The Jesus Tomb and the Acts of Philip
February 26th, 2007 by 
Tony
In an interview with James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici on the Today Show (see the interview here), it was revealed that Acts of Philip is instrumental in determining that the Talpiot tomb holds the remains of the family of Jesus. The two stated that the identification of the ossuary of “Mariamne” as Mary Magdalene was vital to their theory. According to Cameron and Jacobovici, Mary Magdalene’s “real name” is revealed in the Acts of Philip to be Mariamne. The problems with this assertion should be obvious. First, the Acts of Philip is a dubious source for identifiying first-century figures. Second, as far as I am able to determine (the best books are not at hand at the moment), the Mariamne of Acts of Philip is not Mary Magdalene but Mary of Bethany. Here is an excerpt:
94 It came to pass when the Saviour divided the apostles and each went forth according to his lot, that it fell to Philip to go to the country of the Greeks: and he thought it hard, and wept. And Mariamne his sister (it was she that made ready the bread and salt at the breaking of bread, but Martha was she that ministered to the multitudes and laboured much) seeing it, went to Jesus and said: Lord, seest thou not how my brother is vexed?
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February 27th, 2007 at 2:43 am
[…] Tony Chartrand-Burke has a short note on his Apocryphicity blog about the questionable appeal to the Acts of Philip to identify the ossuary of “Mariamne” with Mary Magdalene. Tony notes that one shouldn’t look to the Acts of Philip for reliable information about first-century figures and that the Mariamne referred to in the Acts of Philip is not Mary Magdalene, but Mary of Bethany. […]
February 28th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
[…] The excerpt from the Acts I posted (HERE), in which the only Mariamne identified is Mary of Bethany and sister of Philip, is from M. R. James’ edition. I do not have Bovon’s at hand but can anyone clarify this? Are both the Post and Jacobovici misrepresenting the text? […]