What are your opinions on Mary Magdalene?

Question

Was she a prostitute, a beloved disciple, or possibly the wife of Christ?
There are plenty of suspicions circulating about her role in the New Testament, and I'd just like some thoughts on the matter.

The evidence that the Magdalene was a prostitute is slim to none - in fact, no where in the canonical New Testament is the woman "out of whom He cast seven demons" was a prostitute.
I Luke 8:2, Mary is described as a woman who ministered to Him out of her substance... she was a benefactor.
There is some evidence that she was in fact Christ's companion, and it was unheard of in Jesus' time for a man of his age to be unmarried. As a female companion of Christ, they may well could have been married...

Answer 1

All Hail the Heretic! I am here.

Mary Magedalan wasn't a Prostitute. It never says she was. Something like 25 percent of the women in Judea were named Mary and most of them apparently hung out with Jesus. Most commonly it's thought she is the woman whom Jesus "Cast 7 demons" out of, thereby making her "pure".

Was she Jesus Wife. Let's look at some evidence. Marriage was a requirement for a Jew - one who wasn't married probably didn't get a lot of respect. Something in that book they read about "Being fruitful and Multiplying". Mysogynists went of ther Bible time and time again trying to delete stories about women. Most of Jesus disciples were women, and yet the 12 guys involved got all the press. Yet, there are 2 Mary's who are mentioned repeatedly. They must have been really important. One was His mother. the other was... a prostitute? I don't think so. They would evict her tushie on moral grounds.

My other thing is - Jesus came here to 1. Be an example and 2. be a sacrifice. He sacrificed His Life. Now, some "Angelic or Divine" being came here to earth - inhabited a body for 34 years and then died - not much of a sacrifice or example. It knows it's going to Heaven - it misses seeing the Face of God and doesn't really care about the flesh. But a man - a man knows what it means to die. It means to leave your wife and your kids and sex and joy and dancing in the morning dew and smelling fresh cut grass and drinking good wine. A man Sacrifices something when he dies, and since he really doesn't have a first hand concept of heaven - he doesn't know what he's giving it up for. Christ didn't want to die. He begged for his life in the Garden. (How do they know that if he was all alone and was dragged away before He could tell anyone?)

I think she was His Wife - and I hope so. I hope with all He gave - All that pain and fear - he had an awesome life and knew all the joys of humanity. There is a look a man gets on his face when he looks up and sees his wife in her gown coming down the aisle - like she is the most beautiful thing in the world and he's the luckiest guy who ever lived - sometimes complete with tears of Joy. I hopeJesus got that. And holding his newborn for the first time and good wine (we know He got that) and practical jokes with friends and back rubs and a little hot tub time.

Isn't that what He Died to preserve? Wouldn't it be really unfair if he never got any of it?

Answer 2

Mary Magdalene was a woman from whom Jesus cast out seven demons (Luke 8:2). The name Magdalene likely indicates that she came from Magdala, a city on the southwest coast of the Sea of Galilee. After Jesus cast seven demons from her, she became one of His followers.



Mary Magdalene has been associated with the "woman in the city who was a sinner" (Luke 7:37) who washed Jesus' feet, but there is no scriptural basis for this. The city of Magdala did have a reputation for prostitution. This information, coupled with the fact that Luke first mentions Mary Magdalene immediately following his account of the sinful woman (Luke 7:36-50), has led some to equate the two women. John 11:2, though, identifies the women in Luke 7:36-50 as Mary of Bethany, not Mary Magdalene.



Mary Magdalene is also often associated with the woman whom Jesus saved from stoning after she had been taken in adultery (John 8:1-11) - again an association with no evidence. The movie “The Passion of the Christ” made this connection. This view is possible, but not explicitly taught in the Bible.



Mary Magdalene witnessed most of the events surrounding the crucifixion. She was present at the mock trial of Jesus; she heard Pontius Pilate pronounce the death sentence; and she saw Jesus beaten and humiliated by the crowd. She was one of the women who stood near Jesus during the crucifixion to try to comfort Him. The earliest witness to the resurrection of Jesus, she was sent by Jesus to tell the others (John 20:11-18). Although this is the last mention of her in the Bible, she was probably among the women who gathered with the apostles to await the promised coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14).



The recent fiction novel “The DaVinci Code” makes the claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. Some of the non-Biblical early Christian writings (that were considered heresy by the early Christians) hint at a special relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. However, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the belief that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. The Bible does not even hint at such an idea.

Answer 3

Mary Magdalene was delivered of 7 demons. She was saved from much and loved Jesus much.

She is a beloved disciple (John himself when writing John reveals that he is the disciple the Lord loved, at the end of the book of John.) But John knew that Jesus loved all His Disciples. John just felt special because Jesus makes all His Disciples feel special.

She is at the cross when Jesus was on the cross, so was John, so was Mary His mother & others who didn't abandon Him.

She was in the upper room on the day of Pentecost & was filled with the Holy Spirit.

She is part of the body of Christ, so also is of the Bride of Christ.

Answer 4

So you've read the DaVinci Code. Me too.

A couple of problems I had with Dan Brown's hypothesis: He says that being married would ruin Jesus' divinity. Why? I don't get it. If Jesus was married it would change nothing about His divinity. So why should the gospels have omitted it? And then again, Dan Brown says Jesus wouldn't have been a good Jew if He wasn't married; it was expected of all Jewish males to marry. (As if there was never an old Jewish bachelor in recorded history.) So which was it? Either He's a bad Jew if He's single, or He's a bad God if He's married. Sounds like Dan Brown's out to singlemindedly discredit Jesus from every angle.

The Gnostic "gospels" were written a century or more after Christ. Many several centuries later. And there's a reason they're not included in the Canon. They're heretical. The gospel of John, on the other hand, was written by the disciple closest to Jesus- John himself. The synoptic gospels are written by people with firsthand, or at worst, secondhand, knowledge of Jesus. Ditto the book of Acts. And most of the Epistles.

You are right; nothing says or implies that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. It may be that there is an overlapping of tradition between Mary and the woman caught in adultery. But the gospels definitely refer to her as the woman from whom Jesus had cast seven demons.

And to say that the Catholic Church or the biblical canon was out to smear the "divine feminine" and was being misogynistic in their treatment of Mary Magdalene is ludicrous. First, Mary Magdalene was recorded as the first person to see the risen Christ. An honor. And Jesus clearly cared about her, even as recorded in the Gospels in which Dan Brown suggests her name was smeared. Mary was recorded to be among the most faithful followers of Christ, even being present at the cross. Do you suppose the disciples who were in hiding at the time would have placed her there in their gospels, if they were out to smear her reputation and elevate theirs? Ludicrous! They showed themselves to be cowards, and Mary to be brave and selfless, at that pivotal point in Jesus' mission. That's honesty at all cost. That's what the four Gospels are. That's why they are trustworthy. The disciples who wrote or dictated them had nothing to gain from their accounts.

And secondly, we're talking about the same Catholic Church that has elevated Mary the mother of Jesus to a level just below Christ Himself. So in what light does this place the Church's treatment of women? The "divine feminine?"

For the most trustworthy documentation of the life of Christ, one should refer to the records of the people who willingly suffered bloody, gruesome death for His name and legacy. Not some second, third, and fourth-century philosophers trying to twist the Good News to their own ends.

Answer 5

I believe that they were married. She certainly was very important to him- she was the first person he appeared to after he was resurrected. Also she had the responsibility of caring for his body. He was very close to Lazarus who was her brother, he loved him like a brother. When He died, they sent for Jesus, and he came as quickly as he could. Certainly he did not do that for everyone. There was a time when Jesus was at Mary and Martha's home for a feast. Martha was busy working in the kitchen, but Mary stayed in the room with the Savior to hear his teachings. When Martha scolded Mary, Jesus rebuked her and Said Mary was right where she should be. Also the whole water to Wine thing- Mary (his Mother) was worried because there was no wine at the wedding. Under Jewish custom it was the responsibility of the Groom to provide the wine. If he was not the groom, why was Mary so concerned?

There is some circumstantial evidence that points to the direction of them being married. If they weren't she was certainly an important person in his life. I don't believe that she was an Apostle though.

Answer 6

She was a woman who at one time had seven demons residing in her that were cast out by Christ. She was also present at the Crucifixion and saw where Jesus was laid to rest. She went with the other Mary and a woman named Salome to annoint his body with spices. I believe that she was a beloved disciple of Jesus, but not his wife. Or, to be more to the point, the scripture of the Bible mentions nothing of Christ having a wife at all, so if she were, which there is no empirical evidence of, it is irrelevent.

Answer 7

She was a beloved and devoted disciple of Christ and possibly a benefactor. Speculations that she and Jesus were married is without merit. She was simply a disciple.

Since Jesus was probably an Essene Jew it is not so unusual for Essene's to not be married as the example of St. John the Baptist also shows.

In Christ
Fr. Joseph

Answer 8

Mary Magdalene is representative of every person that is going interior the direction of the non secular ability of purification, the 7 devils solid out of Mary repesenting this purification technique. Mary Magdalene grew to become a virgin interior the non secular sense of the be conscious. along with her heart purified, she might have conceived of the holy seed (a minimum of interior the non secular sense) interior that non secular womb or vessel it relatively is being stated as "The Holy Grail."

Answer 9

According to scripture, she was a diciple of Christ. She may be the prostitute that Jesus saved from stoning and/or the one that washed Jesus' feet with her tears but scripture doesn't make that clear.

One thing she is not is the wife of Christ. Jesus spent his whole ministry in total obedience and dependancy on the Father as an example of what our relationship with God could and should be like. That and being the perfect sacrifice on the cross for the atonement for our sins was the whole purpose of Him coming in the flesh. Remember that He wasn't procreated like anyone else but was God already that took on the flesh of His creation for our sakes. He didn't come to indulge but to sacrifice. He didn't come to start a new family but to bring us into a family relationship with God. The church, that is those who receive Him as Saviour and Lord, are His bride. We can depend on Him just as a bride should be able to depend on her husband. In such, He had no need for a wife while here in the flesh.

Just who she was doesn't really matter for the Gospel message, which is why not that much is told about her. Just like it doesn't really matter that the mother of Jesus had other children after He was born, yet scripture tells us that the apostle James was one of them. The only thing that does matter is that Jesus was born to a virgin, fulfilled all the prophesies given about the Messiah, lived His life in obedience to His heavenly Father, taught us what our lives with God is supposed to be like, willingly went to the cross and redeemed us and reunified us to the throne of God and gave us free access thereof.

Those who propose that Jesus had any intimate physical relationship at all are talking out of ignorance of the facts or person of Jesus. There are many that hope to find some tidbit of info that can be perverted to disqualify who Jesus was and what He did so that they can in turn qualify their own ignorance and love for what ever wickedness they wish to practice.

Scholars will debate many of the meaningless trivia of the Gospels but if you want the truth, open the Bible for yourself and ask God to reveal to you just who He is and who you are in Him.

Answer 10

There's no evidence to support calling her a prostitute, although it's a convenient way to silence a powerful woman. she was clearly a beloved disciple. I don't see evidence to support or deny that she was Jesus' wife. The fact that she is mentioned at all suggests to me that she probably wasn't his wife. (After all, who ever heard of Peter's wife, yet he had a mother-in-law.)