Why would the church desire to discredit May Magdalene.?

Question

In the Mary Magdalene account, "salvation is not something that comes from an external saviour," says King. "One has to seek salvation within." Thus, the Magdalene gospel depicts Jesus as a teacher rather than as a saviour who dies to atone for humanity's sins.

Please remember the chuch apologized in 1969 for Pope Gregory's lie."Mary's identity as a prostitute stems from Homily 33 of Pope Gregory I, delivered in the year 591... Only in 1969 did the Catholic Church officially repeal Gregory's labeling of Mary Magdalene as a whore, thereby admitting their error ."

Sorry, Mary not May. I can't type when I am cold.

Answer 1

They wanted to discredit her because the writings attributed to her didn't jibe with the direction they decided to take christianity. You do know, don't you, that the nature of jesus (including whether or not he was the son of god), his "mission" while alive, his death, and his alleged resurrection -- all of these were topics of debate for hundreds of years after he was long gone...? The "agreed upon" doctrines that became the dogma of the catholic church weren't agreed upon until the council of Nice in 325 CE, and even that didn't settle the matter. Disagreements with the conclusions of the council led to several splinter groups -- and although this was often pointed to by christians as the time the "whole church" was unified, in reality it was the first of many, many schisms over doctrinal differences. The entire group of "christians" has in fact NEVER agreed on doctrine, on what the real story of the life of jesus was, on his divinity, etc.

Oh, and there is also a fair amount of evidence that Mary Magdalene was in fact jesus' wife. No, I didn't pull that out of "Da Vinci Code" -- Dan Brown put it in his book because it's an idea that has been around for thousands of years. And it may very well be true. Yet another reason for the church to discredit her -- if she really was jesus' wife, there goes that whole jesus was perfect, sex is bad, celibacy is godly thing. :)

Peace.

Answer 2

Oh good, a source quoting a source quote w/o the actual textual material. Yummy, yummy. If the FDA caught Pepsi trying such artificial sweeting, the company would be flushed down the San Antonio Rivers.
Alright GTW - you made me work tonight. I had to go to page 9 to find you and am in a foul mood. I almost had to get down on my knees to pull out the NT Apocrypha. I opened it up and it deafened my cute boyish ears with screams of CONSPIRACY!
Other than the fact Mary is shown to be the first to see Jesus and testify about the Resurrection - my such a discreditation ripped asunder from the Bible, the Grand Gospel of Mary comes on a 5th century papyrus, vs. second century for the Bible. The first 6 pages along w/ pages 11 to 14 are missing. Total pg. 18, Total lostt 10. The second half is in Greek from the 3rd century. It looks like Mary couldn't keep her mss. together just like GTW!
Oh my I mention the Coptic and Greek versions don't agree all the time either! Tsk Tsk.
I love the part where MM comforts the disciples and says "for he hath made us ready, and made us to be PAUSE TO SAVOR...men!" Perhaps Peter had it right in the Gospel of Thomas GTW "Let Mary go out from among us, because women are not worthy of the Life." MAYBE those Gnostics were onto something!
GTW I owe you a Spur victory - what maybe next year. This is great stuff. You women wanting to become me.
And remember Gnostic means THOSE IN THE KNOW>

Answer 3

I don't think the church's non-gnosticism has much of a relationship with the mistaken scholarship of Gregory. We can look to history to explain why.

- The Magdalene gospel is a second century gnostic writing
- By this point in time, what little gnosticism there was remaining had been chased into Egypt.
- The patriarchs of the west were largely out of contact with the Byzantine East (Egypt inclusive)
- Any Roman copies of gnostic writings were long gone - Rome had taken a long, hard fall since the invasion of the Visigoths hundreds of years earlier. I remember reading that Rome's population had been diminished from a million strong to some 20,000 or so, and that animals frequently wandered through the ruins of this broken city.

Thus, I think it likely Gregory's error was one of ignorance; it certainly wasn't an attempt to suppress a form of gnosticism long lost to the west.

Answer 4

The "gnostic gospels" were written hundreds of years after Jesus, compared to the average 60 or so of the "Traditional". Which would you give more credit to, someone who personally met Jesus (or who was friends with a deciple), or someone who lived 100 years after Him? I don't know when the "Gospel of Mary Magdalene" was written, or who wrote it, but I don't know if I'd trust it. Pope Gregory screwed up, everyone knows that. His intentions may have been good, or he could've been trying to supress women. Point is, that was HIS teaching, not the Bible's. Mary Magdalene was the first PERSON to see Jesus after the resurrection. That makes her pretty important in the eyes of the early church.

Answer 5

First off i would suggest not to read the gnostic gospels. Many have been written by false accounts. Secondly I believe it is Jesus Christ that churches should be focusing on Jesus Christ. It was not mary magdalene that saved the sins of the world but Jesus Christ. People today in churches have saints to pray to, and make idols and crosses, which is strictly forbidden, and pray to them rather then to God. Mary played and important role during the time of Jesus yes, but todays new age thinking discredits what the Bible says, and you get proffesors with their own ideas with how the Bible really happened. I trust in my King James Bible because i have seen miracles and read the word of God with that book. The word was once delievered unto the saints, once, not over and over.

Answer 6

This was done to conceal and discredit the common belief in a feminine deity, which sort of ruins the whole "there is one god and he is male" thing.

It worked, but only to a point. Take the Da Vinci Code, for instance. We all know that's a work of fiction, but there is abundant evidence of groups of people from the Middle Ages who believed that MM was married to Jesus, and that she represents a Goddess figure. A lot of people tried to refute that when DVC came out by implying that the WHOLE book is fictional, when in reality there are quite a few true facts in it.

Answer 7

the proof that she was his wife is that Hebrew law prohibited males from being single beyond the age of 22 by sentence of stoning to death...either the carpenter was married to Mary or he lied everywhere he went and heresy charges wouldn't have been needed...today's bible belongs to the tyrant Constantine who was using the men he formerly murdered for what religion was always used by tyrants for...to control the masses and they prove this by murdering anyone in reach that didn't accept their Constantine approved bible and interpretation of

Answer 8

i belive JC was a good man, wise and educated man - but nevertheless a MAN ( human in all senses ) and he might have had women and mary M might possibly be one of the women ( who cares ? ) BUT the church want make JC look like a 'Holier than thou' being ( NOT HUMAN ) since he is the so called SON OF GOD ( who we do not know whether is a mythical creature or person or whether its real )

its just the fact that the church is TRYING to make JC look innocent and pour. just being hypocrits since they think its a MALE oriented and controlled world and women are low.

Answer 9

the gospels say Jesus cast 7 demons out of Mary Magdalene

she was a monument of amazing grace.
it was not from within herself, it was grace from God

Answer 10

men wanted to control it. and if mary was the chosen student of Jesus that would throw women into the forefront of the religion.