The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle

Jesus Christ In His Own WordsThe Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman ApostleBy Karen L. KingGet out your dictionary as Professor King turns the eight pages of the Gospel of Mary into 190 with words such as: interlocutor, eschatological, exegetical, tendentiously, anachronistically, hegemonic, and many more. It's an education and she certainly is an educator!This extraordinarily comprehensive book allows us every insight not only to the three incomplete and parallel gospels of Mary Magdalene, but of the historical and philosophical context in which they were written.Professor King introduces us to three separate discoveries of gospels attesting to the revelations of Jesus to his most enlightened follower, Mary of Magdala; discoveries that took place in northern Egypt.No date or circumstance is given surrounding the discoveries of the Oxyrynchus manuscripts, yet it is astounding that ancient texts, in different languages, hundreds of miles and hundreds of years apart tell the same story; Mary Magdalene was the one truly enlightened by Jesus and chosen to guide the others.King gives us a detailed history of the early movements of Judeo-Christianity and its offshoots, of the influence of the Greek philosophers Plato and the Stoics. Curiously, there is no mention of the Cynics, a 500BC Hellinistic cult, that foreswore materialism, and lived in the streets, without shoes or worldly goods. And more curiously still is the absence of any of the persecutions of the early Christians at the hands of the Romans.The misogynistic attitudes of Paul, Plato, Tertullian, and the disciples as they relate to the "place" of women at this time in history is appalling to the modern mind, i.e., (Paul) "Women must remain silent and subordinate." (Plato) "Cowardly and unrighteous men will return to this world as women." But why should we be shocked? This is still common in the Middle-East and in practices closer to home. What's shocking is that this belief system is the foundations of a dogma spread in the modern world to 2.1 billion Christians. King clearly sets forth misconceptions of the role of female spiritual leadership as a "product of jealousy and deep misunderstanding of the Savior's intentions."Throughout several chapters King compares the Gospel of Mary to all other known Christian texts: the New Testament Gospels, Thomas, Philip, the Pistis Sophia. Many of these share commonalities with one another, but the Gospel of Mary is entirely unique in composition. The Gospel of Mary's interpretation of Son of Man is never to Jesus but to the true Child of Humanity within each and every one of us. Gender is relative only to the world of matter, which will cease. There is no value seen in punishment or suffering, nor is there any notion of hell, and God is referred to only as The Good.The greatest atrocity of the Catholic Church against the woman who was Jesus' companion was the edict of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) stating that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute. In a 1969 footnote in ecclesiastical history, the Vatican apologized.A detailed and thorough account of Mary Magdalene. This is the ultimate guide to the woman Jesus chose above the others.By Elizabeth Wallace author & illustrator of Jesus Christ In His Own Words:a Compilation of the Canonical and Gnostic Gospels.Jesus Christ In His Own WordsJesusChristinHisownwords(dot)com

This book gets a lot out of nine pages of damaged ancient text. It begins with background context for the Gospel of Mary, a fifth-century Coptic manuscript purchased in Cairo and then brought to Berlin in 1896 along with some other texts. Though some additional pages were discovered in the 20th century, partly overlapping the 1896 codex, at least six pages remain missing. King reproduces all nine pages we have and then offers her translation of the reconstructed text. Where they overlap, King’s side-by-side translations let you compare them.The meat of the book, about 150 pages, compares the Gospel of Mary to other early Christian texts, both those of the canonical New Testament and other “heretical” documents found over the last 125 years. Since we lack not only half of the Gospel of Mary, but also about 85% of the ancient Christian texts we know about from other sources, we can only imagine what we are missing.Karen King does not agree with those who classify such texts as orthodox or heretical, Gnostic or not. Instead, King’s central point is that all of our texts reflect the diversity of early Christian communities. Even those in the canon disagree with one another, and all of them recognize disagreements within their communities on questions of Jewish law, the meaning of Jesus’ death, the nature of authority, and so on. King insists on reading our early texts as engaging one another on important questions of theology, community, and leadership, among other questions.King is certainly correct on that point. Though it engages many questions that early communities faced, King regularly returns to the fact that the gospel’s unknown author clearly presents a perspective that moderns will see as “feminist.” If you’re comfortable with the idea that the early Christian communities did not share one “pure” form of Christianity, you will find this book an accessible and insightful scholarly introduction to all the issues of the early churches.

Well written and interesting.