Myths of Mary and the Married Jesus

I am back in England for a couple of days and I'm here to give the second of this year's Cadbury Lectures at the University of Birmingham, which was once my happy home (1995-2005).  Details of this year's Cadbury Lectures are here:

The Cadbury Lectures 2013: Religion out of the Box: Dialogues with academy, society and culture

22 January -- 19 March

My title and abstract:

Myths of Mary and the married Jesus: how popular culture is affecting scholarship

From Jesus Christ Superstar to the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, from the Last Temptation of Christ to the Da Vinci Code, this generation has seen a radical alteration in our perspectives on key characters in early Christianity. Mary Magdalene has been transformed from a repentant prostitute to the first apostle. Now she is even Jesus’ wife. But is Mary’s rehabilitation rooted in reassessments of the primary texts or is it a product of our own immersion in popular culture? What do we know about her Gospel, her tomb, her family? The real story of Mary’s rejuvenation is so mysterious that it leads us to question the identity of the woman we thought we knew.

It will be a fully illustrated talk (as long as we can get the powerpoint working) and it's tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6.

I am also looking forward to speaking today in the Biblical Studies Colloquium on the topic "How reliable is the story of the Nag Hammadi discoveries".  But I am of course most looking forward to catching up with old friends and colleagues in Birmingham!