WHO WAS MARY MAGDALENE?
A smart person knows when to ask for help. I may not be smart, but I am asking for help. Someone, please help me understand why a woman who is only mentioned in three setting in the New Testament has been vaulted into, what can only be called gross misrepresentation, by individuals who seem to understand their call in life is to correct God, The Holy Spirit, the Apostle John, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter, the Apostle James, the whole of the New Testament and two thousand years of church history.
In case you do not know what I am writing about, let me update you on current trends involving Mary Magdalene. She is now reported to be Jesus passionate lover, the mother of His children, who you are asked to believe has descendents that are still living and have been hidden in secret by the Catholic church for 2,000 years--at great expense to all Catholics I might add, Jesus’ wife, a prosperous prostitute, the real writer of the Gospel of John rather than John the Apostle, the Holy Grail, the trusted leader and founder of the Christian church rather than the apostles, a lady hidden for all the rest of her life in France, one hated by the other Christians, the pattern for all prostitutes everywhere for all time, a replacement for the Apostle John at the Lord’s Table, the inspiration for the Mona Lisa, the leader for the Gnostic cults and the list goes on..."
I think it is "a lot of baloney!" Cecil Adams, writing on this subject on September 18, 1998, said, "It’s probable all crap." Whatever word you may choose to use, it is serious!
When our only Lord and Savior is deduced to a whoremonger and the Holy Scriptures to a cheap dine store sex novel, I take it seriously. When God is cheapened and the gospel reduced to gossip, I take it seriously. When the eternal souls of people are directed away from forgiveness and redemption, I take it seriously. When non-sense is presented as intellectually acceptable, I take it seriously. When readers are headed for hell rather than heaven, I take it seriously.
All we know about Mary Magdalene is (1) she was present at the Crucifixion and entombment of Jesus, (Mark 15:40); (2) she was in the company of other women when they went to anoint the dead body of Jesus and were told Christ had risen from the dead, (Mark 16:1-8); (3) and Jesus appeared to her as the same lady from whom He earlier cast out seven demons. That’s it! Anything else is fable, fantasy, foolishness and fiction.
The sport of maligning Mary Magdalene is way too large a subject for a Crossviews article. However, I do want to you to think about three related matters.
I. TRADITIONS THAT REPLACE THE BIBLE AS THE BASE FOR CHRISTIANITY
Traditions are often assumed to be true in the sense that something had to originally be true to cause the tradition in the first place. Actually, this is really faulty circular logic. Tradition may come from error and often from enemies. Equally faulty is the argument that information conceived later is more reliable than original information.
In the case of Mary Magdalene traditions were often based on the enemies of revelational information as will be noted later. Even if the Catholic Church had good intention in using Mary as an example of way-ward women who may be forgiven, it doesn’t make the tradition the true. Nor does it verify the claim of the critics that the church is against women by having male leaders. It simply teaches there are different roles of men and women but do not imply inferiority or superiority.
Traditions must be carefully investigated. They are often just as unreliable as they are interesting. No one knows the damage done to the cause of Christianity by traditions about Mary and Jesus that gave birth to a play like JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR in the 1960 and The DA VINCE CODE in 2004. This is something the church should have cleaned up in their list of traditions long ago rather than let it grow and even give it some degree of validity by making it a matter of dogma in the sixth century! If Mary was Jesus’ live in lover, and they were so sexually licentious, one must ask, why did Mary fail to recognize him when she was talking to Him? (John 20:14) You would think she would know her lover, if in fact they ever were!
II. GNOSITIC PHILOSOPPHY REPLACING CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
Gnostic philosophy is having its hey-day again in our lifetime as it did in the early church. It is a large part of popular preaching. It was heresy then as it is now. Time can never change historical error to truth. If fact all error is eternal as is all truth. In order to be truth it must be changeless and the same in all cultures and in all times. If not, it is nothing more than truth as we know it.
Gnosticism was a popular philosophy proceeding and following the time of Christ. A working definition of Gnosticism may be found in Erickson’s Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology, page 64. He defines it as, "A movement in early Christianity, beginning in the first century, which (1) emphasized a special higher truth that only the more enlightened received from God, (2) taught that all matter is evil, and (3) denied the humanity of Jesus." What to do with Jesus was a major concern for this group. First they taught that he was not human and only a low-level spirit messenger from God and later that He was not divine and only human. "The Gnostics...stressed gnosis or knowledge, especially of one’s origins. Cosmological dualism was also a feature of the system." (Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, page 275.) Dualism is the teaching that two gods have eternally existed--the god of light and the god of darkness. It also teaching the job of one is to totally do away with the followers of the other. The reward for killing off the opposition is a guarantee of eternal reward and pleasure. This religious concept is the cause of much of today’s world’s tension!
The Gnostics believed they were "children of the light" having a special privileged relationship to truth and thus to redemption which was not available to the lesser common people.
Salvation and spiritual power was to them the result of a secret gnosis-- knowledge or experience. You may hear much the same message implied by television evangelist-healer as well as other leaders. They often claim to have special information from God and with it mystical powers through which they charm large followings. Frankly, I view, with a lot of suspicion, anyone who claims extra-biblical information, gifts and special abilities. An example of this religious conflict with Christianity is recorded in Acts chapter eight where Simon the Sorcerer of Samaria attempted to duplicate the work of the Holy Spirit. He was so convincing he fooled the apostles!
You can understand that the Gnostics had difficulties when Jesus claimed He was the Light of the World and those who rejected Him really walked in darkness. This teaching publicly discredited and exposed the Gnostics as what they were heretical mystics. John’s gospel presented Jesus as the eternal God, co-creator, who became GOD/MAN. He proved who He was by the miracles He did and the message He taught. Since the Gnostics considered all matter evil, they had to reject Jesus by saying He was human and thus evil. It was an early attempt to explain Him away.
Jesus to the Gnostics was considered the lowest rung on a ladder of mystical spiritual beings (divine emanations) that brought truth down to them. They gave titles to these supposed messengers. It is precisely to correct this error that the books of Colossians and the Gospel of John was written. The apostle Paul countered their empty philosophy by stating that Jesus is the total reproduction of the invisible God, He is before all existing things, He is creator of everything in heaven and on earth which may be seeable or not seeable, He is above all power structures in the spirit world (thrones, dominions, principalities, powers) and that matter really exist for His purposes, He is the one who keep functioning everything He created and most importantly He is the redeemer of those who receive Him. Instead of being one who brings some special light He is the one in whom all "fullness" of light (knowledge) eternally exists, Colossians 1:15-19.
Later the Gnostics rejected Jesus by writing that He was just another sinful man. To do this, they wrote second and thirds century gospels redefining Jesus and His associates. Their works about Jesus and Mary must be taken in light of their attempt to humanize Him rather than worship Him. In case you have not already noticed, humanizing Jesus, is exactly what is being done in churches across America by making Jesus overly earthly, culturally common and one who accepts anyone on any terms. The holiness of Jesus and God the Father are becoming common and taken for granted. What we take for granted we never take seriously.
For years I have heard how the church has to change in order to reach the world. Every thinking person is for change, but not if it is to become like the world we are to reach.
I don’t like darkness. I never did. When I was little we still had some kerosene lamps. I learned a couple of things in those days. One, you can’t have light and darkness in the same space at the same time. I tried but you can’t do it. I would blow out the lamp and try to get into bed before the room got dark. I never make it. Actually, years later I rationalized that I was not afraid of the dark. I was just afraid of what might be in the dark! Two, I learned that in order for the light and darkness to be compatible the light had to loose its brightness. At times the wicks would burn themselves down and the chimney would get back with soot. Eventually, unless the wick was trimmed and the chimney cleaned the light would go out. When it did all the previous light produced by the lamp didn’t keep the room lit. Darkness always won. God did not ask the church to be like the world in order to reach it. He asked us to be a light in a world of darkness. As the church becomes more like the world, the world will always become the winner! Trying to please the world and the Lord at the same time is a sure way to get hurt. The two are incongruous. You can’t ski down both sides of a mountain at the same time without getting hurt and you can’t pattern after the world and please God!
III. RESEARCH AND RATIONALIZATION REPLACING REVELATION
Much of the contemporary flack about Mary Magdalene is the result of revelation taking a back seat to research and rationalization. Revelation comes from God while research and rationalization comes from man. They don’t have to be at odds, but at times they are. This is especially true when research is give top consideration over God and His word. The research in the case of Mary and her relationship to Jesus only goes back to at about 200-250 AD, but it is considered right while God’s work is considered wrong. The revelation and eye witness accounts of the Gospel writers are discounted while material written two hundred years later is takes as factual. Not only is wrong, but the research is based on works of Christ’s critics. It is like listening to Gore and Kerry tell you about the republican party and checking no farther. If you do this Bush is the dud of all times. Critics of any nature seldom make good historians and certainly not a valid base for theological argumentation.
To answer the question, "Was Jesus and Mary Magdalene passionate lovers?" let me answer by saying, "sex sells." It sells books and Broadway plays, movies and magazines, products and prostitution. I asked my self, as I reread the Da Vinci Code a second time, "Why was the book written?" The only reasons I came up with are, (1) for lots of money and (2) to debunk the Lord Jesus Christ and (3) to reintroduce an alternative ancient religious system. Writing doesn’t have to be true or trustworthy because believing a juicy lie is often more excitable than believing truth.
