In Memory of Her: Developing the Gospels and Downplaying the Woman Who Anoints Jesus
What if gender bias in the Bible nearly erased a central part of Jesus’ gospel message?
The story of the woman anointing Jesus is one of the few stories present in all four Gospels. It is also the only story that Jesus ever says will be told “wherever the gospel is preached.” Why did Jesus see the story as so important? And why don’t we usually see it that way today?
Mark and Matthew were the earliest Gospels. In them (Mark 14:3–9, Matthew 26:6–13), the story goes like this:
- An unnamed woman
- Anoints Jesus’ head
- Immediately before Passover
- Jesus says: “Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
This is significant because anointing on the head was the Jewish symbol for making someone king. In Hebrew, “Messiah” literally means “Anointed One.” To be messiah and king, Jesus needed to be anointed. And it happens right before Passover, which leads to his crucifixion, where he is called “King of the Jews.” According to Mark and Matthew, only this woman — not even the disciples — truly saw Jesus as the Messiah enough to anoint him. Only she takes the authority upon herself — authority that has been reserved for the great prophets.
But the story changes in Luke 7:36–50 and John 12:1–8. These two were written later, and their versions include:
- Describing the woman as a sinner (Luke only)
- Anointing Jesus’ feet, not head
- Moving the story away from Passover
- Removing the line stating “what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
And that is how the story is almost entirely remembered. Search for art of the “woman anointing Jesus” and you will find the sinful, cowering woman on the floor far more than the bold, prophetic woman declaring Jesus king. Listen to sermons about this woman and more likely than not the message will be on humility or forgiveness of a sinner, not the significance of a woman being the first to proclaim Jesus as messiah.
Scholars believe that the story changed to downplay the significance of this woman because she was a woman. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza wrote In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, and in it she writes:
In the passion account of Mark’s gospel, three disciples figure prominently: on the one hand, two of the twelve — Judas who betrays Jesus and Peter who denies him — and on the other, the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus. But while the stories of Judas and Peter are engraved in the memory of Christians, the story of the woman is virtually forgotten. Although Jesus pronounces in Mark: “And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole word, what she has done will be told in memory of her” (14:9), the woman’s prophetic sign-action did not become a part of the gospel knowledge of Christians. Even her name is lost to us. Wherever the gospel is proclaimed and the eucharist is celebrated another story is told: the story of the apostle who betrayed Jesus. The name of the betrayer is remembered, but the name of the faithful disciple is forgotten because she was a woman (xliii).
And what about the line “Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her?” If the gospel we preach today doesn’t involve this story, then have we missed the gospel Jesus was after? Maybe Jesus’ gospel has a lot more to do with recognizing the marginalized and empowering the disempowered than with getting to an eternal destination.
Maybe our ritual of breaking bread and wine could grow to accompany a new symbol: anointing on the head. In most traditions, only the priest serves the Eucharist as a symbol of Christ. Perhaps we could follow the Gospel tradition and let a woman anoint the priest to fulfill this role.
And more importantly, perhaps recognizing the downplaying of this woman — despite Jesus’ commands that she be remembered — should remind us that without vigilance and constant reckoning with structures of power, the gospel itself can change on the pages before us.
