#MeToo, 'Mary Magdalene' focus on women's stories in Bible as Easter nears

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

It seems like the women of Scripture are having a moment in the days leading up to Easter (April 21), celebrated by many Christians as the day they believe Jesus rose from the dead.
Mary Magdalene is getting the Hollywood treatment in a film that bears her name. …..

Three women stand out to the scholar among the women following Jesus, just as Peter, James and John hold a special place among the Twelve. Mary Magdalene; Mary, the mother of James and Joseph; and Salome are described in the Gospel of Mark as watching the crucifixion from a distance.
Mary Magdalene is singularly important among them, Smith said, and is named more frequently than some of the disciples in the Gospels. She is the first person to see Jesus after his resurrection and the first to proclaim the news to the other disciples....

Smith said she sees that treatment of Mary Magdalene as a “dismissal of women’s power and women’s agency in a real way.”

To read more:

https://religionnews.com/2019/04/18/metoo-mary-magdalene-focus-on-womens-stories-in-bible-as-easter-nears/

[trotsky]

1. And yet Jesus couldn't be bothered to have a female disciple.

How progressive that would have been. What a message to the patriarchy!

Instead, women are given 2nd-class roles from the beginning. No wonder the RCC is the way it is.

[guillaumeb]

2. 1/3rd of the way into a 6 minute read:

The Bible also deserves some credit, said the Rev. Shively Smith, assistant professor of New Testament at Boston University School of Theology and one of the scholars featured in “Jesus: His Life.”
The attention to women in the week leading up to Easter comes from the way the Gospels themselves are set up, Smith said.

[trotsky]

3. And yet Jesus couldn't be bothered to have a female disciple.

How progressive that would have been. What a message to the patriarchy!

Instead, women are given 2nd-class roles from the beginning. No wonder the RCC is the way it is.

[guillaumeb]

4. And you know this how?

Inspiration?

[Voltaire2]

5. Let me guess, the disciples in the gospels are only metaphorically men

Interesting.

[MineralMan]

6. No such disciple is described in the Gospels.

The male disciples are described. Why is that, do you suppose?

[guillaumeb]

8. And were the Gospels redacted to support the needs of patriarchy? eom

[trotsky]

9. Do you have any evidence?

This is bullshit. You are not arguing in good faith. You never do.

[MineralMan]

10. I don't know. They were certainly redacted, however.

But, the culture from which Christianity arose was a patriarchy. The culture that spread Christianity, namely the Romans, was also a patriarchy. Since women as disciples are not mentioned, I would imagine there were none, frankly, given the culture where Jesus was supposed to have lived.

But, I cannot answer your question, because we have the scriptures as they are. I cannot re-edit them, since the original texts are no longer available. They are not my scriptures, in any case. I have no scriptures. I am an atheist.

You cannot answer your own question, either.

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. Are you suggesting the men who wrote the Gospels weren't already a part of patriarchy?

I know it's really fucking hard to believe, but maybe—just maybe—the Gospels are full of sexist shit because they were written by a bunch of fucking iron age sexists.

[trotsky]

26. Nope, he's showing us his groundwork for a 100% idealized and fictional Christianity.

Imagining that it has REAL origins of being the perfect religion, and that everything wrong with it is the work of flawed human beings.

Such a depressing and anti-human view. Rather than acknowledge humans have improved themselves and his religion over time, he chooses instead to insist we needed a god to provide us with ideal morality (which naturally matches his) that we are slowly figuring out, despite any evidence to support it.

But you see, that's where FAITH comes in. Neat, huh?

[Loki Liesmith]

53. Jesus had dozens to hundreds of female disciples

Disciples = discipuli (students)

[MaryMagdaline]

28. According to the Dead Sea scrolls, Mary Magdalene was an apostle

And the one most closely matched in intellect with Jesus. Granted it’s all myth and legend, but if the Dead Sea gospels are myth and legend, so are the 4 Gospels. Some human being created all of these characters, and one of those characters was an intelligent and courageous woman who didn’t hide away from the Romans.

[Major Nikon]

31. Not to mention the position of the RCC for a millennium was Magdalene was a prostitute

[MaryMagdaline]

33. Really. They knew how to destroy her influence

[Major Nikon]

35. Can you blame them?

It's kind of hard to reconcile one story burned as heretical with the others that require women to STFU and accept subservience. One can only excuse so much as "metaphor".

[Voltaire2]

7. #letspretenditaintamisogynisticreligion

[guillaumeb]

11. From the Enlightenment to the Dark Ages:

From the article:

How "new atheism" slid into the alt-right

Even worse, Boghossian and Lindsay explicitly argue, in response to some critics, that they don’t “need to know the field of gender studies to criticize it.” This is, properly contextualized, about as anti-intellectual as one can get. Sure, it is a fallacy to immediately dismiss someone’s criticisms of a topic simply because that person doesn’t have a degree on the topic. Doing this is called the “Courtier’s Reply.” But it decidedly isn’t a fallacy to criticize someone for being incredibly ignorant — and even ignorant of their own ignorance — regarding an issue they're making strong, confident-sounding claims about. Kids, listen to me: Knowledge is a good thing, despite what Boghossian and Lindsay suggest, and you should always work hard to understand a position before you level harsh criticisms at it. Otherwise you’ll end up looking like a fool to those “in the know.”

Along these lines, the new atheist movement has flirted with misogyny for years. Harris’ “estrogen vibe” statement — which yielded a defense rather than a gracious apology — was only the tip of the iceberg. As mentioned above, there have been numerous allegations of sexual assault, and atheist conferences have pretty consistently been male-dominated — resulting in something like a “gender Matthew effect."

https://www.salon.com/2017/07/29/from-the-enlightenment-to-the-dark-ages-how-new-atheism-slid-into-the-alt-right/

[Voltaire2]

12. Yes misogynist atheists exist.

Did you have a point?

[Major Nikon]

32. Yes, just not one that isn't a silly fallacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

[MineralMan]

13. And, once again, your attempt to divert through whataboutism is clear.

We were not discussing atheism of any sort.

[trotsky]

14. I thought your thread was about women in the gospel.

Strange that you'd derail your own threat in your crusade. But then again, not really. Your hatred is just that strong.

[guillaumeb]

16. Yes, the "hatred" meme.

One of your favorites.

[trotsky]

18. You've admitted it yourself.

I'm sorry the truth hurts.

You'll attack, insult, engage in blatantly hypocritical behavior, all to demonstrate your vicious hatred.

Isn't your religion supposed to make you a better person than this?

Why do you behave like this?

[guillaumeb]

20. Again, the hatred meme.

Followed by a parade of unsupported accusations.

What is the popular term for that?

[trotsky]

21. I believe the term is guillaumebism.

I am done with you. You and your religion are very toxic.

[guillaumeb]

29. More judgment.

Expected.

[Act_of_Reparation]

17. You want to know what's interesting about that?

I stopped following Sam Harris entirely after that. I don't follow Dawkins. Or Shermer. Or Dunning. Or Thunderf00t. Unsubbed. Gone. Finito. Done. They haven't received one red cent from me in fucking years.

Now, just out of curiosity, how often do you throw money in the collection plate?

[guillaumeb]

19. But all of them are still there,

still behaving in the same way.

[Act_of_Reparation]

22. Sure.

And, unlike some other people, I can honestly say I'm not enabling or making excuses for them.

And, unlike religion, there's nothing inherent to atheism that suggests I should.

[MineralMan]

23. So what? I don't follow them. Nobody here follows them.

Atheism has no leaders. Atheists are individuals. Atheism has no doctrines. Are there misogynistic atheists? No doubt, but none of those have anything to do with me or my atheism.

Are you like fundamentalist Christians? Pat Robertson? No? Same thing, exactly.

[Voltaire2]

24. Should we excommunicate them from atheism?

[MineralMan]

25. Say, do you know how to contact the Pope of Atheism?

I have a bone to pick with her/him.

[Act_of_Reparation]

67. I'm right here.

BTW, you haven't been tithing. Lemme send you to my patreon page.

[MineralMan]

69. I plead poverty, your Wholiness.

However, I will welcome any generosity from you, and will rebate 10% of anything you send to me.

[Act_of_Reparation]

70. All I have is what's in my pockets...

What's 10% of a stick of gum, a straightened paperclip, and half a rubber band?

[MineralMan]

71. Ha! You cannot be the Pope of Atheism, then, in truth.

Where is your wealth? Where are all the artworks, and tall buildings?

[Act_of_Reparation]

73. trotsky's check bounced.

And Lordquentin paid me in comic books. And not comic books that are worth a lot. Stuff like Jack Chick's 1990's Deadpool run.

Look, we're having a little trouble getting this thing off the ground, OK.

[MineralMan]

74. Perhaps you're neglecting your prayers to the lord of nothingness.

As for Trotsky's checks, I have papered an entire wall with those...

[trotsky]

75. Goodyear has purchased the rest of my checks.

They've never seen a rubber with such bouncing resilience.

[MineralMan]

76. LOL!

[Lordquinton]

51. Now, just out of curiosity, how often do you throw money in the collection plate?

[Major Nikon]

34. They were just following the misogynistic atheist doctrine

Oh wait, no they weren't. That comes from the one that actually has misogynistic doctrine.

[Act_of_Reparation]

66. It's almost like he thinks atheists exist in a vacuum.

Like they aren't socialized into implicit social norms heavily influenced by the religious beliefs of the majority.

[Major Nikon]

79. He just wants to create a false equivalence

A religionist doing something bad because their religion instructed or enabled them is no different than an atheist doing something bad why? Those dots never seem to get connected.

[Lordquinton]

52. This right here is textbook whataboutism

we throw that term around a lot, but in this circumstance it's an out of the blue "Well, your group does this too" is the exact, original context it was coined for. First sentence on Wikipedia "Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument"

They could put your exchange as a perfect example.

[Act_of_Reparation]

68. It's not fallacious because it's factually correct.

[Lordquinton]

80. I wish you were joking

Truly wish.

[Major Nikon]

36. Metaphorical Jesus disagrees

[MaryMagdaline]

27. Mary Magdalene was extremely courageous

She also matched Jesus in intellect. The apostles all had their strengths, but Magdalene had courage, intelligence and loyalty.

[guillaumeb]

30. And she was a role model for all of us, but women in particular. eom

[MaryMagdaline]

37. Agree!

[guillaumeb]

38. To your earlier point,

Mary Magdalene was in many ways stronger than Peter.

But the needs of a patriarchal society prevailed.

[MineralMan]

40. Where are the accounts that indicate this?

[MaryMagdaline]

42. She was at the grave

The men were hiding away once Jesus was arrested. Granted, it is possible that women were given a pass by the Romans and were overlooked as any actual threat to the peace (and therefore, somewhat safer for them to stay with him), but that does not change the fact that Mary, a non-relative, stood by him in a public manner. Peter’s denial of knowing Jesus goes down in history as ultimately a redemptive story, but it started with his cowardice. Mary never denied knowing him. Mary declared to the world that he had risen from the dead. THIS was a statement which would endanger her in the Roman colony. Jesus was crucified to put down a Jewish rebellion ... stories like this would endanger any Jesus follower.

Mary went on to preach the gospel, again, a courageous act by man or woman under the thumb of Roman rule.

If you believe the gospel of Mary Magdalene (I do)(as much as the others, anyway), Jesus and Mary had intellectual equality. Peter May have been the rock, but Mary was the brain.

There’s a reason I took her name for DU. her intelligence and bravery are inspiring. She, like Peter, Thomas, Paul, had her own followers in the early church.

[MineralMan]

45. There is not even a single contemporaneous account of Jesus,

the crucifixion, the resurrection, or anything else. Everything was written after everyone who was supposed to have been with him was dead. Fragments of second and third-hand accounts by people who never knew the man, assuming that there was a man to know.

You mention the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. It is yet another example of something written about her, not by her. We have only a fragment of it, written a few hundred years after the fact. Why would anyone take that as a true account?

By then, it had all become a story, not an accurate account. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a fragmentary account written long after she had died. It was not written by someone who knew her or who was there. There's no evidence of that at all.

I understand that you like the account and perhaps even believe it, but that's not evidence of its authenticity or importance.

If there ever were contemporaneous accounts of such events, they are long lost, leaving behind only storytelling. Who knows what is accurate and what is just a good story that supports belief?

[guillaumeb]

54. And who knows if these contemporaneous accounts were used by the writers

of the Gospels?

[MineralMan]

57. So where are those precious documents?

Would they not have been treated as sacred treasures and preserved? So where are they? Multiple generations pass before the first gospel texts appear.

Show me one contemporaneous piece of writing about Jesus. Just one. Find that, and you will be famous for centuries.

[Voltaire2]

58. The ones for which there is no evidence they don't exist?

Those contemporaneous accounts?

[Major Nikon]

63. The standard of evidence is breathtaking, no?

You can't prove there is no god.

You can't prove the gospels weren't talking about genuine events.

Nor can you prove the anonymous authors of the gospels weren't actually referencing real documents of which there is zero evidence for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Once again...

[Bretton Garcia]

39. What were her formal doctrines? Were there many?

[MaryMagdaline]

46. Gospel of Mary

She’s generally seen as a Gnostic. My understanding ends there.

[MineralMan]

41. I must have missed many details about her, somehow.

Perhaps you can point me toward resources that demonstrate your claim.

[MaryMagdaline]

43. Gospel of Mary Magdalene from Dead Sea scrolls

Either it is a favorable account of Mary written by a devoted follower who wished to elevate her status with Jesus (quite possible)(but shows she did have a strong and devoted following); or it is completely made up. For what purpose? To challenge the patriarchy? Why would mary’s Followers claim that she was the most loved by Jesus? Maybe she was nothing more than a cult leader. Maybe all of the apostles were nothing more than cult leaders. It is written by all of them, pro-Mary and anti-Mary followers, that Mary remained close to jesus’s Mother. Obviously considered “family.” Her account of the life of Jesus and what his teachings meant, were worth consideration.

[MineralMan]

44. When it comes to Christianity, I read the Bible as it was made official

in the Canon. You might like the "Gospel of Mary Magdalene" but, then, you like her well enough to use her name as your screen name. That's nice, but not convincing.

Who wrote that fragmentary unrecognized Gospel? Mary, herself? Really? Clearly not. None of the other Gospels were written by the person whose name appears in their title. What evidence is there for the one you're talking about being written by Mary the Magdalene? Besides, it is only a fragment of what it is supposed to be. Very thin evidence of anything.

It's not so simple, really. You like it. That's nice.

[MaryMagdaline]

47. I like all the gospels but my favorite is Matthew

I’m a mathesian Christian (Sermon on the Mount is my religion)(that’s why I’m a Democrat) but I don’t believe divinity of Christ so that disqualified me as a real Christian. I consider the gospel of Mary and gospel of Thomas as on par with the others. None is an eyewitness account. None probably written by an actual apostle. One gospel written by one apostle’s followers has no more weight than another gospel written by another apostle’s followers. Matthew, though, gets to the meat of it. I would not pay attention to any of it without the Sermon on the Mount.

My avatar is half serious, half whimsical. In straitening out my password and log in information (which kept me off DU for years because I could not remember or fix my password) I tried using some version of my own name which popped up as close to Mary Magdalene but with misspellings. I kept it and won’t risk changing it again.

I am loyal to Mary Magdalene because of the insult by the church against her position as an apostle but my feminism doesn’t make me a devotee. I’m a mathesian, not a gnostic, not into mysticism. My Christian beliefs are those of Marcus Borg ... Jesus never said he was god.

You asked for none of the above but I’m agnostic not gnostic when it comes to Mary. The bottom line ... SOME of her followers thought she was the one with the true vision. Similar to John’s followers. I’m not with John. Too Greek, too mystical.

[MineralMan]

48. Modern Christianity is based on a scriptural Canon created by

Romans, for Romans. It's no wonder that the Roman, Paul, plays such a large role in it. Once the official canon was adopted, that fixed Christianity into a single mold, based on a politically motivated editing of whatever documents actually existed and suited the model that was preferred.

Had it not been for the Roman church, Christianity would probably have withered and died early on. That it did not is a testament to the genius of some old Romans, who needed a modernized religion that was simpler than the old polytheistic one.

Of course, the Biblical Canon is not a modern document at all. It's almost 1700-1800 years old. It's pre-medieval and basically has not changed at all. It is yet another ancient scripture that has long outlived its time. Its iron-age message has rusted, corroded, and no longer has the strength it once did.

The only thing keeping it alive is tradition. In the 21st century, it is beginning to fade away more quickly. It lost its relevance long ago, but religions die very slowly, due to tradition.

Anyhow, talking about things that happened in the time of Jesus is pretty much foolishness. We have no idea. We have no real concept of life as it was at that time. We just don't know very much about those times, really, on a personal level. But, we're still human, and still have questions that are difficult to answer. Religion has always appealed to those who demand answers to unanswerable questions. So, religion has survived. So far. How much longer? I don't know.

[guillaumeb]

56. Wrong.

Google Council of Nicea.

All of the Bishops were not Romans.

[Voltaire2]

59. Ok let us all google

"Constantine had invited all 1,800 bishops of the Christian church within the Roman Empire"

"Delegates came from every region of the Roman Empire, including Britain."

Wiki

Which of these people were not Romans?

[Act_of_Reparation]

78. Insolence!

[MineralMan]

62. The Canon is Roman, Guy.

The New Testament is a Roman compilation and edit. Give us a break.

[MaryMagdaline]

49. I reread your post. You're right.

There is no contemporaneous account of any of this. No one is to be believed more than any other.

I’m still intrigued by the characters, much like fiction. I end up defending my favorite characters against other people’s characters and I feel sometimes I’m in a highly charged book club. I forget sometime that this is literal truth to some people.

I remember laughing at a line in one of the gospels saying something like “Who is this guy Jesus? Nothing good ever came out of ____ (Jesus’s home town)” and the rural Baptist preacher at the church I was visiting kinda started. It was an obvious ironic line in the Bible ... the writer was clearly enjoying himself but we were not supposed to laugh. The Bible was real and not literature. I often forget. I think this is why many of my atheist friends hate all discussion of the Bible and they wish we would all shut up. Too many people killed because of a book taken way too seriously.

[guillaumeb]

55. If you ignore the Dead Sea Scrolls,

you ignore what might be contemporaneous accounts.

And that way, you can claim that there are no contemporaneous accounts.

Interesting how one can arbitrarily decide to exclude information that might refute a position.

[MineralMan]

61. Virtually all Old Testament texts.

Not a sign so far of anything about Jesus by any name. I've seen the lists of documents.I

Do you suppose people have not been searching for something having to do with Jesus?

How long will you wait for a contemporaneous account?

[Voltaire2]

64. Gospel of Mary is a 2nd century text.

It was discovered in 1893, and has nothing to do with the Dead Sea scrolls. The copy discovered is part of the Berlin Codex is from the 5th century. Two other fragments have been discovered since then.

It also isn’t clear which Mary is being referred to in the text, Magdalene is a strong contender.

[MaryMagdaline]

65. Correct. I confused gospel of Mary with Dead Sea scrolls

[Act_of_Reparation]

72. I look forward to your exciting mansplanation of this assertion.

[trotsky]

77. You'll just have to trust guillaumeb.

He just knows what's good for women, I guess.

[edhopper]

50. Oh! Oh! Let me!

[guillaumeb]

81. For a few, silliness passes for dialogue.