than the rest of women. 14 The “Gospel of Philip” (secondhalf of the third century C.E.?) calls her his “companion” 15 and emphasizesthat Jesus not only loved her more than all the disciples but thathe “[used to] kiss her [often] on her [ ...].” 16 Unfortunately the last wordis missing, but it is highly probable that the word “mouth” must beadded. 17 Within the context of the gnostic writings it isn’t very likely, however,that a plain conjugal relationship is at stake here. Rather, it seemsthat the “companion” (koinonos, a Greek loanword in the Coptic text)refers not to “spouse” in the technical sense of the word but to “sister” inthe spiritual sense of the gnostic fellowship, just as the “kiss” does not referto a sexual relationship but to a kiss of fellowship. 18 Yet one can easilysee how this reading of the New Testament narrative could be turned—not only in modern fiction but already in the source used by theTalmud—into a tradition about Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene.Whether the wicked son/student Jesus was unfaithful to his spouse MaryMagdalene or had intercourse with her during her Niddah, or whetherthe Talmud wants to imply that the marriage with Mary Magdalene as