Mary Magdelene has been victimized over the centuries. She has been labeled a prostitute, fallen woman, and other fanciful descriptions which reveal more about the scholars than about her.
1. Are we guilty of bearing false witness against this woman?
2. Why has it been so easy to label this woman as 'fallen' when nothing in scripture leads to that description?
What we know from scripture is that she was from a place called Magdela, she had seven demons which Jesus cast from her, and she was a faithful and constant presence in his ministry from then until she ran to inform his male followers he had risen from the dead.
1. Why do we first assume she was a young, vital, and beautiful woman? The success of the theory assuming Jesus and Mary were a couple is predicated on the assumption she was young, but on what is this based?
2. Earliest chuch writers recognized her first as 'the apostle to the apostles' yet soon she was denigraded to a fallen woman....and we have allowed her to stay there since then.
After that, events are less clear. Some sources based on early legends of the church say she became a companion to Mary the Mother, may have assisted John in writing his Gospel and may have traveled to Epheseus.
1. If she was an more mature woman there would be fewer 'stories' of her post-resurrection because she would have died.
2. The strong model of the 'wise woman' and the 'mother in Israel' from Judaism and the O.T. needs to be considered when interpreting the role of women in the nascent Christ-followers. This is something early, Greek and Roman and European scholars and clerics, may have totally missed. Women did have those roles or honors in those societies so naturally in the early formalized church these roles are minimized and controled and eventually eliminated.
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