She was Mary of Magdala, one of the earliest followers of Jesus of Nazareth. According to the Bible , she traveled with him, witnessed his Crucifixion and was one of the first people to learn of his Resurrection. Over the centuries, everyone from early church leaders and scholars to novelists and filmmakers have revised and elaborated on the story of Mary Magdalene.
But is there any truth to either of these stories? What Other Proof Exists? There were apparently hundreds, if not thousands, of followers of Jesus, but we don't know most of their names. So the fact that she's named is a big deal. In the Gospel of John, Jesus actually appears to Mary Magdalene alone after his Resurrection, and instructs her to tell his disciples of his return John One was to turn her into a prostitute.
In A. It diminishes her in some way. She had a special status. Jesus at the table in the house of the Pharisee, receiving the visit of Mary Magdalene, depicted as a prostitute bowing at Jesus's feet. The Gospel of Mary, a text dating from the second century A. She also featured prominently in the so-called Gnostic Gospels, a group of texts believed to have been written by early Christians as far back as the second century A. This idea was also central to The Last Temptation of Christ , the novel by Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, and the later film version of that book, directed by Martin Scorsese.
The version of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute held on for centuries after Pope Gregory the Great made it official in his sixth-century sermon, though neither Orthodoxy nor Protestantism adopted it when those faiths later split from the Catholic Church. Finally, in , the Church admitted that the text of the Bible does not support that interpretation.
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