--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Robert, again no disrespect intended, but you > should get a few books on the Bible and "read > up" before you spout off. There is not ONE > WORD in the Bible that characterizes Mary > Magdalene as a whore. Not one.
This is correct. However: There is even > less in the other Gospels that were carefully > excised from the Bible. Actually, there were no Gospels "excised" (carefully or otherwise) from "the Bible." There was no Bible until well after a general consensus had developed (over centuries) about which of the many circulating Christian documents were the most authentic, important, and useful for teaching Christian doctrine. By that time, Gospels other than the Final Four had long since failed to qualify for inclusion. (It's a little like saying a minor baseball player was "excised" from the Baseball Hall of Fame when he had never been nominated for membership in the first place, let alone been inducted into it.) In ALL of them she > is characterized as a woman of high character, > on whom Jesus bestowed a great deal of attention. > She is often portrayed as his favorite, the one > to whom he gave certain teachings FIRST. > > The crap about her being a "whore" was added > *centuries* later, by woman-hating Paulists who > were looking for yet another excuse to put down > women and portray them as less evolved than a > man. On the other hand, she was elevated by these same people to become the poster child for successful repentance through belief in Jesus. If *even a prostitute* can repent and be saved, there's hope for everyone. > As for his marriage to Magdalene, that is not > stated overtly in even the excised Gospels, Again, there were no "excised Gospels." Rather, there were Gospels that were never considered for inclusion (the Gnostic Gospels, where most of the mentions of the Magdalene are found, were by definition heretical). > but can be inferred because he acted *publicly* > towards her in a manner that would have been > considered *inappropriate* at the time for a > rabbi who was not married to the woman he was > diaplaying this behavior with, but that would > have been perfectly appropriate if he had been > married to her. Not necessarily. If you're referring to the (Gnostic) Gospel of Philip, in which Jesus is said to have kissed her, that would have been fine with the Gnostics; kisses were a standard greeting of recognition among Gnostic initiates. Which...again...would have been > not only appropriate for a rabbi of the period, > but expected of him. It would have been more > unusual and inappropriate for a rabbi to remain > *unmarried* than it would have for one to be > married. Incorrect. It wouldn't have been *common*, but it wouldn't have been inappropriate either. The emphasis on marriage as a requirement for Jewish men was a considerably later (Talmudic) development. > I'm not ragging on you...you're just repeating > lies that have been carefully introduced into > the Catholic dogma for centuries, as if they > were true. But, as far as scholars can tell, > they are not. There is a *strong* case to be > made for Jesus being a *normal* rabbi of his > times, and being married, and an even stronger > case to be made for the person he was married > to being Mary of Magdala. Actually, there's just about zero evidence to this effect. Virtually everything we "know" about Jesus's life comes from the Gospels (both canonical and non-), but they really don't tell us much about who he was in the society in which he lived and worked, and a lot of what they *do* tell us is suspect. By the same token, though, we can't *rule out* that he was married. We just have no way of knowing. I'd be tickled if evidence came to light that Jesus wasn't celibate or that he was married. But there just ain't any at this point.
