ancient secrets of the bible
63Ancient Secrets of the Bible: The Saint Sinner Controversy Tainting Mary Magdalene?
Women throughout the ages have been construed as architects of evil – be it the women of ancient Greece like Pandora on whom is accredited the unleashing of all the evils of the world or Clytemnestra or Medea or the biblical Eve, who has been held responsible for the fall of Adam and of humankind in general.
The list is pretty long and contains names like Mary Magdalene and Joan of Arc and any woman who is gifted beyond the common human grasp of understanding has been labeled as a witch – to be burnt at the stakes alive and stoned to death without any proper criminal trial.
The modern world is shocked at the inhuman treatment meted out to Afghani women by Taliban fundamentalists, but should these revelations really come as a surprise to the western world that has the blood of millions of women staining and defacing the cultural and social history?
If you just go through the passages of the holy bible, you will come across the controversial figure of Mary Magdalene whose very character and identity as well as existence is shrouded in deep mystery and intrigue. If you just study the life history and trajectory of Mary Magdalene, one of bible’s most famous and perhaps the most controversial female figure, it will throw up some startling facts.
Who exactly was this lady? What was her relation to Jesus Christ? Did Jesus actually marry her and bestow dignity on her by making her his wife? Did she actually lead the life of a fallen woman - a prostitute as the church likes to project her? Was she indeed rescued by Jesus from her life of sin? Or was she just another faithful and devoted follower of Jesus? Was she the inspiration behind or the source of a gospel? Or did she actually author one gospel?
The questions are many, the curiosity in human mind regarding her is insatiable and the debate was fuelled after the publication of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.
So far the Roman Catholic Church preferred to portray Mary Magdalene in a limiting, lurid light – a whore cast in the standard image of a reformed prostitute. But 30 years back, the same institution quietly accepted that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ prophetic successor, the mother to the child fathered by the Messiah, an apostle in her own right, a wealthy woman who was also an honored and rich patron of the Messiah.
She was also the first one to witness the resurrection of Jesus and has her own Catholic fan following who worship her as a saint in her own right, who stood tall and proud against the all male priesthood.
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A lie survive until true come, yes,the article did not take for surprise that all.
This true is well know, respected, followed, and practiced in secret for leader
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Hi Poulomi, I can see that I have a rebel in the making willing to fight for the rights of women. Well I can say that you have done some considerable research and reading about the life of Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was the sister of Martha and Lazarus from the Bible. Legends say that Mary Magdalene was of the district of Magdala, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where stood her families castle, called Magdalon; she was the sister of Lazarus and of Martha, and they were the children of parents reputed noble, or, as some say, royal descendants of the House of David. On the death of their father, Syrus, they inherited vast riches and possessions in land, which were equally divided between them. It is said that the seven demons which possessed Mary Magdalene, and which were expelled by Jesus, were the seven deadly sins common to us all. The struggles of these seven principal faults are; first, Gluttony or the pleasures of the palate; secondly, Fornication; thirdly, Covetousness, which means Avarice, or, the love of money, fourthly, Anger; fifthly, Dejection; sixthly, "Accidie," which is the sin of spiritual sloth or sluggishness; and seventhly, kenodocila which means ego, foolish pride or vain glory.
There is good argument which supports the idea of their marriage. Bachelorhood was very rare for Jewish males of Jesus' time, being generally regarded as a transgression of the first mitzvah (divine commandment): "Be fruitful and multiply". Mary Magdalene appears with great frequency (especially as compared with other women in the Gospels) and is shown as being a close follower of Jesus.
After the Crucifixion Mary Magdalene watched by Jesus' tomb, and was the first to whom He appeared after the resurrection; her unfaltering faith, mingled as it was with intense grief and love, obtained for her this peculiar mark of favor. It is assumed by several commentators that Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene because she, of all those whom He had left on earth, was His beloved and in most need of consolation: The disciples went away unto their own; but Mary stayed without the sepulcher and wept.
The notion that Mary Magdalene was special to Jesus is taken primarily from the Gospel of Mary. This Gnostic gospel is not part of the New Testament, and was written by an unknown author in the last half of the second century, or about one hundred fifty years after Jesus’ death. No eyewitnesses, including Mary, would have been alive at the time it was written (about 150 A. D.). One verse in the Gospel of Mary refers to Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ favorite disciple, saying he loved Mary “more than us (meaning his disciples).” In another verse Peter supposedly told Mary, “Sister, we know the savior loved you more than any other woman.” Yet nothing written in The Gospel of Mary speaks of a romance or sexual relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
he Da Vinci Code bases its claim that Jesus and Mary were married and had a child primarily upon one solitary verse in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip that indicates Jesus and Mary were “companions”. This verse reads: (Brackets appear where words of the document are missing or illegible)
"Three women always walked with the master: Mary his mother, [] sister, and Mary of Magdala, who is called his companion (koinonos). For “Mary” is the name of his sister, his mother and his companion (koinonos)."
In The Da Vinci Code, fictional expert Sir Leigh Teabing proffers that the word for companion (koinonos) could mean spouse. But according to scholars, that is an unlikely interpretation. To begin, the word generally used for wife in New Testament Greek is “gune”, not “koinonos.”
"There was another Greek word, gune, which would have made this clear. It is much more likely that koinonos here means “sister” in the spiritual sense since that is how it is used elsewhere in this sort of literature. In any case, this text does not clearly say or even suggest that Jesus was married, much less married to Mary Magdalene."
t is also important to note that, aside from these few questionable passages, there is no other historical document that even insinuates Jesus and Mary had a romantic relationship. No secular historian, Jewish historian, or early Christian historian writes even one iota about such a relationship. And since both the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip were written 100-220 years after Christ by unknown authors, their statements about Jesus and Mary need to be evaluated in context of both contemporary history and the much earlier New Testament documents.
suarezelec2002 20 months ago
Women throughout history have been given a bad rap whether it be by societies or religions. Being a man, I guess that means that the world is one hell of a mess because they do not listen to the wisdom of the givers of life itself. I find a lot of wisdom within your article and commend you for it. Maybe one day women will receive the respect they deserve, instead of the "blame."