was mary magdalane a red haeaed women .. serous please .?

Question

saw in some paintings

Answer 1

Even in the older icons, she is depicted so. Also as wearing red. Icon colors are highly symbolic. Red usually represents humanity.

Answer 2

The only serious answer is we don't know. Having been a Middle Easterner, it is extremely unlikely.

Paintings were painted centuries after the fact, by European painters, who painted in their frame of reference. For a similar reason, there are paintings in South America were Jesus and his disciples enjoy Guinea Pigs at the last supper. There certainly weren't Guinea Pigs around in Palestine at the time, and if there were, the Jews would not have eaten them. The red hair portrayal is just that, a portrayal. Perhaps the artist saw something in the character of a red haired woman he knew, that reminded him of what he imagined Mary Magdalene's character to be like.

Mary Magdalene is usually thought to be the same woman as the redeemed ex-prostitute mentioned elsewhere in the gospels. That is because the woman who washed Jesus's feet was also Mary, and because she also came from Bethany, as did Mary Magdalene, and because of the demons that went out of her, it is hinted that Mary Magdalene had a dubious past. It is possible that this inspired the artist to think of her as a woman with beautifully striking, if seductive, features, such as red hair.

Answer 3

Dear elevator h,

The Bible never clearly says. We do know that she was a Jewish woman. So everything else is merely speculation. Depending on the time period of the artists- they may be drawing what people typically looked like in those days- or basing their drawing perhaps off some historical document but as far as i know i don't know anything in the Bible that describes her hair color.

Kindly,

Nickster

Answer 4

Nobody knows if there even was such a woman. Red hair is often connected to Witches and Goddess worshipers, so that's probably why she was painted that way - the church went way out of its way to discredit her. Did you know that the Egyptians traveled all over the ancient world looking for women with red hair to serve in their Goddess temples?

Answer 5

I don't recall ever reading a physical description of her. The artists who painted the paintings that you looked at just happened to chose red-headed models to pose for that figure. We know that King David had red hair but we have little or no physical descriptions of most Biblical personalities.

Answer 6

As a middle eastern Jew, she probably had black hair. She has been miscast as a prostitute which would make her a "scarlet woman" which would bring on the red.

Answer 7

No: middle easterners don't have red hair.
And Jesus, Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalane weren't even white.
Edit: Why do I get thumbs down for saying Jesus wasn't white? Are there that many racist christians who can't accept a brown-skinnned Jesus?

Answer 8

Whoohoo it would be wonderful if she was! Redheads rule (Ok so as one I am biased)
I don't know if anyone knows if she actually was one though. It has become popular in some art forms to make women redheads. Especially spiritually powerful women.

Answer 9

Probably not because most Jews living in Israel back then had dark hair (hair that looked Black).

Answer 10

It is possible, but not likely.
The picture you saw was just something that the artist made up. Traditional icons of the Magdalene show her with black hair.