Buy new:
$20.00$20.00
+ $16.18
shipping
Arrives:
Wednesday, Dec 21
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy used:: $14.39
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle Cloud Reader.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle Paperback – January 1, 2003
| Karen L. King (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
| Price | New from | Used from |
- Kindle
$0.00 Read with Kindle Unlimited to also enjoy access to over 3 million more titles $9.99 to buy - Paperback
$20.0035 Used from $8.88 14 New from $16.00
Enhance your purchase
Karen L. King tells the story of the recovery of this remarkable gospel and offers a new translation. This brief narrative presents a radical interpretation of Jesus' teachings as a path to inner spiritual knowledge. It rejects his suffering and death as a path to eternal life and exposes the view that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute for what it is - a piece of theological fiction. The Gospel of Mary of Magdala offers a fascinating glimpse into the conflicts and controversies that shaped earliest Christianity.
- Print length230 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPolebridge Press
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 2003
- Dimensions6 x 0.51 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100944344585
- ISBN-13978-0944344583
More items to explore
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Best faith books of 2003 ... accessible and fascinating ... This book will have special appeal to those interested in history and whose devotion to the New Testament has them searching for a deeper understanding of the origins of Christian scripture. --St. Louis Post Dispatch
Karen King s Gospel of Mary of Magdala is a book that many readers are waiting for a complete translation of the Gospel of Mary together with a lucidly written, marvelously informative discussion of where it comes from and what it means. --Elaine Pagels, Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion at Princeton University
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Polebridge Press; 0 edition (January 1, 2003)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 230 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0944344585
- ISBN-13 : 978-0944344583
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.51 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #69,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #132 in History of Christianity (Books)
- #176 in Christian Church History (Books)
- #205 in Christian Bible Study Guides (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviewed in the United States on July 22, 2022
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
I then found this book. So far- so good. Reading it, it was obvious that Yeshua never said anything close to , "...the child of true Humanity".
Then it comes out on page 33. The author took the liberty to translate 'kingdom' as 'realm'... and the phrase "Son of man" is translated "child of true Humanity."
Wow. So, the author criticizes those in the first century who 'doctored texts to their liking' - and then goes and does the same thing? - You just lost my confidence in you.
I understand the pain. Misogyny is real. Mankind has not been favorable to women, much less to spiritual women.
Anyone who indeed is a spiritual new creation who has died with Messiah - and that it has been revealed in/to them that there is no longer Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free is not going to get a welcome from the world- or (especially) from the religions of the world.
The usual way to deal with such 'troublemakers' in history is to either shut them up for good (ie: death) - or to cast a slur on their character and/or their purity as a female. Such it was, and so it will continue.
The author does get into the history of the early church ( a mess...) but remember that in all of the murkiness of the first hundreds of years of the common era, there was a LOT of struggle for authority and re-writing of 'history'. People who stood for truth and for the Way of the Lord like Polycarp - were simply disposed of as heretics. (And THAT is the 'church' that women are trying to be recognized and be a part of yet today?! Most churches are 'rebellious catholics' by their worldly calendar and pyramid structure...)
A better subject for the author to follow in another book, in my opinion, would be how Yeshua treated women. He sent the woman at the well to preach to her fellow townsmen and women of her revelation and testimony. He didn't have a problem with her doing that. Yet she didn't need any 'official ordination', - she just DID it out of the obedience of faith to the word of her Messiah.
Also, take Lydia - the first convert of Paul. Another female. Another first. What is this saying? Think.
If someone's gospel can only go back to where the man and women fell in disobedience the garden, then they will be against women. ( Like Adam, gotta blame her...) Yet she was duped - her intent was to do him good with more knowledge, but he failed to protect her...
But if one indeed is IN Messiah - who was breathed forth at the beginning from God when He said, "Let there be LIGHT" (follow the word Light through the scriptures) - then there WAS no division between male and female there at that point , it is spirit. That is where one has to come to -and rest/ abide in. A spiritual being in a temporary human vessel - like Yeshua - walking as he walked. ( As Mary Magdalene walked.)
Our translator would first dispute that this is a Gnostic treatise-or even that such a group as "Gnostics" ever existed (p. 155). That they were perceived as heretical by the emerging catholic ("universal," as opposed to Gnostic interiority) hegemony can hardly be disputed. Witness Irenaeus "Against Heresy," Paul's efforts to refute what remained of the ancient Greek mystery religions, or the legions of Roman soldiers guarding entrance to Constantine's council wherein Official (i.e., Roman Catholic) Christianity was born-without the help of Gnostic midwifery, thank you very much. One can only wonder what her real point here is. Maybe they buried entire libraries out in the desert after a cook-out? Or was it a college prank by sophmorish imitators of Ialdabaoth ("Abandon hope, all ye who incarnate here")?
"Contrary to popular Western tradition, Mary Magdalene was never a prostitute [149]." This is ridiculous, as a devout friend of mine from the Orthodox Church knows very well. Could the Magdalene have been a sacred prostitute, in the Isis tradition? Or an adulterer, metaphorically mixing up spirit with matter (p. 50)? Never mind all that "theological fiction [p. 3]:" history and institution are more important than individual and meaning, and so our learned author would overturn millennia of art, literature and archetypal symbolism incarnated in the Magdalene (see Haskins, "Mary Magdalene;" Starbird, "Woman with the Alabaster Jar"). There is a surprisingly good section on Plato [pp. 41-44, 50-53] including moments of humor (for example, when our learned author, a Harvard professor, calls Plato an elitist [pp. 52, 194]).
The author suggests that, since the relationship to Judaism was central to defining Christianity, "the impact [of the Magdalene's gospel] on Jewish-Christian relations must be a vital consideration [p. 40])." That is, since everyone else in the Church has been doing it this way for the past 2000 years, we must do so as well. This seems to me little short of ridiculous. Is not the point to free ourselves from the accidents of history, to interpret what little has survived of Jesus' teachings from a broader spiritual standpoint, a yoga of spiritual practice rather than dogma and official sanctioned belief? How anyone can correctly understand that "Son of Man" is not a messianic title but a reference to the True Self within (p. 60), yet still ignore Gnosis and choose instead to be bound by 2000 years of politics, errors and historical accidents is quite beyond me.
This translation/commentary will appeal to believing Christians seeking to push the envelope a bit in the direction of the G-word, to those of feminist persuasion, and to anyone who likes seeing facsimiles of the original papyri [pp. 19-27]. For free spirits, yogis and Gnostics of all persuasion, whose understanding of spirituality remains unbound by any external church, better translations & more perennial commentaries can be found in Jean-Yves Laloup (as a Frenchman, his wide-ranging discourse can occasionally be hard to follow), the unsurpassable Marvin Meyer's excellent collection/translation, "The Gospels of Mary," and MacRae & Wilson's translation in Robinson's "Nag Hammadi Library."
The true, inner meaning of these gospels will be revealed by study of and comparison with Eastern meditative traditions, including yoga, not by remaining hidebound by the Church. "Rather than accept an external authority, [we ourselves] are to discover the truth [p. 32]"-isn't this the real message of all Gnostic gospels, including Magdalene's? Three & ½ stars.
Top reviews from other countries
Ms King clearly shows how misleading it is to label willy-nilly all non-canonical scriptural writings as 'gnostic', a term not in use when The Gospel of Mary of Magdala was compiled, probably early in the Second Century AD, which pre-dates quite a number of the books currently included in the New Testament canon. We can now be more certain than ever that women played an important role in the leadership of the very early Church when, doctrine-wise, Christianity was more deeply divided than it is today when Plymouth Brethren and Roman Catholics have more in common with each other than did the various factions in those far off days. The problem that now faces us is, which of those early factions was nearest to the teaching of Jesus? When the Gospel of Mary of Magdala talks about 'The Saviour' is he the same person as the Christ written about by Saint Paul? Is the Pauline Christ the same person as the Jesus who was the close friend of Mary of Magdala? Have we been 'led up the garden path' by a frustrated hoard of power-hungry, mysoginistic male mega-egoists? History clearly teaches us that male-dominated Christianity of most kinds has made a hash of things. Seeing as Mary of Magdala had a very special relationship with Jesus, it's surely time that pontificating males stood aside and handed the leadership of Christianity over to the ladies. I'm all for that.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 18, 2022












