Mary of Bethany

Life and work

Mary lived in Bethany with her sister Martha and brother Lazarus, and their home appears as a place Jesus visited and stayed. In one well-known scene, while Martha busied herself with the work of hosting, Mary sat at Jesus's feet listening to his teaching; when Martha complained that her sister had left her to serve alone, Jesus gently defended Mary, saying she had "chosen what is better" (Luke 10:38-42).

Mary and Martha both appear again when their brother Lazarus fell ill and died. Mary's grief-stricken words to Jesus — "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" — and her weeping moved Jesus deeply, and Scripture records the shortest verse in the Bible directly afterward: "Jesus wept" (John 11:1-35). Jesus then raised Lazarus from the dead.

Shortly before Jesus's crucifixion, at a dinner in Bethany, Mary took an expensive jar of pure nard and anointed Jesus's feet, wiping them with her hair; the fragrance filled the house. Judas Iscariot objected to the extravagance, but Jesus defended her act as preparation for his burial (John 12:1-8; a similar anointing scene appears in Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9, though without naming the woman).

A significant historical confusion attaches to Mary of Bethany: later Western Christian tradition, especially from the sixth century onward, conflated her with Mary Magdalene and with the unnamed "sinful woman" who anoints Jesus's feet in Luke 7:36-50. Modern scholarship treats these as three separate figures — nothing in the Gospels identifies Mary of Bethany as either Mary Magdalene or a "sinful woman" — and most Protestant and much contemporary Catholic scholarship no longer follows the older conflation.

Questions and debates

Long-standing (and now largely rejected by scholars) tradition conflated Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene and with the unnamed sinful woman of Luke 7, though the Gospels never equate them.

Extra-biblical evidence

No extra-biblical record of Mary of Bethany survives; she is known only from the Gospel accounts of her family's household.

Scripture references

• Luke 10:38-42 — Sitting at Jesus's feet
• John 11:1-35 — The death of Lazarus
• John 12:1-8 — Anointing Jesus's feet with perfume

Reflect

Mary poured out a year's wages of perfume in one extravagant act — when did you last give without calculating?