The role of Mary Magdalene and the 'gospels' of Peter, Thomas and Phillip - thoughts please ?

I thought she was Jesus' wife. I like the Gospel of Mary Magdala. It showed Jesus giving her the secret knowledge that everyone has to find the son of man (i.e. there one Messiah) within themselves. But I find the others interesting and shows that the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. decided what books the public should b exposed to. it's a shame some of the other gospels are lost forever.

I'm afraid the BBC is a far too generous in terming these "gospels" apocryphal. The term apocryphal is reserved for texts that are disputed as to their place in the canon, which would include the deutero-canonical books used by the Roman Catholic and also the Eastern Orthodox churches but rejected by Protestants, and some additional 2nd temple Judaism books (3 and 4 maccabees) as well as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Teach of the Twelve, and the Apocalypse of Peter These texts fit the time period of the writing of much of the New Testament, but those that are considered non-canonical fail to meet other criteria (most notably they lack apostolic authority, which the rest of the Scriptures have, either by being written by an apostle (John), or someone directly trained by an apostle (Mark)). These "gospels" are known to be written much later and certainly are not apostolic.

There is another problem. The texts at Nag Hammadi not only were written too late and lack apostolic authority, they are much more than failing to "conform to Christian doctrine" they are actually part of a different religion: Gnosticism. Gnostic texts, of which these are all examples, emphasize the feminity of God in addition to the masculinity (a sort of Yin Yang deal). They also empahsize some "secret knowledge" known only to the upper level members of it, but which they claim goes back all the way to the apostles, or occasionally earlier, but which obviously (because of the way certain phrases are used) too late to be such. Gnosticism had many forms and existed, in a nascent kind of way, before Christianity. In the late second and third century it became more systematic and they began to write texts (like this one). Often they would try to put on the appearance of another religion, in this case Christianity, though they were known to use others. Yet in contrast to these religions they would pose the idea that while this religion may claim to have knowledge, there is a secret and deeper knowledge that only their leaders are privy to (this is where they get the name "gnostic").

Have you tried reading these gospels? Try to read them, all of them not just sections. They often have lengthy sections that are intentionally confusing. The point of these passages is to work the follower into a confused state so that their mind could be cleared and they could perceive the true knowledge through an empty mind. Alternatively they would be used to drive the devotee to pass through the levels of the religion to learn more from the upper level leaders.

Mary was chosen because of her close proximity to Jesus and that she was female. The phrasing of "kiss her on the mouth" is not meant to refer to anything sexual or physical love, but the impartation of knowledge (again this secret knowledge).

As far as Mary as a prostitute? Well the article is probably right in this respect that the idea came from the middle ages and the Pope's decision to identify the unnamed woman washing Jesus feet, and the woman caught in adultery (in another apocryphal text in the middle of John) with Mary Magdalene. All that can be said of her is that she had demons cast out of her by Jesus and was present at his crucifixion and resurrection. However, it shouldn't be surprising that she disappears after this. Most of the disciples do. What happened to Thomas (who is the first to delcare Jesus God), or Jude, or man others. All that we know is from tradition and unreliable.

@Joshsy, I think you need to reread John 2 (where the wedding is mentioned). v. 2 mentions that Jesus was invited. Why would he need to be invited to his on wedding? v. 4 Jesus seems indignant that he is asked to deal with the wine, if its his wedding it would've been his responsibility. vv.8-9 mention another person who is master of the banquet [in actual fact a wedding would be a multi-day celebration with numerous banquets]. v. 9 mentions a bridegroom who is not identified with Jesus. Why would the text say that the master called the bridegroom aside and not say he called Jesus aside?

To be sure Jesus refers to himself as a bridegroom, but it seems he feels the "wedding" to which he makes himself a bridegroom goes on until his ascension [Mathew 9; Mark 2; Luke 5; and almost John 3]

The Gospel of Mary was rejected by the Church for its Gnostic leanings and its failure to measure up to Apostolic Teaching. It's a bogus gospel but treated as though it were some kind of truth hidden away. The fact is the Gospel of Mary was never "hidden" intil the 18th century, they have been around from the beginning along with dozens of other bogus gospels.

Mary Magdelene was the holiest of saints next to Jesus' mother, and wheter or not she was a prostitute is irrelevant. She was a sinner and like us, we can be elevated to great levels of sanctity by cooperating with God's grace.

The Dan Brown version (The Davinci Code) of Mary Magdelene is revisionist history and totally fabricated, as Dan Brown admits in the forwad of his fictitious book. Now an entire culture (including the BBC) has been deceived into believing it to be true.

Hi!

I can understand your concern because I went through the same thing.I also used to wonder about God, so I studied the bible and wondered who wrote it..because some of the chapters were so confusing , I simply couldn't believe that God would sent down such a disorganized book(but my hunch is that the guy named peter wrote his heart out in the bible and filled it up with gibberish), but all I found was a bunch of unverified stories which confuses the readers. First I saw that there were over 9 versions of the bible, and each of them were different. It said that Jesus was God's son....but then I started thinking that if God is not a human, then how could he have kids. This guy was saying that look, jesus didn't have any father, so his dad must have been God himself! But when I told him that Adam and Eve didn't have any parents either. Does that make them god's children too? Well, all this was so confusing , that I started looking into some other religion to see what they had to say about God etc.Then Bible considers everyone to be sinners, and that God had to send his "son" to get rid of sins.This was strange that God would kill his innocent "son" in order to get rid of evil satan.! it sounded pretty cruel to me.Why would His "son" have to die for other peoples sins, or for satan, who makes people sin? Christianity also calls religious law a curse,and so that if someone follows religious laws ,they are in a curse.

Not too long ago, I bumped into this guy named Yousef Estes. He was a priest, so I told him about my confusions.Then he told me about a book called the Quran. It was the holy book of a religion called Islam. He told me that this book was "really" original. And trust me, when I read it, it didn't seem man made at all. The entire book didn't have a single contradictory statement. Then I later searched on you tube...you may want to check this out too;. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHiAGHFnzMU . If you watch a couple of those videos , you'll be amazed by some of the facts that matches so much with modern science. I mean if a guy wrote that book, he couldn't have known all this stuff more than 1400 years ago. In Islam,everyone is responsible for their own deeds, good or bad. No one dies or suffers for other peoples sins. If someone does something wrong, all he has to do is ask God for forgiveness sincerely, and promise not to do it again. God will certainly forgive him according to his intentions.

At first, I wasn't too sure if this Quran was original coz I thought it was also altered like the bible, but I later went to Turkey. There, I saw the original copy of the Quran, which was written 1400 years ago. It matched exactly with the current one.

Anyway, just check these out.I'm sure it will clear out your confusion.

Obviously there has to be some One up there who made us, created Adam and Eve.

there are so many different beliefs around,one really needs to look deep into a religion to determine if it is authentic.

the maze is to find the right religion that will lead us to heaven. if it weren't so confusing then god wouldn't have created heaven or hell.

anyway i bumped into this faith that made sense to me. it believes that god sent Judaism through prophet Moses, and Christianity through Jesus, and lastly Islam through Muhammad. it honors all the past religions and it is the only faith that was never changed a bit since the prophet Mohammad’s time.

unlike Christianity which is pretty confusing with so many bibles that has been altered and Judaism that also changes their laws through Rabbis, Islam was never changed , not laws nor the holy Quran.you can actually find the real 1400 years old copy in a museum in Turkey. I don't know much about science thing, but this religion is so full of scientific proofs and it is also a complete way of life.you won't be disappointed if you checked out this religion.

Good luck and keep searching

Well, bring on the thumbs down because people don't like this notion but I think that they were married.

Jewish men wed at 30 then started their career. At 30 Christ is at a wedding in which His mother is in charge of refreshments and wine, culturally she never would be in charge of those items unless her son was being married, now I do believe that she had other sons (James the Just seems to be literally a brother of Christ and the Nazarenes state that he has brothers and sisters), but one Son happened to be exactly 30 years of age during that wedding.

They were very close together.

He did kiss her and was close to her entire family.

She was the first one to see the resurrected Christ in the garden, a role you would expect from a chief disciple unless there was a more important union between her and Christ and Peter and Christ.

Now I'm not going to get all DaVinci Code on you and say that they had kids and . . . . however it seems more logical that they were married than they weren't - however with the Hellenistic beliefs the notion of marriage went from exalted to a weak move for individuals who couldn't live celibate lives that God never instructed us to live nor left a pattern for.

Those are my thoughts independent of my church or anything else, it's just what I personally think.

Others obviously disagree and at their disagreement they offer no answers themselves. You gotta go with what makes the most sense.

Those gospels were written more than a century after the original gospels. Why people run around bashing the Gospels in the Bible and then give credit to gospels written more than a century later is bizarre.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a rip off of different forms of zen Buddhism

Latter day Gnostic heresy. Thomas MAY be contemporary, but the others are 150+ years after Christ.

Makes a LOT of sense to me..... I always have thought there was more than met the eyes or understanding about her... Why she was the *first* at the tomb ? Why she NEVER left Jesus . etc... I think she was *simple* not of the *mental* way but in the spiritual and faith way, she *simply* knew things through *faith* others just could not see nor understand... go in peace... God bless

i dont know the truth, fully, about mary madelan

there are many opposite opinion. among scholars

the basic premise is that Mary was the wife of jesus. and she proclaimed to be a minister of the gospel with miracles following.

but its not in the bible.

check out banned from the bible 2.

of course in any matriarchal society women are preahced to be given preisthood authority and evengelical ministries. I agree with tradtion, so far, that women are not called by God to be priests. '