In 1982, Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, and Richard Leigh, the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, suggested that Mary Magdalene was, literally, the vessel that carried the blood of Christ into Europe in the form of the unborn child, making her and her womb the "Holy Grail." The focus of their grail mythology was the resulting bloodline of such a union, which they attempted to trace through complicated and, according to some, dubious geneaology. In 1993, however, a new book would take a fresh look at Mary Magdalene as the Holy Grail and shift the emphasis off of the bloodline and onto Mary Magdalene herself. The Woman With The Alabaster Jar, written by Margaret Starbird, launched a new branch of Holy Grail mythology based on Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh's suggestion of a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. In Starbird's version, it wasn't the bloodline that was of primary concern, it was the loss of the sacred feminine in Christianity, represented by Jesus' presumed bride, Mary Magdalene.

The Woman With the Alabaster Jar suggests that the woman who anointed Jesus in the days before the crucifixion was actually Mary Magdalene, and that she was re-enacting an old fertility ritual called the hieros gamos, or "sacred marriage." In older sacred marriage rituals, a woman who represented the "goddess" and the land was wedded to the king. Their union symbolized many things, depending on the time and place such a ritual was practiced, including the blessing of ongoing fertility, the rejuvination of the land and the community soul, and the connection between humans and the Divine. Some of these old ceremonies included a ritualistic slaying of the king, either symbolically or literally, after he was married to the priestess/goddess. In the symbolic slayings, he would then rise again in a mystical resurrection echoing the cycles of death and rebirth evident in nature. To Starbird, the Gospel accounts of the anointing and the events that follow reflect hieros gamos-like practices. If Mary Magdalene was the woman who performed the anointing, she would have been the woman filling the symbolic role of priestess/goddess, and therefore would have been married to Jesus.

To sift through all of Starbird's evidence would require a much longer article, but there are a few pieces that should be noted briefly:

First, she suggests that "Magdalene" must have been an epithet indicating something other than her place of origin. This is necessary to support the unity tradition, the idea that Mary Magdalene is the same person as Mary of Bethany, who performs the anointing in John, and the anonymous sinner woman who performs the anointing in Luke. If Mary Magdalene is Mary of Bethany, then "Magdalene" couldn't denote a place of origin (because she was from Bethany). Ergo, "Magdalene" must be a nickname with some other meaning.

Second, if "Magdalene" is an epithet that doesn't reflect her place of origin, then what does it mean? Starbird finds the solution through analyzing the gematria value of the full Greek epithet, transliterated in English as "h magdalhnh." The numerical value of the name is 153, which is connected with the shape of the vesica piscis (see image). The vesica piscis has maternal connotations in some contexts and "goddess" connotations in others, therefore Starbird interprets 153 and the vesica piscis to be representative of the sacred feminine. And because "the Magdalene" is equal to 153, Mary Magdalene herself must be a representative of the sacred feminine, lending support to her belief that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married.

In addition, there is a story in John in which Peter pulls ashore 153 fish in an unbroken net. Starbird interprets the fish to represent Ecclesia, the Church as a collective (she isn't the first to make this suggestion). If 153 is then associated with the Ecclesia, then Mary Magdalene must be associated with the Ecclesia. The Ecclesia/Church is frequently referred to as the "bride," and Jesus as the "bridegroom." Starbird sees a type that prefigures this interpretation in Micah 4:8:

"And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem."

Finally, where Mary Magdalene enters into Holy Grail mythology is roughly the same place it occurs for Lincoln, Baigent, and Leigh. They all rely heavily on the 11th century legends that Mary Magdalene traveled to Gaul (modern day France) after the crucifixion. Starbird believes that Mary Magdalene gave birth to a daughter named Sarah, who traveled with her to Gaul as a child. Some of the legends in question do mention a young girl named Sarah who traveled with Mary Magdalene and her party, but there is nothing to indicate that she was Mary Magdalene and Jesus' daughter. To Starbird, however, a daughter would explain how the bloodline was lost in the first place: no one cared about female children in dynastic families.

While the specifics listed above are instrumental in supporting Starbird's take on Mary Magdalene, it is also important to state that there may be more to explain the apparent popularity of her ideas. There is a heavily archetypal "lost feminine" theme running throughout The Woman With The Alabaster Jar and Starbird's subsequent books, The Goddess In The Gospels and Magdalene's Lost Legacy. She looks at the state of Western society and Christianity today and sees a stark wasteland where women continue to be devalued, and explains this imbalance by pointing to the absense of a feminine influence within the Church. This has struck a resonant chord for many who have long struggled to pin down exactly what they felt was missing from Christianity. Starbird looks at many of the "lost feminine" myths of Western civilization (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, the Holy Grail) and sees "fossils" of the "truth" that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' rightful queen, whose role was to help him "image God as partners."

Both versions of the Holy Grail perspective on Mary Magdalene rely heavily on conspiracy in the Roman Catholic Church. The Church, Starbird has written, intentionally suppressed knowledge of Jesus' spouse and child, first in order to protect them and then later to prevent them from interfering with a patriarchal agenda. Both versions also speculate on an involvement by the Cathars, a medieval Christian sect in Southern France that was ultimately wiped out through the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition.

Magdalene.org articles about the Holy Grail: Lost Feminine perspective:

• Mary Magdalene: The Grail Bearer, by Margaret Starbird
• Mary Magdalene: The Beloved, by Margaret Starbird
• Mary Magdalene/Twin Towers, by Margaret Starbird