Mary Magdalene and Judas the Troubled, January 14th, 2026.

Introduction.

The tag for this post is exegetical fragments, but that is not quite right.

There are actually a number of exegetical fragments laid out on the table in front of us here, but I have assembled them into what might be called a speculative reconstruction.

I'll be writing below as though the matter were settled and obvious to all, but that is just a literary device, not representing where I actually am.

All of this could be applesauce, and so I'm not being dogmatic about it.

I don't know that this is true, but if you bear with me, I'm going to act like it is true as we go along. Let's just try it on for a minute. I'll explain why at the end. Two women, one woman. In Luke 7, a woman, a known sinner, a fallen woman, an anoints the Lord's feet with tears and precious ointment, wiping his feet with their hair.

Quote, and stood at his feet behind him, weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Luke 738. We have a very similar incident in the Gospel of John, as well as in Matthew and Mark, so similar that we would naturally think

that they were all the same incident, if only the timelines and locations were not out of sync.

The Luke episode happened earlier in the Lord's ministry up north in Galilee, and at the

house of a Pharisee named Simon, Luke 740.

The episode in John happened near the end of the Lord's life, down in Bethany in Judea,

and at the house of a man known as Simon the leper. Matthew 26, 6, Mark, Mark leave the woman

unnamed, but add the detail that she brought the ointment in an alabaster box, and the additional

fact that she anointed the Lord's head with it. If you compare the Luke episode

with the one in John, in both places the Lord's feet were anointed, washed with tears, and wiped

with hair. Quote, then took Mary a pound of ointment of Spike Nard, very costly, and anointed

the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the

ointment. John 12. 3.

I'm arguing here that these accounts represent two separate incidents, but the same woman.

Some interpreters say that they represent the same woman and the same incident, but with the

details garbled up by the gospel writers. But this is inconsistent with the high view of scripture.

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