[b said:
Quote[/b] (Amateur_Expert @ Jan. 13 2005,5:10)]Exactly how much do you know about her?
I now the Biblical account of her and have read a little about her extra-biblical / mythical lore about her. I gather this is where you want to focus. I took the liberty to cut & paste a synopsis of the Biblical and mythical info about her:
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene has been the object of devotion, curiosity, and misunderstanding for almost 2000 years. Most people today (and in many centuries past) would identify her as a reformed prostitute who became one of Jesus's followers. But nothing in the biblical record shows her to have been a prostitute. Rather, scholars today think that she was a woman with independent means who was one of Jesus's main followers and supporters and perhaps his closest disciple. Her characterization as a prostitute comes from her having been confused with other women mentioned in the canonical (that is, official biblical) sources.
Mary is mentioned in all four canonical gospel accounts, where she appears as the first-named of Jesus's female followers and as the first to encounter Jesus after his resurrection. So the account in Mark, the earliest of the gospels (written ca. 70 C.E.), reads:
There were also women looking on [at the crucifixion] from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem. When evening had come, and since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Aramathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. . . . Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid.
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mk 15.40-43, 46-16.1-8).
A later addition to Mark calls Mary Magdalene the woman "from whom [Jesus] had cast out seven demons" (16.9).
John, probably the last of the gospels to be written (in the last decade of the first century), expands on the scene at the tomb:
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus's head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.:" When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not yet hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, `I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (Jn 20.1-18).
The accounts in Matthew and Luke (both written probably in the 80s) also show Mary as the first to see the resurrected Jesus and the one who first told the news to the male disciples. Luke says "Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them" (Lk 24.10-22). Matthew's account has an angel who descends from heaven telling "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary":
"Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, `He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greeting!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me" (Mt 28.1, 5-10).
Because of her announcement of the resurrection to the other disciples, she was known in the ancient world as "the apostle to the apostles."
But this characterization was soon superseded by the image of Mary as a reformed prostitute, a notion that arose because of a tendency to confuse Mary with other women in the gospel accounts, both other women named "Mary" (including Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary of Bethany) and unnamed women. The most influential confusion was with accounts of women who anointed Jesus (that is, poured oil on him, an action with ritual significance). Mark's account of this event goes like this:
While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, "Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And they scolded her. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her" (Mk 14.3-9).
John's account (12.1-8) provides a variation on this story, with Mary of Bethany, another of Jesus's followers, named as the woman who anoints Jesus's feet. In John's account, it is Judas, Jesus's betrayer, who complains about the waste of money.
Luke's account, while clearly relying on the same source, changes many of its details, making the unnamed woman a "sinner," probably a euphemism for "prostitute":
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this many were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him--that she is a sinner.:"[Jesus, who can read the Pharisee's mind, tells him a parable about forgiveness.] Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves. "Who is this who even forgives sins?" And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace" (Lk 7.36-50).
Mary Magdalene also appears in an important noncanonical gospel account--that is, a gospel, or the "good news," written early in the history of the Christian church but not accepted in the canon or official list of Christian scriptures. The Gospel of Mary was preserved by a community of Gnostic Christians, a group whose theology and christology differed significantly from that of other early groups of Christians, all of whom were competing in the first Christian centuries to establish their particular understanding of Jesus as the orthodox or "right-thinking" account. Some Gnostics had women leaders at a time when other Christian sects were becoming increasingly conservative about gender roles. The example of Mary Magdalene no doubt provided a justification for women's leadership roles among the Gnostics. It is not surprising, then, that these Christian communities preserved The Gospel of Mary. (Follow the link and read this ancient text.)
This exalted image of Mary did not survive, however. Rather, the confusion of Mary Magdalene with other gospel women created a composite characterization of a reformed prostitute who came to be identified in Western art by the alabaster jar of costly ointment she always carried with her and often by a scourge or whip that she beat herself with as a penance for her sins which, in spite of the gospel accounts, never seemed to be forgiven. Her role as the apostle to the apostles was soon forgotten.
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Personally, I'd say was an excellent example of how a person recognized their sin and had a conversion experience. My guess is that you want to talk about the other.