The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is Not a Gnostic Gospel
by James Bean
On International Women’s Day I was watching a Syrian Orthodox gathering that was being streamed online, and much to my surprise one of the speakers began reading from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and discussing it! They were using Karen King’s translation^^ that includes some Greek Oxyrhynchus variants that I had not been aware of, a couple more precious stray verses not typically included in most of the other translations, more lost words we can treasure in this rare gospel that remains filled with lacuna and missing chapters, which hopefully will be unearthed one day from the sands of Egypt. So refreshing to find them favorably mentioning the Gospel of Mary and reflecting upon the leadership role of women in the early church. Like a glitch in the Matrix! So unexpected but wonderful to stumble upon that conversation in this highly unusual out-of-place Orthodox context.
The Gospel of Mary, as with Thomas and a few other adjacent “dialogues gospels” and wisdom texts (^^^ listed below), are simply early Christian writings in the genre of New Testament apocrypha and have no discernible theologies that can be associated with Valentinian, Sethian, Manichaean, or any other sect given the label “Gnostic”. They are writings consisting of conversations between Jesus and the disciples, and conversations amongst the disciples that offer much wisdom and insight. The composers of some of those texts also seem to have had knowledge of the Gospel of Thomas. I wish we could somehow learn more about those Christian groups of the Second Century that valued scriptures like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Whoever they were, they seem like interesting souls with a rich spiritual heritage, “a faith that once was delivered to the saints.”
^^ Karen King’s translation: The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle;
^^^ New Testament apocryphal books adjacent to the Gospel of Mary not necessarily “Gnostic”:
The Book of Thomas the Spiritual Athlete (Spiritual Contender), in the Nag Hammadi Library;
The Gospel of the Savior, a more recently translated Coptic language text published in the second and third editions of, The Complete Gospels, Robert J. Miller;
Dialogue of the Savior, in the Nag Hammadi Library;
The Secret Book of James, in, The Complete Gospels, Robert J. Miller;
The Teachings of Silvanus, in the Nag Hammadi Library;
Book of the Knowledge of the Invisible God, a generally ignored, unrecognized and yet quite valuable dialogues gospel embedded in the Bruce Codex (The First Book of JEU or IEOU, chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4);
