Elizabeth "Libbie" Schrader Polczer, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Villanova University. She holds a doctorate in Early Christianity from Duke University, with a focus on textual criticism, Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of John. Elizabeth has been invited to present her peer-reviewed research at Duke University, Princeton University, Vanderbilt Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, Pepperdine University, Elon University, Wheaton College, Perkins School of Theology, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Regensburg and the University of Leipzig, Germany, along with dozens of churches across the U.S. and Canada.
Elizabeth transitioned to religious scholarship after a long career as a singer/songwriter. She was the first winner of the Pantene Pro-Voice competition in 2001, after a performance opening for Jewel at SummerStage in New York's Central Park. Prizes included a nationwide club tour with Poe, as well as a demo deal with Atlantic Records. Her band also participated in Jewel's "Soul City Cafe" program for independent artists, opening three shows on Jewel's "This Way" tour. She has opened for other artists as diverse as India.Arie, Michelle Branch, Ray LeMontagne, and Rusted Root, and played her music on an episode of "The Gilmore Girls."
After writing a song about Mary Magdalene, Elizabeth enrolled in the M.A. program at General Theological Seminary. Her interest in the text of John's Gospel culminated in the publication of her Master's thesis in the Harvard Theological Review. She has published additional peer-reviewed papers in the Journal of Biblical Literature, T.C.: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, and the Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin.
TOPICS
Was the Gospel of John Changed to Suppress Mary Magdalene?
(For churches, conferences, speakers series or academic audiences) In this lecture, Dr. Schrader Polczer outlines her argument (published in the Harvard Theological Review) that the character Martha of Bethany may be a second-century addition to the Gospel of John. After surveying dozens of ancient manuscripts with textual instabilities – especially Papyrus 66, the world’s oldest copy of the Raising of Lazarus – she suggests that the Lukan character Martha may have been added to John’s Gospel to discourage the ancient position that Lazarus's sister Mary should be identified as Mary Magdalene. In particular, Martha’s presence in John ensures that John 11:27's crucial Christological confession is not on Mary's lips.
Mary the Tower – A New Look at Mary Magdalene
(For churches, conferences and speakers series) Who was Mary Magdalene? In this lecture, Dr. Schrader Polczer introduces audiences to Mary Magdalene and surveys how this important character is presented in the New Testament and ancient apocryphal literature. Dr. Schrader Polczer also presents research from her 2021 Journal of Biblical Literature article (co-authored with Prof. Joan Taylor), which demonstrates that there has never been consensus on the meaning of Mary’s name. The word “Magdalene” may have been a title given to her by Jesus, challenging modern assumptions that Mary hailed from a place called Magdala; rather, the word may indicate her status as one of Jesus’s closest disciples, the “Tower-ess” or “the magnified one.”
Manuscripts of the New Testament
(For churches, conferences and speakers series). In this lecture, Dr. Schrader Polczer introduces audiences to manuscripts of the New Testament. Although it is sometimes thought that “the Bible is clear,” the manuscripts underlying the Biblical text contain many variant readings. Consequently, the text of “the Bible” is not always as straightforward as Christians are often led to believe. Dr. Schrader Polczer also discusses the formation of the canon, and how the current twenty-seven books of the New Testament eventually came to be seen as the “Word of God.”
Was Salome at the Markan Tomb? Another Ending to Mark’s Gospel
(For academic audiences) According to modern Bibles, the Gospel of Mark states that three women (Mary Magdalene, Mary of James, and Salome) visited Jesus’s empty tomb. However, there is significant variation on this detail in the earliest manuscripts: Salome is absent from the empty tomb in oldest Latin copy of Mark, as well as Codex Bezae (copied ca. 400 CE). In this lecture based on her peer-reviewed article in the Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin, Dr. Schrader Polczer explores potential editorial motives behind these striking textual variants. She concludes that ancient controversies about Salome and the perpetual virginity of Mary likely inspired some of the textual instability, to the point where a confident recovery of Mark’s authorial text is impossible in Mark 15:47-16:1.
