Lori_7: MW, What is it that is written by Paul in the NT that doesn't agree with what Jesus said here? Can you explain? I don't know what you're referring to. I'm interested because just recently I had an interaction with a co-worker. It was one of those "more than coincedental" interactions...not that I believe anything to be coincedence anymore. Part of the conversation was about the book "The Davinci Code". She had read it, and was telling me about it. She had also read a biography of Mary Magdelene, and she suggested that I read these books. Throughout this past year, since this experience happened to me...with the rock star...God has used different people to speak to me...to teach me things that I need to know...works of art sometimes...songs, poetry, movies, paintings, and books. I just got the strong feeling that God was going to convey something to me through her...and through this book that I'm supposed to read.
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MW*: Lori, I have only recently been reading The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels (Professor of Religion at Princeton -- I believe). Translations of the Gnostic Gospels indicate first-hand evidence of Jesus' actual words to MM, Philip and Thomas. That's as far as I have gotten in the book. What Paul wrote (Epistles were written BEFORE the NT Gospels and influenced the writers of the NT Gospels) was not first-hand. Paul created the myth of Jesus, including Jesus' words, when he had never met Jesus. The closest person to Paul who would have known Jesus is Peter, but Peter rebelled against Jesus and even later against Paul, so Paul cannot be trusted as a biographer of Jesus. Paul has a long criminal history of being a liar, thief and murderer. He tried to destroy the Jerusalem church and threw Jesus' brother James off a balcony to his death. Paul did everything he could to destroy what Jesus taught. That is the basic difference between Paul's epistles which influenced the gospels. Everything quoted by Jesus in the NT is a lie! Paul made it all up. Paul was delusional -- history confirms that. All christians who believe in the words of Paul, believe a lie. If you really want to know Jesus, look to sources other than the NT.
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Lori: I was thinking about Mary today...what it must have been like to have been in her shoes. A former prostitute and all of the baggage that came with it...how she must have been treated by everyone...but particularly by men, and in a sexual way. Hurt, jaded, demeaned, abused, numb, cold, ashamed, alone...hopeless. And then to have been saved. Knowing the love of Christ is so amazing...His love is incomparable. But to be His wife...to have Jesus as a husband. To try to imagine just how grateful she must have been. She must have thought she died and went to heaven. How grateful must she have been...now that's redemption. And that is Him...that is so Him...to restore her and redeem her in that way...that's exactly what He is like... that is so Him. To take a broken and hard hearted prostitute, and heal her and redeem her and restore her with His love, and to be the wife of Christ Himself. She must have felt like the luckiest woman in the whole world. I can relate...because of what he's done for me...I feel that way too. But I know there is no such thing as luck.
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M*W: First, MM was not a prostitute at all! That's what Paul wrote. She was a woman of high stature in her community and Jesus' lover and wife. She had great spiritual teachings that she told Jesus' followers. Paul created her as a prostitute, but in those days, the word 'prostitute' didn't mean 'whore' or 'street walker.' It meant a woman of independent means. Something that the misogyny of the day abhored. Those 'seven demons' Jesus supposedly exorcised out of MM was a lie. I believe it was a code word used for the 'seven seas.' Even the name 'Mary' is derived from 'Mer' meaning the sea. She lived in the coastal town of Bethany where seafaring was the main enterprise. She probably owned some kind of seafaring business or inherited it, etc. That Jesus exorcised these 'seven demons' from Mary probably meant that she gave up the business of seafaring. She was a wise woman and may have even influenced Jesus' teachings. I've read a lot about MM. Nowhere in the NT does it refer to MM being a prostitute or a woman of ill repute, however, somewhere I have read that myself, but it is simply not true.
MM was the closest person on earth to Jesus, and Jesus loved her intimately. The male apostles were jealous, but their unfound jealousy was sort of homophobic.
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Lori: Anyway, I'm interested in what you're talking about if you care to explain a bit.
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M*W: Since I've explained only a small part of what you've asked, before you disbelieve it, why don't you look up on the web about MM and Jesus. There's quite a bit of information there confirming what I've said. Of course, there are many, many books out there that tell the true story of Jesus and MM. Although I am no longer a christian, the stories I have read about MM make Jesus' existence authentic to me. If MM is real, so is JC. Unfortunately, I don't believe he was the Messiah. Perhaps MM was.
Sounds like Philip said to himself, "So this guy picks up 12 other guys and wanders around with them, telling them specifically to leave their wives behind..... too gay!"