Why did you call Mary Magdalene a prostitute?(http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050401.html) Bible never called her that. This assumption is made by some old fools in the church who didn’t want to recognise a woman as an apostol. It is about time we started respecting her true legacy.
“The Bible never explicitly says that Mary Magdalene was ever a prostitute at any point in her life. Luke does not name her in his narrative about the “penitent whore” who washes the feet of Jesus with her hair (7:36-50). Nor is she named as the woman who was caught in the act of adultery and saved from being stoned to death by Jesus (John 8:1-11). She is identified as once having been demon-possessed (Luke 8:2). However, the assumption that her sinful past consisted primarily of sexual sin is a presumption that is not usually made about the men who are identified as former sinners.”
Cecil addressed this question here. Mary Magdalene is popularly if probably erroneously assumed to have been a prostitute, but we were running up against the word limit in the print version of the column and omitted this nuance. Since that’s not an issue here, I’ve amended the text.
While you are right on the point that MM is nowhere recorded to have been a prostitute (though, as Cecil pointed out in 1998 the identification of Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the “woman who was a sinner” is an ancient one), Mary Magdalene is also nowhere recorded to have been an apostle.
Not quite true. Perhaps you mean “no where in the new testament.” However, in the gnostic gospels, particularly in the Gospel of Mary, she is indeed refered to as an apostle. Some might say that Mathew implies it.
Both the use of “My lord” and the use of *Rabbi * might imply that Jesus was her teacher and she was an apostle. I’m not sure that I agree, but it can be viewed that way.
The Gnostic gospels, though they might contain an authentic tradition or two here and there, are almost entirely bullshit; you might as well build an argument on the National Enquirer and the Weekly World News.
Ah. So if I address Elizabeth Windsor as “Your Majesty”, that means I must be the British Ambassador?
LOL. Many would make the same argument regarding the New Testament. They are nice stories, but there is no evidence that Jesus actually existed and so they could therefore be almost entirely bullshit.
:rolleyes: Please. The argument has no merit, as it is not comparable. Jesus, if he existed at all, was recognized as a teacher. The fact that Mary calls him “her lord” and “Rabbi” could indeed imply that he was her teacher. It was you who said that words have meaning.
Or not. You have chosen to ignore the sentence where I said I was not sure I agree. Mary may also have been simply using Rabbi as an honorific, rather than as an acknowledgement that he was her teacher.
No. First of all, there is plenty of evidence that Jesus actually existed. What you really mean is, “If we exclude all the evidence that Jesus existed, then there is no evidence that Jesus existed,” the same argument that lunatics use every day to try to prove that Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays.
The Gnostic gospels are bullshit because they’re bullshit–wacky fever-dream nonsense of the same kind you can get from any dime-store “medium” or murdering homeopath.
Yes. Words have meanings, “apostle” has a meaning, and that meaning is not “disciple”.
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I cannot believe that anyone with adult language skills would seriously advance the notion that “catechumen” (to say nothing of “freak” and “fanatic”) is equivalent to “apostle”, so I assume this is just your way of surrendering the point. (As other instances of the absurdity of your position, that same website lists “captain” for “sergeant” and “canadian bacon” for “steak”.)
My informed opinion, together with my ability to recognize mystyck woo-woo when I see it.
I have provided sites for my claims. Can you show us credentials to indicate that you have a better understanding of the language than the people from Lexico Publishing Group, LLC? Can you provide sites for the
? Informed opinion or not, I have to take a skeptical stance until you provide some proof more than “Because I say so.”
In truth, I suspect that Jesus did exist, but cannot prove it to my satisfaction. (Of course, bdgr makes a good point - if Cecil says it, it must be so. )
No, what I really mean is, please provide the proof of which you claim there is plenty.
Lacking somewhat in useful information that would allow us to verify the claim.
Your informed opinion is nice, but please, show us the credentials. I do not have your expertise in “mystyck woo-woo,” so I’m not sure how to distinguish between that and the New Testament in which the authors claim that Jesus raised a man from the dead, walked on water, rose from the dead and cast out demons.
Unfortunately, this thread has degenerated into me asking for sites and credentials and you ignoring these requests by telling us you have informed opinions. I see no reason to continue the discussion unless you are willing to provide any information other than your opinion.
Cecil basically says that it’s unlikely that Jesus was completely a made-up character, which I agree with. However, we’re really looking for some of this “plenty of evidence”.
True, but if we acknowledge Cecil’s logic, then we must also acknowledge the gnostic Book of Mary, which dates from the same century as The Roman historian Tacitus
John W. Kennedy would like to dismiss these documents as “mystyck woo-woo” and has been unable or unwilling to explain to me how or why they are more or less viable than other documents from that period. If we dismiss one, why then are we not to dismiss the others?
If anything, wouldn’t that indicate that Mary was not considered one of the Apostles? It doesn’t say that “…she had said to the other Apostles”.
And certainly, Mary regarded Jesus as her teacher, which makes her a disciple. I’ve never heard that disputed. But regardless of how the words have come to be used, in the context of the New Testament, a clear distinction is made between “disciple” and “apostle”. A disciple is one who follows Jesus; an apostle is one of the Twelve who formed the core of his followers. All of the Twelve are listed, and Mary Magdalene isn’t on the list.
One can, of course, argue that Mary should have been counted as an Apostle, and that it’s only because of her gender that she wasn’t. Regardless of whether she should have been counted as an Apostle, though, she wasn’t.
Perhaps you are correct, in the context of the New Testament. All I have said is that some have argued that Matthew implies it. I also added that I’m not sure that I agree. Actually, what I said was
And the statement remains true. As my quote from PBS above shows.
And the discussion really came about from this:
Bolding mine. Note that this is patently untrue, because *somewhere * it has been so recorded. I confess, it was the contentious “Words have meanings” that made me post. But I gave him an easy fallback
which he chose to ignore and instead dismissed the Gnostic texts as “mystyck woo-woo.” If we can dismiss the Gnostic texts, that date from the same time period, we can dismiss them all, since none were written until AFTER the time of Jesus (at least 40 years according to Cecil.) Whether or not she was an apostle, whether or not she even existed, I dunno. But there are texts that say she was and did.
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