Did you know Mary Magdalane wasn't a prostitute?

[Prima]

***MOD POST***

Let's not turn this into a series of personal attacks, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Halcyon]

By the way, you wrote ...

Part of a conversation between Levi and Peter, concerning Mary - from the Gospel of Mary. Not that you care of course.​

It was a petty and worthless ad hominem. I have a great deal of respect for evidence and have expended considerable mental and financial resources in an effort to access and understand whatever evidence suggests itself as relevant.

I have never known you accept quotes from biblical or religious texts as evidence - that's all i meant, that you wouldn't care that i posted my 'evidence' because it is not evidence to you.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I have never known you accept quotes from biblical or religious texts as evidence - that's all i meant, that you wouldn't care that i posted my 'evidence' because it is not evidence to you.

Please forgive me if I over-reacted. BTW: I always consider quotes from biblical or religious texts as evidence; the question being: evidence of what?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I have noticed with interest that you only believe evidence you supply yourself or from people that agree with you.

That is always a threat. So help me out here. With respectto the topic at hand ...:

• What evidence has been presented that you believe I've improperly dismissed?
• What evidence have I embraced that you feel warrants dismissal?

Thanks.

 

[true blood]

Biblically, Jesus hung out with the people labled as "sinners". Why is Mary Magdalane excluded suddenly?

 

[James the Persian]

Biblically, Jesus hung out with the people labled as "sinners". Why is Mary Magdalane excluded suddenly?

It's not that we've suddenly decided that St. Mary Magdalene wasn't a prostitute - she was never accepted as such by anyone in the early Church - it's that St. Gregory the Great suddenly decided she was one. Since then most western Christians seem to have followed St. Gregory's opinion uncritically whereas eastern Christians such as we Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox have stuck to the original Holy Tradition.

All people are sinners, however. Just because we're saying here that the picture painted of her as a prostitute is wrong doesn't mean we think she wasn't a sinner. It doesn't even mean that we think that had she been one she couldn't have been a saint (I mentioned St. Mary of Egypt before and you can find her life here http://www.monachos.net/monasticism/mary_of_egypt/life.shtml). What it does mean is that we are standing up for the truth and not blindly following the novel theory, of one Pope (however great a saint) in Rome.

James

 

[true blood]

What was she to be stoned for?

 

[dan]

It's not that we've suddenly decided that St. Mary Magdalene wasn't a prostitute - she was never accepted as such by anyone in the early Church - it's that St. Gregory the Great suddenly decided she was one. Since then most western Christians seem to have followed St. Gregory's opinion uncritically whereas eastern Christians such as we Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox have stuck to the original Holy Tradition.

All people are sinners, however. Just because we're saying here that the picture painted of her as a prostitute is wrong doesn't mean we think she wasn't a sinner. It doesn't even mean that we think that had she been one she couldn't have been a saint (I mentioned St. Mary of Egypt before and you can find her life here http://www.monachos.net/monasticism/mary_of_egypt/life.shtml). What it does mean is that we are standing up for the truth and not blindly following the novel theory, of one Pope (however great a saint) in Rome.

James

Excellent point. Her as a prostitute is nothing more than baseless tradition.

 

[James the Persian]

What was she to be stoned for?

You are conflating St. Mary Magdalene and the sinful woman (who is not named) just as St. Gregory the Great did. This was not the belief of the early Church and still isn't the belief of any of the eastern Churches, Eastern Orthodox (such as the Romanian, Russian or Greek Churches) or Oriental Orthodox (such as the Ethiopian, Coptic, or Armenian Churches).

James

 

[anders]

Mary from Magdala is mentioned just once in the NT until she appears at the Cross or afterwards. (Mt 27, 28; Lk 24; Jn 19, 20, not at all in Mk). That one instance, Lk 8.2, just mentions her; no description, no "facts", no nothing but the expelled evil spirits thing.

She's perfectly uninteresting to the Church of Sweden, and has no other special status here, positive or negative, than anybody else mentioned in passing. I've been a member of the CoS for some 60+ years, very active for several of those years, and I've never heard of the "prostitute" theory until I recently began visiting Internet forums.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Mary from Magdala is mentioned just once in the NT until she appears at the Cross or afterwards. (Mt 27, 28; Lk 24; Jn 19, 20, not at all in Mk). That one instance, Lk 8.2, just mentions her; no description, no "facts", no nothing but the expelled evil spirits thing.

She's perfectly uninteresting to the Church of Sweden, and has no other special status here, positive or negative, than anybody else mentioned in passing. I've been a member of the CoS for some 60+ years, very active for several of those years, and I've never heard of the "prostitute" theory until I recently began visiting Internet forums.

Large numbers of religious texts were never incorporated in the Bible,or selected out as you might say. the Bibles of the various Christian traditions have neither Identical Texts nor even books. As far as is known Mary Magdalene's Gospel was never accepted or recognised by any christian group except by the Gnostics, who were them selves not long recognised. It is quite possible that other writings about St Mary Magdalene and Others may have been discarded in this way as unacceptable at the time. It could certainly account for the lack of textural information about her.

Terry
_________________________
Blessed are those who bring peace, they shall be children of God

 

[SpiritElf]

The church does NOT teach that Mary Magdelene was a prostitute. Her mistaken identity as a prostitute came about, as Iacob says, from Pope Gregory's mistake. Shortly before where Mary is introduced in the bible, there is the tale about the prostitute. Pope Gregory simply mixed the two up.
And don't believe the Da Vinci Code when it tells you that Pope Gregory deliberately cast her as a prostitute with the diabolical plan to denigrate her, etc and so on. People believe a bunch of crap and pass it on, then someone comes along and replaces that crap with a different kind of crap that people will believe and pass on. The truth gets lost.
If you want to blame Pope Gregory for something, blame him for not knowing his scriptures well enough, not for some conspiracy to refashion the identity of Mary.

 

[sparkles8705]

I'm new to this site. I have recently learned about Mary Magdalane not being a prostitute. I think its really interesting, and I've just started writing an essay for school about it.

 

[James the Persian]

The church does NOT teach that Mary Magdelene was a prostitute. Her mistaken identity as a prostitute came about, as Iacob says, from Pope Gregory's mistake. Shortly before where Mary is introduced in the bible, there is the tale about the prostitute. Pope Gregory simply mixed the two up.
And don't believe the Da Vinci Code when it tells you that Pope Gregory deliberately cast her as a prostitute with the diabolical plan to denigrate her, etc and so on. People believe a bunch of crap and pass it on, then someone comes along and replaces that crap with a different kind of crap that people will believe and pass on. The truth gets lost.
If you want to blame Pope Gregory for something, blame him for not knowing his scriptures well enough, not for some conspiracy to refashion the identity of Mary.

Well said. I quite agree that St. Gregory the Great's (and he is a saint in my Church as well as the RCC) error is no evidence of a Da Vinci Code style conspiracy. What I always find amusing about that particular idea of Dan Brown is that, judging by their writings, his beloved Gnostics left mainstream Christians in the pale when it comes to misogynism. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't mention that.

James

 

[glasgowchick]

She was not a prostitute. Jesus relieved her of her demons. She annointed his feet with Spiknard, and when she was criticized for being wasteful, Jesus said that she had done so in preparation for his burial. I do not think a mere prostitute would have had this responsiblity.

During the crucifixion, she stood with Mary the mother of Jesus and Jesus' aunt. I do not believe a mere prostitute would have been allowed to sit with the family at such a time, that would have been inappropriate. And why would Jesus appear to her first, if she were not his 'beloved'?

I agree with ES, Jesus relieved her of her demons..