John 11:1,2

“ Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus, of Bethany, of the village of Mary and Martha, her sister. 2. Mary was she who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair; and it was her brother, Lazarus, who was sick. ”

As it is the sickness of Lazarus which is the occasion of all that follows, the word ἀσθενῶν, sick, is placed at the beginning. The particle δέ is the now of transition (John 11:5). The name of the place where Lazarus lived is carefully noticed, because it is the situation of this village (in Judea) which occasions the following conversation between Jesus and His disciples.

But how can the author designate Bethany as the village of Mary and Martha, two persons whose names have not yet been mentioned in this gospel. He evidently supposes that the two sisters are known to the readers through the evangelical tradition, especially through the fact related in Luke 10:38-42. Bethany, at the present day, El-Azirieh (from El-Azir, the Arabian name of Lazarus) is a poor village situated on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, three-quarters of a league from Jerusalem, which is inhabited in our day by about forty Mussulman families. The supposed house of Lazarus, and also his sepulchre, have been pointed out since the fourth century, as they are still pointed out. The two prepositions, ἀπό and ἐκ, used here as parallel to each other, are not absolutely synonymous, as Meyer and Weiss think.

The passage John 1:45 does not prove anything in favor of this assertion. It seems to me that the first clause refers rather to the residence, the second to the origin: Lazarus lived at Bethany, whence he was. The name of Mary is placed first, as more conspicuous because of the fact mentioned in John 11:2. But it seems to follow from John 11:5; John 11:19, that Martha was the eldest and from Luke 10:38 ff., that she was the principal personage in the house. The narratives in Matthew 26:6 ff., and Mark 14:3 ff., prove that the oral tradition did not in general mention the name of Mary in the story of the anointing; for the expression there is simply a woman. And perhaps this omission may explain the form of the narrative of John in John 11:2: “This Mary, of whom I am here speaking to you, is the woman of whom it is related that she anointed...and wiped...” Through the closing part of the verse John returns from this episode to the fact which forms the subject of the narrative, by connecting the information to be given respecting Lazarus with the name of Mary as the last one mentioned: “ She it was whose brother, Lazarus, was sick. ”

Hengstenberg devotes twenty-six pages to the work of proving that (according to the idea which was generally prevalent before the Reformation) Mary, the sister of Lazarus, is the same person with Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2) and with the woman of sinful life who anointed the feet of Jesus (Luke 7:36 ff.). He composes a little romance on this theme, according to which Galilee was the scene of Mary's dissolute life; Martha, her sister, in the course of a feast-journey, formed the acquaintance of the rich Pharisee Simon, a resident at Bethany, and married him; afterwards, she received into her house her sister Mary, who had abandoned her erroneous ways, and also her brother Lazarus, who had fallen into poverty. Thus we have an explanation of the entrance of Mary into the banqueting-room (Luke 7); she was there, as it were, at home, and the attack of Simon was the malicious bantering of a brother-in-law.

There is nothing, even to the parable of the poor Lazarus and the wicked rich man, which may not in this way find its explanation, etc., etc. This dissertation proves only one thing; the facility with which a sagacious and learned man proves everything which he wishes to prove. The only argument which has any value is a certain resemblance in the expressions between John 11:2 and Luke 7:37-38. But the scene is so different; on one side, Galilee; on the other, Judea; there, the first period of Jesus' ministry; here, one of the days which precede His Passion; there, a discussion as to the pardon of sins; here, a conversation on the sum expended; and the repetition of such homage is, according to the customs of the East, so natural, that we cannot accord the least probability to the double identity of persons which Hengstenberg seeks to establish.