Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as a devoted disciple of Jesus. She is considered a saint by Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican churches with a feast day of July 22. Her name means "Mary of Magdala", a town on the western shore of the Lake of Tiberias. The life of the historical Mary is a subject of ongoing debate.

Author of the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John?

A group of scholars have suggested that for one early group of Christians Mary Magdalene was a leader of the early Church and maybe even the unidentified Beloved Disciple, to whom the Fourth Gospel commonly called Gospel of John is ascribed. The most familiar of the scholars is Elaine Pagels.

Related Topics:
Beloved Disciple - Gospel of John - Elaine Pagels

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Ramon K. Jusino offers a logically presented explanation of this unorthodox view, based on the textual researches of Raymond E. Brown, a mainstream Catholic biblical scholar, in "Mary Magdalene, author of the Fourth Gospel?", 1998, available on-line. Ann Graham Brock (see ref.) summarized this reading of the texts in 2003. She demonstrated that an early Christian writing portrays authority as being represented in Mary Magdalene or in Peter, but not both. She presents Luke as promoting the narrowest and most formal Petrine concept of "apostle" that diminished and ignored the role of Mary. In the Petrine tradition, Mary Magdalene is often replaced by Mary, mother of Jesus, a passive figure who affirms Peter's authority. The Peter authority figure is consistently affirmed in writings that also promote hierarchical, male, formal authority within the church community structure.

Related Topics:
Ramon K. Jusino - Raymond E. Brown - Ann Graham Brock

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These scholars also observe that the Mary Magdalene figure is consistently elevated in writings from which formal leadership roles are absent, while the Paul figure is more involved in a tug-of-war between these two opposing systems of church government.

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Scholars of the Mary who appears in the Nag Hammadi Gnostic texts have identified her with the Magdalene, even though she is merely given the (Coptic) equivalent of "Mary". However, Stephen J. Shoemaker, think that this Mary is actually the Blessed Virgin Mary (Shoemaker 2001), that this fits in better with the notions that Mary was intimate with Jesus, was his greatest disciple, and was to be the center of Jesus' religion; Shoemaker has made a study of Marian liturgies and devotion in Early Christianity.

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Ki Longfellow, in her novel The Secret Magdalene (Eio Books, 2005), has woven a fiction based on the premise that Mary is not only the author of the Gospel of John, but the Beloved Disciple herself. Another novel that delves into the positions of Mary and Peter is According to Mary Magdalene by Marianne Fredriksson.

Related Topics:
The Secret Magdalene - Gospel of John - According to Mary Magdalene - Marianne Fredriksson

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