Re-Evaluations of Mary Magdalene and the Interpretations of John 20,17 in the Early Modern Era

Western exegesis has been fundamentally altered through humanism and the Protestant and Catholic Reformations of the sixteenth century. The changing methodology of biblical interpretation brought about not only changes in the ways in which the sacred texts were approached, analysed and applied, but also had repercussions in other areas of religious life and belief, including dogmatics, ethics, ecclesiology and sociology, leading ultimately to a change of the status and role of the Bible itself. This present article seeks to examine the changing interpretations of John 20,17 and the new readings, exegesis, understandings and translations of the famous ‘noli me tangere’ motif in the early modern period