Lots of speculation and guesswork. Some things are well known (e.g. Gregory’s role in arguing she was a prostitute) but their interpretation here is questionable - it is usually taken as an indication of Jesus's attitude to people conventionally labelled "bad", as with Matthew.
There is some downright ridiculous stuff here as well - "Maybe Jesus was clearing Magdalene’s chakras.".
There is nothing wrong with clearing, or rather recalibrating chakras, especially the Kundalini. The rest will follow automagically, and blow the Sahasrara wide open. It's rather enjoyable, for both, in fact.
"Mary Magdalene is considered to be a saint by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran denominations." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene) Plenty of other references too!
There are at least five different Mary's in the Gospels. She was not the prostitute, but the prostitute was also a Mary.
It is, as you say, a misogynist way to dismiss the many women who were important during Jesus' ministry and during the founding of the early gentile Churches. But the book sure doesn't make it easy to keep em straight.
There is no prostitute called Mary in the Gospels. There was a conflation of three women:
- Mary Magdalene who had 7 devils cast out of her
- Mary of Bethany who anointed Christ with oil close to his crucifixion
- Unnamed woman who anointed Christ with oil and tears in the home of Simon
Not only are these three woman separate and distinct, none of them are even explicitly called out as prostitutes. So they both conflated their stories and assumed what the sin was.
And if anyone is like me and thinking "wait, there are more Marys than that", the above comment specifies "in the gospels".
Mary mother of [John] Mark is in Acts, and Mary of Rome is in Romans.
It's generally assumed that "the other Mary" is one of the many above. It is widely, but not universally, assumed that the two "Mary and Martha" stories refer to the same people. Some traditions say that Salome was yet another Mary, but this seems poorly founded.
We of course can't know for sure, but I personally err on the side of caution and keep these women as separate individuals. The stories are distinct enough that in my opinion they should be considered unique events and different people.
Not a helpful response. There are scholars that argue that Mary Magdalen and Mary of Bethany are the same person, which was the impetus for my question.
Poole Gregory gave an influential sermon that conflated several women featured in the Bible incorrectly. That carried on for a millennia for various reasons.
How is it misogynistic for more than one woman to have the same name? They aren't made up characters that people decided to all call Mary in some fit of misogyny.
Given that the books were written at least 40 years after the described events, how do we know they aren't made-up characters (or pastiches of real individuals)?
Perhaps 'Mary' was a stand-in name for "Woman nobody thought to write down the name of," like "Karen" is a stand-in name today.
I watched a bit of the coverage of Pope Francis' coffin being brought into St. Peter's basilica, and heard "Santa Maria Magdalena [pray for us]" chanted by the choir.
Also, the final episode of Martin Scorsese's "The Saints" series dropped, featuring her.
In addition to her individual feast day the myrrhbearing women are commemorated on the second sunday after pascha in the eastern churches. Can't be more prominently celebrated short of a great feast.
Mary mother of Jesus, Mary of Clopas, Mary Magdalen, Mary of Bethany, Mary and Martha are all sainted/venerated and were mentioned as followers. There may be more who are venerated but those are top of mind. Christian churches that enumerate saints do a pretty good job distinguishing between the different women named Mary.
Also it makes no sense to say there is no evidence of them existing, given that we are discussing precisely that: evidence of them existing.
Why would the sources that were put together to form the Bible be discounted when the whole point of putting it together was to collect the best evidence into one source?
I agree it's not direct evidence, but it seems easier to believe some guy named Jesus was crucified by the romans than that he was made up for some indiscernible reason. If you read the text as a historical depiction of a real (but not necessarily divine) figure, you can read a jewish eschatological preacher who predicted an imminent apocalypse. We can explain the formation of the bible entirely historically and note how the themes changed over the course of writing it to reflect a realization that an christian society had to organize when the apocalypse did not happen. This doesn't require taking the accounts of miracle as fact by any means, nor that the gospels were actually written by the apostles whose names adorn the text, etc. (In fact this can all be true if you're christian, though that may not be a popular sentiment, as faith without clear evidence is kind of central to the religion.)
Anyone who does want to press the question of the historicity of the existence of Jesus then needs to explain the motivations of the people who wrote the texts. That's a hard question to answer given that we don't know much about them or the contemporary christians. It seems easier to believe that the bible did originate in some concrete event surrounding the crucifixion of a jewish eschatological preacher causing trouble to the local romans than some inscrutable conspiracy to... what, accept suffering in this life but not the next? That seems like something that dovetails with state religion ala "opium of the masses"—genuinely soothing, but in so doing inherently works to maintain the status quo—not a place to start analyzing the motives of the authors as entirely fabricating the situation. And of course by the time it started gaining real momentum, the distinction between it and a popular political movement vanished rapidly. Why not see men taking advantage of a clear opportunity for social change to develop culture, much like they behave today in, say, business? Miracles themselves can be explained by psychosis, by intentional exaggeration, by unintended exaggeration, by some contemporary rhetorical flourish that might have been interpreted differently at the time, etc. I don't expect people to understand the faith and belief of others, but it shows a woeful lack of imagination, curiosity, and empathy to write off the billions of christians to have existed as irrational even if you can't take claims of divinity or afterlives or miracles themselves at face value in modern interpretation, especially compared to 2000 years ago.
To the contrary—most of our current institutions of rationality in the west were formed by people struggling with the very question of how to reconcile their christian worldviews with the empirical evidence of the world around them.
In my opinion, of course. I suspect many, if not the majority of, historians would agree that Jesus likely did exist and there was some event where he was crucified by the romans, and the people who witnessed this spread the news of such event.
Paul is well-attested, we have good reason to believe the authenticity of most of his letters, and while (per the less-reliable Acts) he never met Jesus in person, he clearly believed that Jesus existed. So the invention of Jesus would've had to have happened quite early. Most wholly-fabricated myths (e.g. the Arthurian legend) originate hundreds of years after the events are alleged to have occurred: the basic plot of Jesus's life is attested within two decades after his death. If we're choosing evidentiary standards that let us doubt Jesus's existence, there are a lot of other historical figures whose existence is cast into doubt.
> there are a lot of other historical figures whose existence is cast into doubt
Is that so bad? For example, I'm also not sure that Pythagoras existed - much less sure than I am for Socrates and Aristotle. I can appreciate the legendary figure of Pythagoras without that certainty. It feels more honest to say "actually my belief in their existence is around 60%".
It's also interesting to juxtapose this with the recent history of Christianity and observe the within-well-documented-recorded-modern-record consequences of failed apocalypse cults to this day, because there are fascinating echoes. The Millerites believed Jesus would return in 1843-1844. When he did not, many fell away from the faith (which spiked to 50k-100,000 at its peak), but many came to different conclusions (that Miller had the date wrong but was fundamentally correct about its imminence, or that Miller's announcement of the date had an effect that changed the date, and some others). In consequence, there are now seven Christian sub-sects that trace their lineage back to The Great Disappointment, including the Seventh-day Adventists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventism has an interesting diagram of them.
There is no question that Jesus existed and was crucified. Nobody seriously questions that. If we can't accept that happened then we can't accept most of history. It is one of the best-documented events of history and nobody has any reason or means to make it up.
Best-documented in history is a bit of a leap. There are the gospels (only three of which are contemporaneous) and a smattering of later writing. There probably was a religious teacher named Jesus that was crucified. But we're nowhere near as sure about that as we are that Caesar Augustus and Tiberius were the Roman emperors over that period.
Lots of speculation and guesswork. Some things are well known (e.g. Gregory’s role in arguing she was a prostitute) but their interpretation here is questionable - it is usually taken as an indication of Jesus's attitude to people conventionally labelled "bad", as with Matthew.
There is some downright ridiculous stuff here as well - "Maybe Jesus was clearing Magdalene’s chakras.".
There is nothing wrong with clearing, or rather recalibrating chakras, especially the Kundalini. The rest will follow automagically, and blow the Sahasrara wide open. It's rather enjoyable, for both, in fact.
Yeah, seems like plenty of wishful thinking. There's not much official that we know and plenty that's been added in the centuries afterwards.
https://archive.ph/lQqM9
[dead]
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"Mary Magdalene is considered to be a saint by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran denominations." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene) Plenty of other references too!
Mary Magdalene is called "Equal to the Apostles," one of the highest honorifics that can be bestowed on a saint: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Mary_Magdalene
There are at least five different Mary's in the Gospels. She was not the prostitute, but the prostitute was also a Mary.
It is, as you say, a misogynist way to dismiss the many women who were important during Jesus' ministry and during the founding of the early gentile Churches. But the book sure doesn't make it easy to keep em straight.
There is no prostitute called Mary in the Gospels. There was a conflation of three women:
- Mary Magdalene who had 7 devils cast out of her
- Mary of Bethany who anointed Christ with oil close to his crucifixion
- Unnamed woman who anointed Christ with oil and tears in the home of Simon
Not only are these three woman separate and distinct, none of them are even explicitly called out as prostitutes. So they both conflated their stories and assumed what the sin was.
Other Marys in the Gospels:
- Mary the mother of Christ
- Mary the mother of James
- Mary of Clopas
And if anyone is like me and thinking "wait, there are more Marys than that", the above comment specifies "in the gospels".
Mary mother of [John] Mark is in Acts, and Mary of Rome is in Romans.
It's generally assumed that "the other Mary" is one of the many above. It is widely, but not universally, assumed that the two "Mary and Martha" stories refer to the same people. Some traditions say that Salome was yet another Mary, but this seems poorly founded.
How do we know those are the different women though?
We of course can't know for sure, but I personally err on the side of caution and keep these women as separate individuals. The stories are distinct enough that in my opinion they should be considered unique events and different people.
By reading with comprehension.
Not a helpful response. There are scholars that argue that Mary Magdalen and Mary of Bethany are the same person, which was the impetus for my question.
Poole Gregory gave an influential sermon that conflated several women featured in the Bible incorrectly. That carried on for a millennia for various reasons.
How is it misogynistic for more than one woman to have the same name? They aren't made up characters that people decided to all call Mary in some fit of misogyny.
Given that the books were written at least 40 years after the described events, how do we know they aren't made-up characters (or pastiches of real individuals)?
Perhaps 'Mary' was a stand-in name for "Woman nobody thought to write down the name of," like "Karen" is a stand-in name today.
Interesting idea, but questionable scholarship.
I watched a bit of the coverage of Pope Francis' coffin being brought into St. Peter's basilica, and heard "Santa Maria Magdalena [pray for us]" chanted by the choir.
Also, the final episode of Martin Scorsese's "The Saints" series dropped, featuring her.
In addition to her individual feast day the myrrhbearing women are commemorated on the second sunday after pascha in the eastern churches. Can't be more prominently celebrated short of a great feast.
Mary mother of Jesus, Mary of Clopas, Mary Magdalen, Mary of Bethany, Mary and Martha are all sainted/venerated and were mentioned as followers. There may be more who are venerated but those are top of mind. Christian churches that enumerate saints do a pretty good job distinguishing between the different women named Mary.
[flagged]
Prior to 1850, there's no evidence my alleged ancestors even existed.
Also it makes no sense to say there is no evidence of them existing, given that we are discussing precisely that: evidence of them existing.
Why would the sources that were put together to form the Bible be discounted when the whole point of putting it together was to collect the best evidence into one source?
(This is not a reply to your current comment, but I want to make sure you see this, so I'm replying to the most recent post.)
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43797087.
I agree it's not direct evidence, but it seems easier to believe some guy named Jesus was crucified by the romans than that he was made up for some indiscernible reason. If you read the text as a historical depiction of a real (but not necessarily divine) figure, you can read a jewish eschatological preacher who predicted an imminent apocalypse. We can explain the formation of the bible entirely historically and note how the themes changed over the course of writing it to reflect a realization that an christian society had to organize when the apocalypse did not happen. This doesn't require taking the accounts of miracle as fact by any means, nor that the gospels were actually written by the apostles whose names adorn the text, etc. (In fact this can all be true if you're christian, though that may not be a popular sentiment, as faith without clear evidence is kind of central to the religion.)
Anyone who does want to press the question of the historicity of the existence of Jesus then needs to explain the motivations of the people who wrote the texts. That's a hard question to answer given that we don't know much about them or the contemporary christians. It seems easier to believe that the bible did originate in some concrete event surrounding the crucifixion of a jewish eschatological preacher causing trouble to the local romans than some inscrutable conspiracy to... what, accept suffering in this life but not the next? That seems like something that dovetails with state religion ala "opium of the masses"—genuinely soothing, but in so doing inherently works to maintain the status quo—not a place to start analyzing the motives of the authors as entirely fabricating the situation. And of course by the time it started gaining real momentum, the distinction between it and a popular political movement vanished rapidly. Why not see men taking advantage of a clear opportunity for social change to develop culture, much like they behave today in, say, business? Miracles themselves can be explained by psychosis, by intentional exaggeration, by unintended exaggeration, by some contemporary rhetorical flourish that might have been interpreted differently at the time, etc. I don't expect people to understand the faith and belief of others, but it shows a woeful lack of imagination, curiosity, and empathy to write off the billions of christians to have existed as irrational even if you can't take claims of divinity or afterlives or miracles themselves at face value in modern interpretation, especially compared to 2000 years ago.
To the contrary—most of our current institutions of rationality in the west were formed by people struggling with the very question of how to reconcile their christian worldviews with the empirical evidence of the world around them.
In my opinion, of course. I suspect many, if not the majority of, historians would agree that Jesus likely did exist and there was some event where he was crucified by the romans, and the people who witnessed this spread the news of such event.
Paul is well-attested, we have good reason to believe the authenticity of most of his letters, and while (per the less-reliable Acts) he never met Jesus in person, he clearly believed that Jesus existed. So the invention of Jesus would've had to have happened quite early. Most wholly-fabricated myths (e.g. the Arthurian legend) originate hundreds of years after the events are alleged to have occurred: the basic plot of Jesus's life is attested within two decades after his death. If we're choosing evidentiary standards that let us doubt Jesus's existence, there are a lot of other historical figures whose existence is cast into doubt.
> there are a lot of other historical figures whose existence is cast into doubt
Is that so bad? For example, I'm also not sure that Pythagoras existed - much less sure than I am for Socrates and Aristotle. I can appreciate the legendary figure of Pythagoras without that certainty. It feels more honest to say "actually my belief in their existence is around 60%".
It's also interesting to juxtapose this with the recent history of Christianity and observe the within-well-documented-recorded-modern-record consequences of failed apocalypse cults to this day, because there are fascinating echoes. The Millerites believed Jesus would return in 1843-1844. When he did not, many fell away from the faith (which spiked to 50k-100,000 at its peak), but many came to different conclusions (that Miller had the date wrong but was fundamentally correct about its imminence, or that Miller's announcement of the date had an effect that changed the date, and some others). In consequence, there are now seven Christian sub-sects that trace their lineage back to The Great Disappointment, including the Seventh-day Adventists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventism has an interesting diagram of them.
There is no question that Jesus existed and was crucified. Nobody seriously questions that. If we can't accept that happened then we can't accept most of history. It is one of the best-documented events of history and nobody has any reason or means to make it up.
Best-documented in history is a bit of a leap. There are the gospels (only three of which are contemporaneous) and a smattering of later writing. There probably was a religious teacher named Jesus that was crucified. But we're nowhere near as sure about that as we are that Caesar Augustus and Tiberius were the Roman emperors over that period.