Latest / Future Christian / Elizabeth Schrader-Polczer on Rethinking Mary Magdalene (Part 2)

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Elizabeth Schrader-Polczer on Rethinking Mary Magdalene (Part 2) · Future Christian

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>> Name: Um.
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>> Paul: Welcome to the Future Christian podcast, your
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source for insights and ideas on how to lead your
0:11
church into the 21st century.
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At the Future Christian podcast, we talk to
0:18
pastors, authors, and other faith leaders for helpful
0:21
advice and practical wisdom to help you and your
0:24
community of faith walk boldly into the future.
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Now here's your host, Loren Richmond
0:29
Juniore.
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>> Loren: Welcome to the Future Christian podcast.
0:37
Today, Martha Tatarnic welcomes doctor Elizabeth Schrader
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Pulzer to the show. This is the second of a two
0:43
part episode, so go back and listen to the first
0:46
half, which can be found in the show. Notes
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Elizabeth Schrader Pulzer is assistant professor
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of New Testament at Villanova University.
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She holds a doctorate in early Christianity from
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Duke University with a focus on textual
1:01
criticism, Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel
1:04
of John. Her research has been published in the Harvard
1:07
Theological Review, the Journal of Biblical
1:09
Literature, A, uh, Journal of Biblical
1:12
Textual Criticism, the Comparative oriental
1:15
manuscript studies bulletin, and the Journal of Early Christian
1:18
Studies. She is regularly
1:21
invited to present her peer reviewed research
1:23
at churches and conferences
1:25
internationally. One more thing.
1:29
Please take a moment to leave a review on whatever
1:31
podcast app you're listening on and share this episode
1:34
with a friend. Thanks and enjoy the
1:37
episode.
1:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Uh, welcome Back to the Future Christian podcast.
1:47
Last week was part one of my conversation with
1:50
one of the most groundbreaking biblical scholars of
1:53
our day, Doctor Elizabeth Schrader
1:55
Pulitzer. If you haven't already done so, make
1:58
sure to check out last week's episode in which we
2:01
discuss doctor Schrader Pulitzer's research into the
2:04
gospel according to John, papyrus
2:07
66, and what this might
2:09
mean for our emerging picture of Mary
2:12
Magdalene. Her research has been
2:14
integral in forming a picture of Mary
2:17
Magdalene as a disciple of key
2:20
importance in the life and work of Jesus, not
2:23
only one to bear witness to his death, not only the
2:25
first witness of the resurrection, but
2:28
also also potentially the one to make the christological
2:31
confession at the tomb of her brother Lazarus
2:34
and to anoint Jesus at Bethany prior
2:37
to his execution. With all of these
2:40
pieces of her story in place, we can
2:43
begin to see more clearly how central Mary
2:46
was as a leader in this new christian community,
2:48
but also how as a
2:51
woman that might have been seen as
2:54
threatening and how there might have been
2:57
some need to downplay
3:00
the centrality of Mary Magdalene,
3:03
um, or even to shadow her
3:06
a little bit in the accounts
3:09
that we have. Um, a lot of
3:12
us came to know the work of
3:14
Elizabeth through Diana Butler
3:17
Bass, um, who gave a sermon at
3:20
the Wild Goose festival in July of
3:23
2022. And in that
3:26
sermon, she articulates
3:28
Elizabeth's research about, uh,
3:31
papyrus 66, about the
3:33
possibility, um, that Martha
3:36
might have been added into the story of the raising of
3:39
Lazarus in order to downplay the role of
3:42
Mary. And, uh, this sermon
3:45
went absolutely viral, uh,
3:48
with people listening to it or reading
3:50
its transcript all over the world. I think there have been,
3:53
like, a million downloads or listens
3:56
at this point. I, um, had a lot of
3:59
colleagues send it to me in
4:01
2022, really excited about
4:04
what the implications were. Now, we talked last week
4:07
about, uh, kind of that
4:10
moment where you don't have to push the
4:13
boulder up the hill any longer
4:16
in getting people to pay attention to what you're
4:18
doing. Um, suddenly everybody is paying attention
4:21
to what you're doing. So can you just talk a little
4:24
bit about that reaction and whether it
4:27
surprised you?
4:29
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Hmm? Whether it surprised me? Well, it was a
4:32
surprise. I knew that Diana was going to preach
4:35
on it because she's like, oh, I'm going to the Wild Goose festival. Oh, look at
4:38
the lectionary. It's Luke ten. It's Mary and
4:40
Martha. How m would you feel if I told people
4:43
about your research? And I was like, oh, sure, that's fine.
4:46
And she preached it extemporaneously,
4:49
basically from memory.
4:51
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah.
4:51
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Um, and so some of the details in the
4:54
sermon are a little off. Like, she says that every single
4:57
time, the name Mary is changed to Martha in papyrus 66. And it just
5:00
happens for the first five verses that Martha's getting added. But
5:03
she was just going from memory, basically. But, um,
5:06
she did say, like, oh, yeah, I gave this sermon.
5:09
Um, and she actually was driving through Durham.
5:12
I was still at Duke at the time. She was driving home to Virginia
5:15
through Durham. She's like, hey, can we get coffee? She's like, yeah.
5:18
Earlier today, I gave the sermon, and people seem
5:21
to have a really strong reaction to it at the wild
5:24
goose festival. I'm like, oh, that's so nice. And she's like, can
5:27
I send this to you? Would you look it over? And would it be
5:30
okay if I shared it? And, um, I
5:33
was like, sure. So she had recorded it,
5:36
and she showed it to me. And,
5:38
um, when she first showed it to me, actually, there was
5:41
some parts of it that I was like, this isn't quite
5:43
accurate. I wouldn't say it that way.
5:46
And this is like, I'm a very meticulous textual
5:49
critic, and all the details have to be just right. And I remember there was
5:52
this sort of moment where I was like,
5:56
I was a little frustrated because some of the details were not quite
5:59
right. And, um, I was like, I
6:02
started writing an email with all the things that I would say differently,
6:05
and I was like, you know what?
6:08
I don't need to be a control freak here.
6:11
Just, what's the most important thing?
6:14
I was like, okay, just make sure that Diana
6:18
tells people that it's theoretical, you know, that this,
6:21
uh, I haven't proven anything. This is just a theory. Kind of
6:24
like, you know, did q exist for
6:27
Bible dorks out there? Right? The source that was known to
6:30
Luke and matthew. It's like that. Like, we don't. Like, first of
6:32
all, I haven't proved it. It's just a theory. And also, she
6:35
says something like that the nest Leia land committee is going
6:38
to change the text. And it's like, well, maybe.
6:41
I know that they're talking about it. I check in with them from time to
6:44
time. I hope that there will be some,
6:46
um, updates to the footnotes of.
6:49
It's not the actual greek text. It would be the
6:52
footnotes of the greek critical edition. I want to just
6:55
make it really clear that that's what's going on. And
6:58
also, I love the nestle alum guys. They're some of the
7:00
coolest, smartest, most, um,
7:03
upright. They are not stuffy. They are fun,
7:06
uh, and extremely smart guys. And I was like, just, you know,
7:09
that's the kind of things that I would like for her to say.
7:11
So she said, yes, of course I can make those changes. So I
7:14
actually almost stopped it.
7:18
There was this moment when I'm like, it's not quite right. And
7:21
I was like. And, uh, there's this sort of moment of just sort
7:23
of breathing and saying, this is just an organic
7:26
thing, and I'm going to let it go. There's a couple really crucial things that she does
7:29
need to say, but she can just let it go.
7:32
So, um, yeah, I wrote this email saying, please make sure that
7:35
you say these things. And so she
7:37
did. She put a couple of sort of caveats at the
7:40
top of her transcription of it. Not
7:43
the recording, obviously, but the transcription that went out to her
7:46
cottage newsletter. Um, I'm not sure people
7:49
paid so much attention to those caveats. I think they were mainly paying
7:52
attention to the text of the sermon itself.
7:55
And, um, anyway,
7:58
so it went out there, and she
8:01
pushed send, and I guess that she
8:03
saw that immediately the numbers were going
8:06
way up, much for, like, 10,000 people. She would
8:09
tell the real numbers, but 10,000 people in, like, a day
8:12
or something, right? And she was like, whoa. Oh,
8:15
something's happening. And I was like, okay.
8:18
And, um, I don't know, especially as a
8:21
singer songwriter and also as a biblical
8:23
scholar, you know, you sort of hope, like, oh, maybe
8:26
someday my work will go viral.
8:29
>> Martha Tatarnic: Viral. Yeah, right. That's the word.
8:31
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: And I have to tell you that it was
8:34
super stressful. It was
8:37
so stressful. It was. You know, of course
8:40
I was happy that the work was getting out there,
8:42
um, and this was sort of the moment,
8:45
um, that I've been waiting
8:48
for. For the work to. Because I'm like, hey, this is the gospel
8:51
of John, right? There might be a change to the gospel of John. I had
8:54
gotten it published in 2017 in a top tier journal, and I
8:57
was like, I have arrived. But just
8:59
publishing in a journal is not enough. That doesn't bring it to the
9:02
broader consciousness. And that's Diana's gift. That's Diana's
9:05
gift. She really knows how to synthesize things and make
9:08
them compelling and understandable to a broad audience.
9:11
I mean, I'm okay at that stuff, but she's a. She's a
9:14
pro, she's a world class preacher, and
9:17
so she really knew how to bring it home. And, um,
9:20
I was grateful that she brought it to so many
9:23
people's attention. But the thing that was stressful was that there
9:26
are some things that she said, like, about the Nestle lawn committee and about
9:29
the, um, text of papyrus 66 that
9:32
weren't accurate. And I was
9:35
having to navigate that. Like, I had
9:37
to write to the Nestle lawn folks and say, just so you know, there's
9:40
this thing happening that kind of makes them.
9:43
Puts pressure on them, first of all, and also makes them look
9:47
other than what they are. And so that put me in
9:50
a really awkward place, actually.
9:52
Um, I think it's okay. I think
9:55
it's okay. But, um, I don't want them to think
9:58
that by
10:01
inviting me to speak to them, which I did in
10:04
moonster, that I'm gonna make it into this
10:07
viral moment.
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>> Martha Tatarnic: Like, that's not well, and they're probably not used
10:11
to their work being looped into a
10:14
viral moment.
10:15
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: I don't know. I mean, not everybody knows what the Nest Leilan committee
10:18
is for those listeners who don't know. Um.
10:21
Uh, it's a greek critical edition of
10:24
the New Testament. Um,
10:27
that is kind of put into two parts.
10:30
There's sort of the part, the main text that's sort of above.
10:33
They call it above the line, and then there's the text below
10:36
the line that's in smaller print, and the
10:39
text below the line in smaller print is
10:41
manuscript variations. And like, that change
10:44
of like the woman getting split in two.
10:47
That is found in the nest Leilan edition. Like, you could find it in
10:49
your greek critical edition. Um, but that's in the
10:52
footnotes. But the main
10:55
text, the top part of the text, the big font,
10:58
um, it's in Greek. And it is their best guess at
11:01
what the evangelists or the New Testament, what the writer
11:04
actually wrote, the autograph, their
11:07
best guess of their reconstruction of the autograph. And they
11:10
use a lot of very sophisticated techniques to figure it
11:13
out. And there's a lot of debate. And these editions, this is
11:16
the 28th edition. They're coming out with the 29th edition very
11:18
soon. Um, they work on
11:21
this constantly. Um, and each
11:24
change is highly debated and has to be backed up with
11:26
rigorous peer review. And, um.
11:29
So, uh, what's going on
11:32
is that this greek critical edition is the
11:35
base text from which all
11:38
translations are made.
11:39
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right.
11:40
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Okay, so your new revised
11:43
standard Version and your new American Bible
11:46
and your new international version, and your ESV, your, uh,
11:49
english standard version, all of those different translations
11:52
are using this as their
11:55
based text. So this is the greek text
11:58
from which bibles get translated into French, into
12:00
German, into Swahili. So this is the critical
12:03
greek text. And
12:06
this text, um, I'm not
12:09
going to make any kind of an impact on the main text, the
12:12
big text above the line, but there might be some changes to
12:15
the footnotes, to the footnotes, which is, um, these are the
12:18
variations in the manuscripts that we need to be
12:21
paying attention to. And honestly, we shouldn't change the
12:23
text above the line because, as I said, martha
12:26
is in every single copy that we have.
12:29
That we have, that her presence is very unstable. It blinks
12:32
in and out throughout the entire transmission, all the way from John
12:35
eleven one to John twelve two. There's
12:38
manuscripts where Mary's doing something where you would expect Martha to do
12:41
it, or where there's one sister when you expect there to be
12:44
two. So her presence is unstable. We
12:46
shouldn't take Martha out of the text, um, because she's
12:49
in every copy.
12:50
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right.
12:51
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: But we should maybe say a mention in the footnotes.
12:54
Oh, there's all these really important copies where you see weird
12:57
things. And if the footnotes are
12:59
updated to reflect that more clearly, that means that future
13:02
translations, like the new
13:05
revised standard version, um, might have,
13:08
you know, if you ever looked at a study Bible, in the bottom it
13:11
says, um. Some ancient authorities
13:13
say, yeah, yeah, that's
13:16
where it might get changed. Like, we might get a little note that
13:19
says, some ancient authorities lack
13:21
Martha.
13:22
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right in this verse.
13:24
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Right. That's what we might get. And, I mean, that's
13:27
still a big, that's still a big thing.
13:29
>> Martha Tatarnic: That's a big change. Yeah.
13:31
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Yeah. Um, it's not. I don't think. I don't want people to
13:34
think that the greek critical edition is going to get rid of
13:37
Martha or that your Bible is going to get rid of Martha. That's
13:40
just not going to happen. Unless there were
13:43
some really very
13:45
authentic, very ancient manuscript
13:48
of John found where Martha were completely
13:51
absent. Um, that might
13:53
cause a change to the.
13:55
>> Martha Tatarnic: And that is the hypothesis. That's the hypothesis
13:58
that might have been the case.
14:00
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Just like Q is a hypothesis. Maybe there was a document circulating,
14:03
but we don't have a copy of Q, so it's just a hypothesis.
14:06
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, a
14:09
hypothesis that could be proved one day.
14:12
Who knows?
14:13
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: It could be proved if such a manuscript and authentic
14:15
manuscript were to be found.
14:18
>> Martha Tatarnic: So when, um, you can watch this
14:21
recording of Diana's sermon, and she gets quite
14:24
emotional at one or two points in the
14:27
sermon, I know when people were sending
14:30
it to me and it was mostly my female colleagues
14:33
who were sending it to me, um,
14:36
there was a lot of excitement, a lot of emotion
14:38
in this getting shared as well.
14:41
Um, what do you think the nerve
14:44
is that is hit with this
14:47
possibility of Mary Magdalene,
14:51
um, almost
14:53
having a parallel role to
14:56
the apostle Peter?
15:00
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Well, I think the nerve that it hits is that we've always,
15:03
you know, we've suspected
15:06
that something like this might have happened, but we just couldn't put our
15:09
finger on it. Like there's something
15:11
weird, there's something that was changed and it was
15:14
like, no, no, no. Just look at everything. Everything's very
15:17
clear. We know what the Bible says, we know what's
15:20
happened. And so it's. I feel like it's sort of like the smoking gun.
15:23
Here it is. This is where it
15:25
happened. And I feel like that's what's
15:28
exciting about it, is to actually be able to name and
15:31
to put your finger on this is the change that was
15:34
made that caused the diminishment of Mary
15:37
Magdalene and women's roles in Christianity
15:39
here in John in the second
15:42
century. In this story. Um,
15:45
I think because, uh, so much, oftentimes people
15:48
have intuitions that are dismissed because
15:51
there's no hard evidence. And so to say, here's
15:54
the hard evidence that supports
15:57
what all of our intuitions have been saying to us our whole
16:00
lives, that there's something wrong about the way that women's
16:03
roles turned out in the church. I think that that's the
16:05
nerve that it hits and, um, to be able to
16:08
articulate it in a way that makes sense
16:11
exegetically. I mean, some of the people that are the most
16:14
enthusiastic about my work are John scholars, because they're
16:16
like. Right, like, Mary and Martha say the same thing twice.
16:19
Oh, that makes so much more sense. Sense if Mary, Bethany M.
16:22
Is okay. Like the John scholars, the
16:25
exegetes are the ones who it resonates with the most, which
16:28
are, by the way, the people that it really matters with, because
16:31
they have a sense of the evangelist's voice and what the
16:33
evangelist is trying to convey. So, um,
16:36
it makes sense from a biblical scholarship level, it makes
16:39
sense from a text critical level, from the manuscripts,
16:42
and it makes sense from, like, what many of us
16:45
know to be wrong about the way
16:47
that the church has turned out in certain ways. The sort of suppression
16:51
of women's voices, the misogyny,
16:53
um, the imbalance in power that honestly
16:56
has created some real problems.
16:59
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, yeah. Has definitely created
17:01
problems. And it's not that you can't point to
17:04
places where clearly women did have a
17:07
big role in the biblical witness, in
17:10
the life of Jesus and in the early
17:13
church, but it's so easy to
17:16
downplay it or overlook it. Um,
17:19
and you know, as
17:21
well as Diana says in her
17:24
sermon, like, I knew it. I knew that.
17:28
That gut instinct that no
17:32
women had a role, and maybe this
17:35
woman in particular had, uh, a
17:38
central role.
17:39
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Yeah.
17:40
>> Martha Tatarnic: Has there been a negative nerve that your work
17:43
has touched at all? Like, has this
17:48
received blowback?
17:50
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Um, not as much as you would think. Partially
17:53
because it's just a theory, right?
17:57
If people are going to come knocking on your door and say, q
18:00
did not exist, or like
18:03
Martha, I'm not demanding that this is
18:06
true. I'm saying it's a competitively
18:09
plausible hypothesis to explain all of the
18:12
strange phenomena. You can't argue that there's strange
18:14
phenomena happening around Martha.
18:17
Um, and some people have
18:19
tried to argue, I guess there was one
18:22
peer reviewed article that came out in
18:24
November that said, oh, some of this is
18:27
just sexism. Uh, in, like,
18:30
oh, they're saying, like, they, uh, tried to argue
18:33
that there was sexism, but the sexism was
18:37
in the opposite direction. I don't know, like, by saying that
18:39
Martha's getting diminished, or that,
18:42
like, when it says marry his
18:44
sister, like, I've argued that the text would say there was a
18:47
certain sick man, Lazarus of Bethany, the village
18:50
of Mary, his sister. Um,
18:53
and this was the Mary who anointed the Lord with women. I'm saying that's what
18:56
you can actually reconstruct. Most of the texts. Well, all of the
18:59
texts actually, of John eleven one through five, using
19:02
real readings from some of the most important manuscripts
19:05
of John in the world. And, um,
19:08
I think that John eleven one said the village of Mary,
19:11
his sister, and that John eleven five says Jesus loved Lazarus
19:14
and his sister. There are real copies that say that. Right,
19:16
okay. Um, and this, uh,
19:19
Richard fellows said, oh, that's
19:21
misogyny by saying his
19:23
sister. So he's still arguing for misogyny, but
19:26
in a different way.
19:28
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay.
19:28
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: I'm like, okay. I mean, like, you could argue
19:31
that even though, um, I don't know, like
19:34
John scholars and those redaction critics that I
19:37
mentioned pointed out the inconsistency
19:39
between John eleven one and five. How it says
19:42
there is a certain sick man, Lazarus of
19:45
Bethany, the village of Mary and her
19:48
sister Martha says Lazarus, mary,
19:51
Martha. And then in John eleven five it says now Jesus
19:54
loved Martha and her sister and
19:56
Lazarus. People have pointed out that that seems to show
19:59
two different hands. Uh, smart redaction critics have
20:02
pointed that out. Because why is Lazarus first and Martha
20:05
last in John eleven one, but Martha's first and
20:08
Lazarus as last in John eleven five? That seems to show two different
20:11
intentions. This is what the redaction critics had talked
20:14
about. And I'm saying that's because
20:16
somebody imported Martha and is trying
20:19
to, and has done an awkward job of doing so.
20:22
And actually, if you look at John eleven one through five from my
20:25
textual reconstruction, which is you had to cobble together
20:28
readings from three different manuscripts.
20:30
Um, it's called an eclectic text.
20:33
It's not a conjecture. It's like these are real readings from different
20:36
manuscripts. And by the way, the Nestle Hollande edition is
20:39
also an eclectic text.
20:40
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right.
20:41
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: It's not like it's picking one manuscript. We're going to copy Codex
20:43
Vaticanus for you. No, they're taking all the manuscripts
20:46
and picking the best readings.
20:48
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mhm.
20:48
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: From those various manuscripts and creating this
20:51
eclectic constructed text, which is the same thing as
20:53
I did. I just chose different readings than they did. Mhm. And in
20:56
my eclectic reconstruction of John eleven one five, there's
20:59
consistency. There was a certain sick man, Lazarus of
21:02
Bethany, the village of Mary, his sister
21:05
Lazarus first, Mary second, and then John eleven five
21:08
says, jesus loved Lazarus and his sister
21:11
Lazarus first, Mary second. So I'm saying that actually makes more
21:13
narrative sense. Um, but the thing is that you can make an
21:16
argument and say, oh no, the misogyny is adding the word
21:19
his over and over. And it's like, okay, you can make
21:22
that argument. I think it's kind of a weak argument, but,
21:25
um, I would say that that's, um,
21:28
the furthest pushback that I've gotten is saying like, oh,
21:31
there is some sort of sexism going on, but it's by making all the
21:34
things into his. I'm like,
21:36
or, um, the reading
21:39
Jesus loved Lazarus and his sister is because they're trying to put the man first.
21:42
I'm like, okay, you can make that reading, you
21:45
can make that argument. Um, but to me,
21:48
uh, what's most compelling about it is
21:51
that there is a
21:53
coherent text form.
21:56
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mhm.
21:56
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Um, where it's just Lazarus and Mary. That
21:59
is substantial. Uh, in my Harvard theological review
22:02
article, you can get five solid verses of
22:04
text with just Lazarus and Mary from three of the
22:07
world's most important copies of John. It's papyrus
22:10
66, codex alexandrinus, and codex
22:13
culbertinus. Those are some of the world's most weighty
22:16
manuscripts of John. And by combining crossed out readings
22:19
from those three manuscripts, you get an alternate
22:22
text form that is totally coherent.
22:24
And, um, that wasn't really addressed.
22:27
It's just like, oh, this word or that
22:30
word is more male friendly.
22:33
It's like, okay, that's like losing the forest for the
22:35
trees. When you accurately
22:38
zoom out, you can see, first of all, there's a consisting of the text
22:41
form. Second of all, zoom out to johannine
22:43
exegesis. The John scholars are like, wait, no, this
22:46
resonates. This makes better sense. This makes sense of
22:49
why Mary and Martha say the exact same thing.
22:52
Lord, if you've been here, my brother would not have died. It
22:55
also makes sense of why Lazarus sister Mary
22:57
is so similar to Mary Magdalene. There's so much
22:59
exegetical sense that it makes
23:02
without Martha there. Um, and,
23:05
uh, also, I'm sorry, but I just
23:08
don't think it's that big of a blow to women
23:11
to change her
23:14
sister to his sister. That's just not as big of
23:17
a deal as taking the christological
23:20
confession away from somebody. I'm like, that's
23:23
misogyny. That's. It's not just
23:26
like a little tweak here and there, which we see in other places,
23:29
like you do see. Um, I don't know, the book of acts,
23:32
sometimes Aquila is listed before Prisca in certain
23:35
copies. Um, like, you do see certain
23:37
tweaks of name order in other manuscripts. And so, yeah,
23:40
you can build that argument. I'm just saying I don't find it to be a very
23:43
compelling argument. Um, we know that there was so much
23:46
controversy around Mary Magdalene and early Christianity.
23:49
We know people thought Mary of Bethany was Mary Magdalene. Like, we've got the
23:52
Gospel of Mary where Peter and Nandra were challenging her. We've
23:55
got the gospel of Thomas where Peter says women are not
23:58
worthy of life. Um, that, to me,
24:01
sounds. And also specifically the conflicts between
24:03
Mary and Peter, especially when there's this christological confession
24:06
issue. Um, also in the Pistis Sophia, we've got so
24:09
many ancient documents where Peter is challenging Mary
24:12
Magdalene and her worthiness to
24:15
lead. That, to me, is a much more
24:18
coherent picture of
24:20
why you would see. See these edits.
24:23
Um, but, yeah, so much of textual criticism
24:26
and scholarship is building
24:29
arguments, and you can have the same data and
24:31
interpret it in multiple ways. And so, yeah, I would
24:34
say, um, you were asking me if I've
24:37
been, like. My research has been seen as threatening
24:41
or if I've had negative, harsh reactions. And it's like,
24:44
m. I've had a really positive response from the
24:47
johannine exegetes. I've had a,
24:50
um, one legitimate peer reviewed article that I
24:53
think makes a kind of a weak argument. Um, also,
24:56
it doesn't address, really, the patristic stuff that I was talking
24:59
about, how Mary does weird things in the patristic
25:02
authors, nor does it address the artwork, which I
25:05
haven't mentioned yet on this podcast, but the standard
25:08
ancient artwork, um, like, on all the
25:10
sarcophagi, or, uh, nearly all the sarcophagi
25:13
in antiquity, is that, uh, Jesus is
25:16
raising Lazarus, and there is one sister.
25:18
>> Martha Tatarnic: One sister?
25:19
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Yeah, yeah. It's all like, just look at the standard
25:21
iconography, and it's just the one sister at Jesus's
25:24
feet, which sounds like Mary, because that's John 1132, that Mary
25:27
falls at Jesus's feet. Um, and so
25:30
you got the artwork and the patristics and the manuscripts of
25:33
John. That's three different kinds of evidence that are
25:36
all showing inconsistency around Martha's
25:38
presence. To me, that. I mean, there is no other
25:41
ancient evidence other than artwork, church
25:44
fathers commentary, and gospel manuscripts.
25:47
That's all we have.
25:48
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right.
25:48
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: So when all three of them are showing this similar trend,
25:51
um, that's, to me, like a really clear
25:54
through line that there's something going on there.
25:57
Uh, and I think it's the
26:00
simplest explanation is that there are multiple text forms
26:02
circulating. There is a circulating text form where
26:05
Lazarus has one sister, and then there's a
26:08
very inconsistent text form
26:11
circulating where Lazarus has two sisters
26:14
and different manuscripts. It shows up in different ways.
26:16
>> Martha Tatarnic: I think that it is harder to push back
26:19
against, um, your research
26:22
when you do take such care to
26:25
make sure that you're clear
26:27
about what you're saying and what
26:30
is, um, the hypothesis
26:33
from the evidence that we actually
26:36
have. Uh, you're not Dan
26:38
Browning it, right? Like, you're not
26:41
kind of like taking, um, pieces
26:44
of evidence and then constructing a whole story and saying, this
26:47
is the way it is. Like, you're very clear
26:50
about what we know and what we don't know at this
26:53
time. Um,
26:56
I'm always fascinated, or I've always been
26:58
fascinated by the
27:01
portrayal of, uh, Mary
27:03
Magdalene over the course of pop
27:06
culture. And I mean, not just modern pop culture,
27:09
but, like, pop culture over the centuries.
27:13
I find it quite incredible,
27:15
um, how often
27:18
there's this assumption that, uh,
27:21
Mary Magdalene must have had romantic
27:23
feelings toward Jesus because,
27:26
like, how could we possibly understand her
27:29
interest in Jesus apart from she must
27:31
have been in love with him?
27:34
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Um, well, I do want to push back on that
27:37
a little bit because I think it is also built into the gospel of John that there is
27:40
an intertext with the song of songs where the bride is
27:43
searching for her beloved. In song of songs, chapter
27:46
three. Like, by night I searched for my
27:48
beloved, and, um, I passed by the watchman. Have you seen
27:51
my beloved? And when I found him, I held him and I
27:54
would not let him go. That is absolutely
27:57
known to the author of John. And it is absolutely an
28:00
inner text that is going on underneath the story of John
28:03
eleven. Sorry, not John 20, of Mary
28:06
Magdalene searching for Jesus in the garden. And people have
28:09
pointed out that intertext with the song of songs
28:12
from the very beginning. Hippolytus of Rome in the third century points
28:15
it out. M. Ambrose in
28:18
the fourth century knows about it. Even,
28:20
um, M. Bernard of Clairvaux.
28:23
Like, it's. People know that. So it is sort of
28:26
hinted at that, like, Mary Magdalene is personifying the bride,
28:29
searching for her beloved.
28:30
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right. Okay.
28:31
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: In John, chapter 20, and beyond that, of course, there's the Gospel of
28:34
Philip, which is, you know, which was lost to us for most of
28:37
christian history, but, you know, published in the 1950s, it's one of the
28:40
Naik Hamadi gospels. And it says that Mary Magdalene
28:43
was the companion and the twin
28:46
of Christ. This word hotre, in,
28:48
uh, coptic is, it says koinonos in
28:51
Greek, which means companion. And then it says,
28:54
uh, Mary was his mother and his sister and his
28:57
hotre, which means something more like consort or
29:00
twin. And so that does seem to have. It has
29:03
this connotation of being yoked, right?
29:06
Um, and that one, I think, does have some sort of
29:09
romantic over it. And it says that Jesus used to kiss her often.
29:12
So, I mean, I would say the gospel of Philip.
29:15
I'm not going to say it says anything about them being married because it
29:18
doesn't. But it does have some sort of romantic
29:20
connotations in this one document, in the one,
29:23
just one perspective. Clement of Alexandria in
29:26
the second century also says the Lord did not marry.
29:29
So these are two different ideas about
29:32
Jesus's romantic life circulating simultaneously that say
29:35
two different things. We can't know. Clement of Alexandria
29:38
and the gospel of Philip are both second century and they're saying two different
29:41
things. We can't know. We can't actually know. We
29:44
can't get to the origin of it. But I do think,
29:46
um, this idea that there's some sort of romantic love
29:49
that Mary Magdalene has, which has definitely picked up in a lot of medieval
29:52
interpretation and certainly in the Da Vinci
29:54
code. The da Vinci code has been influenced by the gospel
29:57
of Philip and the Gospel of Mary that says that Jesus loved her more
30:00
than all other women. But, um,
30:03
I would say it's in John 20 that there
30:06
is this subtle hint that Mary
30:09
Magdalene is personifying the bride in the song of songs. I mean, I
30:12
think you have to look at it that way.
30:14
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. Okay. That definitely
30:17
brings in a lot of the different pieces of the
30:19
puzzle. And the bottom line is that,
30:22
uh, although we can see
30:25
how Mary Magdalene has been
30:28
downplayed, um,
30:31
and misunderstood,
30:33
um, and associated
30:36
with pieces, uh,
30:39
that there aren't biblical
30:42
foundations, um,
30:44
for connecting. She has
30:47
been said to be a prostitute and, um,
30:50
there's no biblical foundation for that.
30:53
Um, there has been just this
30:55
rampant fascination with her as well that we
30:58
can see down across, uh,
31:02
the centuries of the church, um,
31:05
I find it really interesting, I think
31:07
that we
31:10
can definitely point to,
31:13
um, Mary Magdalene's role. And as you
31:16
said earlier,
31:18
what could have been, um, the role of
31:21
women if we had more accurately been able to see
31:24
her. Um, but I've also heard you talk about
31:27
how, um, maybe
31:30
there was a truth that the church
31:33
just wasn't previously able to hear
31:36
and now we can hear it. Can you
31:39
just say a little bit more about how maybe the hand
31:42
of God is revealed in both
31:44
Mary's downplaying and in
31:47
the illuminating of her story now?
31:51
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Well, I always liked that this is
31:54
a story about death and resurrection, right? M the
31:57
Lazarus story is a story about death and resurrection. And as I was
32:00
working on my master's thesis and I was looking over and
32:03
over and over and over at hundreds of transcriptions of John,
32:06
this one verse, John eleven four was constantly popping
32:09
out to me where Jesus says the illness
32:11
is not unto death but it is for the glory
32:14
of God so that the Son might be glorified
32:17
through it. And
32:20
um, I felt that,
32:24
it felt to me as I was doing this work on
32:27
John eleven that it was not just a
32:29
comment on Lazarus's illness but it was almost a comment
32:32
on the illness in the text
32:35
itself that I was witnessing through looking at hundreds of
32:38
transcriptions. There is an illness in the
32:41
text but it is not unto death.
32:44
Um, so if
32:46
I switch out of my text critic hat and I put on my
32:49
theologian hat, um, to me that
32:52
really resonated with me that
32:55
um, also that Jesus waits for a couple of
32:58
days like they're like, come and take care of my brother. And he's
33:00
like no, I'm going to wait because I'm going to show the glory of
33:03
God, right? And to me I'm like that sounds
33:06
to me just as an interpreter
33:09
of the text that that could be what's happening
33:12
here, that there is an illnesse,
33:15
you could say due to the imperial
33:18
patriarchal mindset especially that women were supposed to
33:21
be uh, in private life and
33:24
only men are meant to be in public life. That's, I think the
33:27
central issue with Mary Magdalene is that she's
33:30
too public. She's speaking out
33:32
publicly. And um, that's why the
33:35
Virgin Mary is seen as a better exemplar of
33:38
women's roles because she's private. She speaks but only
33:41
in private to family members.
33:43
Um, Luke does a good job of crafting
33:46
women so that women do speak, but
33:49
only with family members at home.
33:52
They're not allowed to speak public like the men.
33:55
Um, women are allowed to serve, they're allowed to support, they're allowed
33:58
to have house churches and take care of the
34:00
men in Luke's vision. And I think that the way that the
34:03
church turned out is very much aligned with Luke's vision which is very much
34:06
aligned with imperial values. Yeah, uh, women are private,
34:09
men are public. And that's why Mary Magdalene is such a
34:12
problematic character, by the way. That's why I think Luke doesn't like Mary
34:15
Magdalene. You know, he doesn't. He takes her name away from the
34:18
cross. He has access to Mark's gospel but he removes her name from the
34:21
list of women at the cross. She does not get an appearance of the risen
34:24
Jesus. People are like, who did Jesus appear to first? Mary
34:27
Magdalene. Unless you're reading Luke's gospel.
34:30
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right, right.
34:31
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Jesus does not appear to her in Luke's gospel. Um,
34:34
I think that that is sort of the way that the church turned out was, uh,
34:37
this problem with women, uh,
34:40
in public life. And so Mary Magdalene is
34:43
taking over this sort of more public role in
34:46
John's gospel. That I think, um, was a problem
34:49
at that time. And now we're in a day and
34:52
age where, of course, women are allowed to be in public life.
34:54
And so, um, maybe
34:57
John. I'm not sure that things could have turned
35:00
out to differently. I think that if
35:03
John had insisted on putting the word Magdalene in John
35:05
eleven, or even if the text had not
35:08
been changed, that maybe this gospel would not have been
35:11
received into the canon. It would have gone the way of the gospel
35:14
of Mary, which, um,
35:17
is not even mentioned in lists of heretical books,
35:20
even though we know that it was circulated
35:23
fairly widely. We have as many copies of the Gospel of Mary as we
35:26
do of the Gospel of Thomas. We've got greek copies, a couple greek
35:29
copies, and a coptic translation, same as the gospel of Thomas,
35:32
same number. Everybody talks about the gospel of Thomas
35:35
in antiquity. They're like, don't read that gospel of Thomas
35:38
if you really believe about this gospel of Thomas.
35:41
But they never talk about the gospel of Thomas.
35:42
>> Martha Tatarnic: So no airtime whatsoever.
35:44
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Yeah. Not even to say that it should not be read.
35:47
And I'm saying that's what could have happened maybe, to the gospel of
35:50
John if. If John
35:53
had insisted. Insisted.
35:56
And I'm saying that John did not insist.
36:00
And there's all these johannine verses that work so well with
36:03
this theory that the light shines in the darkness and the
36:06
darkness does not master it or does not comprehend
36:09
it, whichever way you want to read that verb, however you want to
36:12
translate it. Um, so there is this light that's
36:15
shining, the gospel is going through, and the darkness doesn't know
36:18
what it's up to. Right. And,
36:20
um, also this idea that there's no greater love than
36:23
to lay down one's life for one's friends.
36:26
I mean, I think that Mary's identity
36:29
has died in this text and that
36:32
to some extent, she has laid down her life
36:35
in the text so that her
36:38
friends, us, uh, could receive the gospel.
36:40
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right.
36:41
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: It was more important that the gospel went forward than
36:43
that it demand that Mary was
36:46
the one who did these things. And I think that
36:49
Mary was the one who did those things. But it does not
36:52
insist. It does not insist on its own
36:55
way. That's very first corinthians 13. Right.
36:58
Love is not insisting on its own way. Even if it's
37:01
right?
37:02
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right.
37:02
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Even if it's right. And, um, this whole concept of laying
37:05
down one's life on behalf of others, I don't want
37:08
to. I know that that can get, um, tricky. You know,
37:11
a lot of womanist theologians have objected to
37:14
this idea of, like, oh, women should just be doormats and just
37:17
be stepped on, especially black women. Like, like, just,
37:20
you know, lay down your life. So that, I mean, it's. It's been.
37:23
It's. Women have been abused.
37:26
And, um, I think that the distinction here to be made
37:29
is that it's the person who is
37:31
stronger who lays down their life
37:34
for the person who is weaker. That's what this is
37:37
about. And I think that Mary
37:40
is stronger, in a way, than Peter
37:43
here. This is what Peter needed. And
37:46
so I'm saying that the text
37:49
met us where we were at.
37:51
At that time.
37:53
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mhm.
37:53
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: And, um, it adjusts over
37:56
time to meet our
37:59
needs. And, um, I have
38:02
said at some time it's not just that there's an illness in the text, it's
38:05
that the. The word itself has been
38:07
wounded.
38:08
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right.
38:09
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Yeah. Yeah. That there's an actual wounding of the
38:12
word of God. Just like Jesus's body
38:15
is vulnerable, the.
38:16
>> Martha Tatarnic: Text is vulnerable, is vulnerable.
38:19
And yet there's also this truth
38:22
that is preserved in some way
38:25
in the text that
38:28
does eventually shine in the darkness.
38:30
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Yeah. And it's almost like there's a. There's
38:33
something very profound in
38:36
the wounding and the allowance of the wounding
38:39
of something sacred that it
38:42
bears our sin in its body.
38:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mhm.
38:45
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Right. The crucifixion is like taking on the
38:48
sin of the world, right? Because
38:51
it's bigger than that.
38:53
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mhm.
38:53
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: And I'm saying that this,
38:55
um. If this is true,
38:58
if that's not true, it's just an idea that'll be published
39:01
and it'll be footnoted in other books like that, then there's
39:04
no power to it. But if Mary was the person
39:07
who anointed Jesus at Bethany, if she did confess Jesus as
39:10
the Christ, if that's
39:12
true, then nothing can kill it. No pen
39:15
stroke can kill that.
39:17
And that truth
39:21
is maybe waiting for us to be ready for
39:24
it. And I think that John, especially with the
39:27
ability to see hundreds of manuscripts simultaneously, which we've
39:30
only had in the last decade or so, honestly.
39:33
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mhm.
39:33
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: That ability to see, uh, hundreds of
39:36
manuscripts, for us to pull back and
39:39
to maybe see that wounding of the
39:42
word, um, is a profound moment
39:44
of maybe conversion, I
39:47
hope, of the church's culture. That's sort of what
39:50
I would hope, um, would be possible. I
39:53
recognize that because it's theoretical. We would
39:56
probably need an actual manuscript,
40:00
um, to really persuade everyone.
40:02
But I feel like what I'm hoping to do in this podcast and in my
40:05
publications is to at least till the soil.
40:08
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. Yeah. So I want to
40:10
bring this full circle, and again, a
40:13
plug for listening to part one of this
40:16
conversation. But can you just take us back to that
40:19
subway? And, uh, that
40:21
sense of a calling that you had when you
40:24
still thought that it was as a singer
40:27
songwriter, that this is what you were being called to
40:30
do. Can you just take us back to that subway?
40:34
That moment of.
40:35
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: I just know I was reading bell hooks book, bone Black.
40:38
I don't even remember exactly what the exact passage
40:41
was. Bell hooks. Oof. Read
40:44
her. She. Oh, you know what? She also said
40:47
this one thing that really resonated with me. She said,
40:50
white women do not want to be a part of feminist
40:53
movement. White women want
40:56
to lead feminist movement.
40:59
Mhm. I read that at a good time
41:02
because it's important for
41:05
me and you and all of us, um,
41:08
white women who do this kind of thing to
41:11
remember that it's not about us.
41:13
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. Yeah.
41:14
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: And, um, especially
41:17
if we're going to be thinking about sisterhood. But
41:20
that's a real. That's a real important part. I think that what Diana and
41:23
I are trying to do is sisterhood. Um,
41:26
it's not about us being the queen in the room that
41:29
everybody worships or whatever. There are
41:32
some Mary Magdalene people who do that.
41:35
And I don't want to be one of those. I want to be
41:38
someone who's operating in sisterhood, who. These are
41:41
my gifts. These are your gifts. We're working together.
41:44
These are Martha's gifts,
41:46
uh, that we get the word out, um, sort
41:49
of as a team. And in lifting up one another's
41:52
voices and supporting one another,
41:55
um, that was something that I think
41:58
bell hooks gave me.
42:01
Um, and in that moment on the subway, I
42:04
mean, I've never had anything like that happen to me
42:07
before or since. Just this. It literally felt like there was a
42:10
radio wave coming out of my head. That's just so. I know it sounds
42:12
strange, um, but again, I was
42:15
meditating every day for an hour, and I had been doing so for
42:18
years at this point, so maybe that had something to do with it as well.
42:21
But, um, yeah, it was just,
42:23
uh, the valuation of the feminine. There's something to
42:26
do with the feminine being a thing, which
42:29
some people I know, like Judith Butler would say that there's no such thing, but
42:32
I do think that there is such a thing as the feminine. Um.
42:35
Um, the feminine exists and it
42:38
has value. That's the lesson that I've had
42:40
to learn in my own life, that I'm still learning, honestly,
42:43
because my masculine side is very, very developed.
42:47
Um, I, um, have to learn that and also just
42:50
learning that the feminine in itself has value and
42:53
bringing that to people's attention, I guess partly through
42:56
my music, but more so through my work on the
42:59
gospels. And I'm, um. It's. It's a real
43:01
treasure that it's being received.
43:03
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. Well, I just have to say on a
43:06
personal note, I mean, it means a
43:09
lot. Like, it means a lot to me
43:12
as a, ah, woman in leadership in the
43:15
church. It means a lot to my colleagues.
43:18
It means a lot to have this
43:22
biblical grounding, to have this
43:24
unfolding research, um,
43:27
that allows us to lean
43:30
into that valuing in a way
43:33
that feels true,
43:36
um, and powerful
43:39
and collaborative. And,
43:41
uh, I really want to say thank
43:44
you to you for not just your
43:47
work, but your voice and, um,
43:50
I think your ability to
43:52
connect, like, really
43:55
solid, careful research,
43:58
um, into a
44:02
framework of why it matters as well,
44:04
um, is such a gift. So thank you very
44:07
much, Elizabeth.
44:09
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Thank you. And again, it's a real pleasure for me to
44:12
know that, uh, the work that I'm doing matters,
44:15
and it makes a difference, which is, of course, what I wanted in the music business
44:18
as well. And sometimes life is just unexpected. It takes you
44:21
down paths you never thought you'd go on. Who
44:24
knew that my brain was good at manuscripts? So strange.
44:27
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah.
44:27
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Yeah.
44:28
>> Martha Tatarnic: Well, uh, we're
44:31
definitely on a path full of surprises and twists and
44:34
turns in the road.
44:35
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: The red thread.
44:36
>> Martha Tatarnic: The red thread. Love that. Uh, okay, well,
44:39
let's take a quick, uh, break, and then we'll come back
44:42
for a couple of closing rapid fire
44:45
questions.
44:48
Okay. Welcome back to the Future Christian
44:51
podcast and our closing rapid fire
44:53
questions. And we always say to our
44:56
guests that you can take these questions as seriously
44:59
or not as you want. Um,
45:02
so don't be thrown too much by this first question,
45:05
but, Elizabeth, if you were pope for a day, what would
45:08
that day look like? What would be on your
45:10
agenda?
45:11
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: I would abdicate.
45:15
I don't want that kind of responsibility.
45:21
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I think that just totally flies in the face of
45:23
everything that you just said about, uh, the
45:26
feminist movement and sisterhood and.
45:29
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Yeah, exactly.
45:31
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay, so, clear answer. What
45:34
is a, uh, theologian or historical
45:37
christian figure that you would want to meet,
45:40
have supper with bring back to life.
45:43
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: I mean, probably Jesus. Obviously, if you got to meet
45:46
Jesus, that would be the best, obviously. But, um, if you're talking
45:49
about somebody other than Jesus, well, and of course, Mary Magdalene,
45:52
I'd want to hang out with her. And the Virgin Mary, those are my besties. Like, I
45:55
want to hang out with them. Um, but if you're talking about somebody a
45:58
little bit deeper cut, probably. I really like Gregory of
46:01
Nessa. I think he's really smart, theologian,
46:04
and he has some of the ideas that he has,
46:07
um, on, like, ransom theory,
46:10
uh, really resonate with me. I know that's kind of
46:13
dorky patristic stuff, but I think Gregory of Nyssa
46:16
understood. I think he's a smart guy.
46:18
>> Martha Tatarnic: I think we should try to get all those people around the supper table,
46:21
Jesus and the Marys and
46:24
Gregory and you.
46:25
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Sounds like not Gregory the great. I don't need to have dinner with
46:28
him, but Gregory of Nyssa, the cappadocian, I like him.
46:31
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay, good. To be clear about that,
46:34
what will history remember from our current time and
46:37
place?
46:39
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Oh, man. Probably it's that moment, like, you
46:42
know, it's like, oh, when I. When did we invent
46:45
farming? Or like, when did we invent
46:48
the printing press? It's going to be like, when did we invent AI? That's
46:51
probably what this is going to be. I like to think that there
46:54
is a higher power beyond that.
46:57
Um, but we'll see.
47:00
We'll see if AI just takes everything over and becomes our
47:03
new reality. But that's what I think history is going to remember from
47:06
where we're at right now.
47:07
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, we did, uh, roundtable on AI a couple
47:10
of months ago on the podcast. The m implications
47:13
are huge and not fun.
47:15
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: As a professor, I made all my students do blue
47:17
books for their finals. I'm like, no computers of
47:20
any kind. Their hands were shaking. They're like, I don't actually write this
47:23
much. I'm back to blue books to keep them away from that stuff.
47:26
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, yeah, that's good, good, uh,
47:29
hack, for sure. What are
47:32
your hopes for the future of Christianity?
47:35
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Well, you know, like any researcher, I hope that
47:38
my. My work might make a difference, not
47:41
just from preaching to the choir, from people who already agree
47:44
with me, but for people who might
47:46
really have thought something
47:49
differently for a long time about the roles of men
47:52
and women. I hope that this might be able to make a shift
47:55
in, um, people
47:57
who have been certain
48:00
for so long of the roles of men and women. I hope to
48:03
create a little crack. I also love this laird
48:06
Cohen quote, there is a crack in everything.
48:08
>> Martha Tatarnic: That's how the lights in.
48:10
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: That's what I think is going on in these manuscripts of John. Let's follow
48:13
that crack and see if the light gets in that way.
48:16
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's beautiful.
48:19
Where can people find more about you,
48:21
Elizabeth?
48:22
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Um, I have a website, uh,
48:24
elizabethshrader.com, and that
48:27
has not, uh, only links to my publications and
48:30
my schedule of presentations and my biography,
48:33
but, uh, also a music tab where you can hear a
48:36
lot of my songs and, um, watch Magdalene
48:38
music video.
48:39
>> Martha Tatarnic: And I highly recommend doing that. Just
48:42
a plug. People should definitely get you
48:45
on their playlists as well.
48:47
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Oh, thanks.
48:48
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay, well, we always wrap up with a word of peace.
48:51
So, um, again, I just want to say thank you so very
48:55
much for your time today in a very
48:58
demanding, um, and in demand
49:00
schedule. And, Elizabeth, may
49:03
God's peace be with you.
49:04
>> Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer: Thank you, Martha. You too.
49:08
>> Paul: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian podcast.
49:11
To learn more about Loren or the podcast,
49:13
visit future dash christian.com.
49:16
one more thing before you go. Do us a favor
49:19
and subscribe to the podcast. And if you're
49:22
feeling especially generous, leave a review.
49:25
It really helps us get the word out to more people about the
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49:31
Future Christian podcast is a production of torn curtain
49:34
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mixed by Danny Burton and the production support is
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provided by Paul Romig-Leavitt. Thanks
49:42
and go in peace.
49:43
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mhm.