Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History
Philip C Almond
Cambridge University Press, £30, 386 pages
‘Will the real Mary Magdalene please stand up?” That question might be said to underlie Philip Almond’s new reception history of one of the New Testament’s most represented, and most contested, figures. At the heart of Mary’s story lies a paradox. We know almost nothing about her for certain – the canonical Gospels say little – yet, as Almond observes, “this very paucity of information made possible and necessary the construction within Christianity of a variety of ‘lives’ of Mary Magdalene”.
