Mary Magdalene may not have been a
prostitute after all, nor even, perhaps the unnamed woman
Jesus stopped from getting
stoned. There is actually nothing in the
Bible that explicitly calls her a prostitute, and that belief derived from implication and innuendo.
Rumors that have arisen recently about Mary Magdalene (recently meaning over the last couple milennia) and her true relationship to Jesus and company:
- Mary was one of the original apostles. All references suggesting as much were removed by the early Church when redacting and adopting the Canon. This is suggested by her strange prominence in all of Jesus' doings. At the least, she must have been an extremely devoted disciple to tag along with Jesus for so long.
- Mary was a temple prostitute. Some have suggested that Mary was actually a temple prostitute of some pagan religion, converted to Jesus' theology.
- Mary was very rich, and actually bankrolled Jesus' cause. According to some, the only women who might have been as independent and unfettered as Mary seemed to be were either whores or wealthy landowners who inherited money and land from their spouses/brothers/fathers. By this, if she wasn't a prostitute, she would, therefore, be a wealthy landowner, respectable and powerful.
- Many have pointed out that Jesus was a respected teacher and rabbi. And yet by Jewish tradition (then and now), a rabbi wasn't supposed to be an ascetic, removed life and life's pleasures; rather, a rabbi was supposed to be married and have many kids. A great deal of people have suggested that Mary was married to Jesus. From this starting point, two theories have arisen:
- Mary's baby was Barabbas, and Jesus didn't die young. Barabbas grew up to become a zealot, was captured, and then scheduled to be crucified. Jesus arranged himself to be crucified in his son's stead, and the Barabbas of the Bible who was mysteriously chosen to live over Jesus was his son.
- The second theory is even more outlandish: Jesus got Mary pregnant, and then Jesus was crucified. Fearful for her unborn child's life, Mary fled to southern France under the protection of Joseph of Arimathea. Her child was born, a girl named Sophia. From there, the bloodline of Jesus continued on (the famed holy grail that supposedly carried Jesus' blood was actually Mary's womb). Supposedly, this bloodline can be found in the original rulers of France and Ireland. The Knights Templar were formed in order to protect said bloodline (some even say that the Knights Templar were of that bloodline). Their order was, of course, destroyed in order to surpress/eliminate this heresy from the Earth.
Many of these theories and implications were developed from superstition, vague implications in Christian cannon, and some slightly more plain implications in
The Gnostic Gospels.
I don't really believe any of them. They are interesting, though, and they do offer an interesting perspective on history.