Random Physical Evidence Of Mary Magdalene That We've Got So Far (12 items)

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  (#11) There Is No Evidence Of A "Secret Gospel" Or Secret Society Hiding Her Body Or Bloodline

   

  A post shared by Quinton (@qsboucher22) on Mar 16, 2017 at 10:58am PDT

   

  Despite the fact that Dan Brown and conspiracy theorists have espoused these ideas, there is no provable evidence that Mary Magdalene had any children, that a secret society is hiding her descendants, or that a coded "lost gospel" exists depicting her marriage to Jesus. For one, there is no physical evidence of Mary Magdalene giving birth.

  Scholars have debunked the existence of the so-called Priory of Sion as an organization aimed at protecting the secret existence of Jesus and Mary's descendants and their holy bloodline. And the idea of a secret gospel is false; the proponents of this theory are actually just making up a convenient narrative about a text that's been around for years.
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  (#3) The Idea Of Her As A Prostitute Is Just Pure Sexism

  Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, contrary to modern perceptions. But why do we think she was? The Gospel of Mark mentions Jesus cast seven demons or devils out of a woman named Mary; the Gospel of Luke calls her "Mary, also called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out." And later Christian commentators conflated these two women, along with a mysterious woman with a bad reputation who anoints Jesus with ointment from an alabaster jar. There are a few other minor figures tied in here, too.

  Originally, the ailment - personified by "demons" - cast out of Mary Magdalene might have been physical, but Christian commentators interpreted these ailments as moral failings, as James Carroll noted in Smithsonian. The sixth-century Pope Gregory I (later known as "the Great") typified the early Christian impulse to demonize or cast down some female figures in the Church. He delivered a series of speeches that not only rolled all the above female figures into one, but deemed Mary a repentant sinner from whom Jesus cast out all the bad things (AKA demons).

  He got into the idea that Mary had once perfumed her private parts with the unguent and was a sex worker, but then wiped Jesus's feet with her hair and repented. Bart Ehrman, a prominent scholar of early Christianity, goes into great detail on his blog about why this is factually impossible in the Gospels - not to mention misogynistic!
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  (#8) The So-Called 'Gospel of Jesus's Wife' Turned Out To Be A Forgery

   

  A post shared by Bible Reading Archeology (@biblereadingarcheology) on Jul 15, 2016 at 7:47am PDT

   

  Several years ago, Harvard professor Karen King of Harvard Divinity School made a startling proclamation: She deciphered an ancient scrap of papyrus that she was calling "the Gospel of Jesus's Wife." In it, Jesus specifically mentions his wife - although not her identity - which seemingly changes the biblical game.

  But in 2016, an in-depth article in The Atlantic exposed the irregular chain of ownership of the papyrus. It eventually came out that the papyrus was a very clever forgery and King had been fooled. King herself has admitted that her career-making discovery has actually been anything but, meaning that this so-called evidence never existed in the ancient world and was a much more modern invention.
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  (#7) 'The Gospel of Philip' Calls Her Jesus's Companion, Not His Wife

  Here's another apocryphal gospel, this one called the Gospel of Philip. This text states: 

  "There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary."

  Mary Magdalene receives the title of "koinonos," or "companion" in Greek. There isn't a romantic connotation here.

  The other big piece of evidence from Philip? Jesus is said to have kissed Mary Magdalene on the mouth. This seems damning, but earlier in the Gospel of Philip, the narrator discusses how a kiss is not a romantic gesture, but one of brotherhood and religious grace:

  "It is from being promised to the heavenly place that man receives nourishment. [...] him from the mouth. And had the word gone out from that place, it would be nourished from the mouth and it would become perfect. For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another. We receive conception from the grace which is in one another."

  So everyone is kissing everyone at this time, a sign of religious companionship and bonds rather than romantic affection.
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  (#4) Her Name Gives Us Some Important Details About Her, Including Her Fishy Past

  What else do the Gospels tell us about the Magdalene? We know her name was Mary, but that's not unique. The aforementioned religious studies professor Bart Ehrman, an expert on early Christianity, wrote:

  "[Mary] ...was one of the most popular names among Jewish women in the first century. Just within the New Testament, we know of six women who bore the name, including, for example, Jesus’s own mother. And this is out of a total of just 16 women named in the Gospels, so that six out of 16 are called Mary! In the first century, nearly one out of four Jewish women from Palestine whose names are known were called Mary."

  "Magdalene" means "of Magdala," a town in Galilee, Jesus's home base. Magdala was a town known for its salted fish, which even Rome loved. Alternatively, Magdala is a reference to "migdal," or "tower" in Hebrew and Aramaic, and the town of Magdala might have originally been known as the "tower of" something.
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  (#1) For Centuries, A Skeleton In Southern France Has Been Rumored To Be Hers

  Medieval legends tell the tale of Mary Magdalene fleeing Israel after Jesus's death and traveling to what is now France. Dan Brown and the scholars whose theories he co-opted - authors of the pseudo-historical book Holy Blood, Holy Grail - posited that she left with her kid or kids by Jesus and she raised them in France, creating what would become an early French dynasty.

  Either way, a body reportedly belonging to Mary Magdalene resides at the Church of Saint-Maximin in the south of France. Recently, scientists and artists reconstructed the skeleton's face; the woman, whoever she is, has high cheekbones and a round face. Of Mediterranean descent, the lady was around 50 when she died. Future DNA tests could tell us where she came from.

  Biological anthropologist Philippe Charlier told National Geographic:

  “We are absolutely not sure that this is the true skull of Mary Magdalene. But it was very important to get it out of anonymity.” 

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