The Magdalene Mystique

History > Religion
Religion and Theology > Christianity
Religion and Theology > The Bible

An investigation into the historical character of Mary Magdalene, contrasting her portrayal in the "New Testament" with her portrayal in the "Gnostic Gospels".

2,696 words () | 9 sources | MLA | 2004 Canada

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Mary Magdalene is a character who often catches the imagination of biblical scholars and how although her role in the "New Testament" is quite limited, recent knowledge uncovered when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered suggests otherwise. It looks at how the "Gnostic Gospels" suggest that she was a very important figure in early Christianity and that the suppression of her personal religious philosophy was an intentional move by the disciple Peter. This paper tries to reconcile those ideas with the text of the "Gnostic Gospels" and that of the "New Testament". Was she a prophet, an apostle, Jesus' wife or simply the former prostitute who washed his feet?

From the Paper:

"There is evidence that Mary was spiritually superior to all the other disciples. She was the first to be charged with the supreme ministry (proclaiming Christ's message) at the site of his resurrection (Haskins 2). Mary Magdalene is referred to as "the woman who knew the All", she who "reveals the greatness of the revealer", the "chief interlocutrix of the Saviour", or the one who brings gnosis to the other disciples, and the "one who is the inheritor of the Light" (Haskins 38). Mary's position as the "apostle who excels the rest" according to Dialogue of the Saviour (Haskins 40), is due in part to her ability to prophecy. After the resurrection of Jesus, Mary tells of a vision in which "Jesus showed her the course of the liberated spirit on its way back to the Aeon" (Price 57)."