Debating the Resurrection, Jesus, Magdalene on Easter Sunday

I posted “Did the Resurrection Actually Happen?” by Dinesh D’Souza to several of the various YahooGroups forums I moderate. D’Souza is a mainstream Christian whose arguments, I think, are very good and very useful to esoteric and alternative Christians who believe in the historicity of Jesus and yes, in the resurrection.

Dr. James Gardner responded with the Jesus Police.com website’s intellectual tear-down of the resurrection – it was “just literary”, it didn’t really happen, Mark made it up, t’was added later, etc. etc. Boring, dry argument designed to make us all exclaim, “Aha! We were lied to!” And then go forth as miserably depressed myth-bashers and atheists like the Jesus Police author(s).

Such nay-sayers poo-poohing all our myths and making our spiritual stories nothing but dry historical events, lifeless “legends” that despite a total “lack of value” nevertheless caused supposedly deluded people to faithfully record them. Even though the Jesus story is completely lacking in any spiritual value according to the JesusPolice intellectuals, lacking in any luminosity, our ancestors recorded and repeated these myths over and over for centuries. Nothing supernatural — “above and beyond nature” — nothing greater than our chemical selves has ever really happened, dontcha know. Blah blah blah, delusion and ignorance of the masses, and pooo pooo pooh, is what they do on Jesus Police.com. The Adversary is probably very pleased with them. But then I am an ignorant, deluded, naïve so-and-so for even believing in the Adversary.

The only page of theirs I like is their Magdalene page because I agree with their factual analysis of her. But the Jesus Police, like countless other “scholars” fall short and refuse to give Magdalene her Feminine Divine aspect. At least they agree she was a real historical person (while seeming to doubt Jesus was!), but they make her dry, unluminous, just another literary figure….

Still they’ve got the Magdalene facts right (in my opinion) even to the point of quoting “our” Margaret Starbird and Bishop Spong.

Lore and I had an exchange regarding the “Did the Resurrection Actually Happen” article as follows:

lkemsley at verizon.net writes:

Oh, boy, I’m having a hard time deciding: do I blow his assertions
out of the water (so easy to do), or do I just be quiet because most
people need the belief in the physical resurrection? It isn’t that
belief that bothers me, but his inaccuracies, like the statement that
there is so much proof for his historicity. There is none.

Hi Lore: The writer of the article is Dinesh D’Souza. He is the author of What’s So Great About Christianity, a new and useful book.

Yes he’s a mainstream Christian, altho he’s a bit unique in that he was born and raised in India where Christianity is somewhat esoteric. Dinesh D’Souza gives all kinds of Christians, including us underground streamers aka esoterics, many useful tools to use when we debate with atheists, Satanists (I occasionally encounter such via our website and the online Mystery School), with those who think Jesus never existed, was just a fable. As D’Souza points out in the article, there is more proof of Jesus’ historicity than there is for Aristotle and Pythagoras and countless other figures — yet nobody doubts they existed.

And ” Arriving three days after his death, the women brought spices
to his tomb to anoint and preserve his body. Only then did they
observe that the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty.”
ignores MM’s importance completely.

True, he is not Margaret Starbird (hee hee, wish he was), nor is he an alternative or esoteric Christian, and so he does not share our reverence for and belief in Magdalene’s prominence.

And “The apostles were deeply skeptical about reports of a
resurrection, and Christ had to appear to them several times before
these doubts were dispelled.” does the same.

Much of history ignored Magdalene’s importance, she was cloistered away, secreted away, protected from Paul the persecutor-turned-Christian whose writings are a large part of early Christianity. The mainstream Christians like Dinesh D’Souza are still getting used to our revolutionary revelation of Magdalene’s role in Jesus’ life and the heart of Christianity. Just because they haven’t got the new message yet, the feminine divine message, we can still find use for such mainstream arguments in any place our beliefs overlap or intersect.

Ever notice how dry the “just the facts, ma’am” approach is? How
lacking in passion? There is not one word of the intensity of that
week in his argument. I use that approach too, quite often, but it is
hard to do on this [Easter] morning. None of his [D’Souza’s] inaccuracies make the
stunning events of this week any less important. I long ago came to
the conclusion that even if not one word of it is literally true, the
mythological truth of it is astounding and deeply needed.

Dinesh D’Souza is a mainstream but not fundamentalist Christian — and very left brained. Reminds me of Thomas Aquinas in some ways. His style is that of debate, using logic and all that male left-brain mode of argument which is actually helpful to have in one’s communication toolbag, I think. He is scheduled to debate Christopher Hitchens in Las Vegas about the existence of God. Hitchens you recall wrote the book God is Not Great and is convinced there is no god, no supernatural, no luminous myth, nothing but chemical reactions and psychosis in our brains. His debate with D’Souza is going to be a big event. D’Souza has debated other atheists (he debates one per year at this venue) and now he’s gonna face Christopher Hitchens who no longer believes in the Judaism of his childhood, thinks Christianity and Islam are proof of the evil of religion because of all the wars they “caused”. D’Souza points out, and will no doubt do so during their debate, that atheist states like the Soviet Union and China, and the 3rd Reich which was what — occult pagan? with a secretly Catholic leader? — killed way more people, and did so recently compared to Christianity.

We are all Children of Divine Love. We’ll all be “resurrected” with
or without our physical bodies, although why we’d want physical
bodies in an ethereal world is beyond me. There was no evil in Eve or
her seeking Wisdom, no original sin to atone for, no reason for a
petty, jealous god to demand his only begotten son to die in agony to
atone for a single one of us. We live eternally, with or without his
death and resurrection.

I agree with you on all of the above, and discuss on our Mystery School’s Easter Cycle page my belief that God-the-Father was not the petty jealous god we have been taught who demanded human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was anathema to the Old Testament God as we see in the account of Abraham being stopped by God from sacrificing his boy, Isaac. Hebrew scholars have pointed out this story was the Old Testament God’s way of communicating his strong desire for people to STOP the prevalent ancient Middle East practice of sacrificing babies, children and virgins to all those supposedly hungry “gods”.

I also agree we live eternally with our without his death and resurrection, but I don’t think we should just throw the resurrection onto the dust-heap of history and call it “mere myth.” It’s the lynchpin story-myth that connects Jesus to Tammuz and Osiris and the glorious annual return of vegetation with its hope of food (no grocery stores in the ancient world). As Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkein said to his buddy CS Lewis, “The Christian story is a myth that just also happens to be historically true.” It is both myth and the physical fulfilment of myth. Very cool. The Jesus myth is like an onion with layers, like a dream symbol that means several things all at once.

But the image of his love, the love of Magdalene, the pain of separation and
the need to know we (even more for those we love than ourselves)
survive after death — all of that each and every one of us needs,
not just on Easter but every day of our lives.

For sure. And on Easter we think of it even more and can help reenact it in our lives.  We can use the holiday as a teaching moment for the little ones coming up who need to learn the power and healing of humanity’s myths.

I’m a dawn person. I love the sounds and smells of dawn. The birds
waking up all atwitter, then breaking into song. My four-legged
friends calling to me just as I first begin to stir. The sun sliding
out from behind the hills, kissing the flowers with gold. This is my
daily resurrection, my new birth, my eternal reminder that all is
well and I am loved.

Yes so true! I wish I was a dawn person…. somehow I got stuck being an after midnight to about 3 o’clock in the morning person!

Mary Magdalene went to his tomb at dawn, to care for the man she
loved more than earthly life itself. She was The Woman Who Knew The
All, yet her grief left her dazed and confused. Her grief made her
barely in this world. It appeared as little more than an annoying
haze when he spoke to her. Why was this man bothering her? Why did
she need to pay attention to him? Why couldn’t she be alone while her
heart burst?

And then all was healed. He Was There. He could be seen and felt and
touched and heard. Can we not imagine the joy of knowing that, for
sure, for all time, without mistake?

That is the knowledge and the love this morning brings back to us,
resurrected every year just as Spring arrives filled with new life,
promise and hope, just as Spring tells us we survived the ravages of
winter and abundance is now ours, once again.

* * * * * *
I hear ya. So true. I like the way you put it….
* * * * * *

It matters little to me if his physical body survived because his
soul did and his love did and mine does and eternal life is something
we share.

I like to think his physical body didn’t survive the crucifixion but died and was buried — but then Goddess and God (perhaps thru Magdalene’s mouth) said, “arise my Love.”  Arise and LIVE the myth of regeneration, the spring vegetation life-giving song mankind’s health and very existence depends upon.

I wonder if Goddess and God were teaching us you can’t kill divinity. Jesus represented the soul of the world, and each of our immortal souls. We can’t be killed, is the message. We rise again. Presumably his physical body would have later decayed or been transmuted into something spiritual.  That part esotericists disagree on. I think Blavatsky and her School (Theosophical Society) believe in a spiritual transmutation of his physical body so that it didn’t have to die again. Some Gnostics and Rosicrucians think he then aged and died like Magdalene and Mary.  Speaking of Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene, both these holy women embodied the sacred feminine just as Jesus embodied the sacred masculine.  We are fine with them dying “normally” and leaving their physical bodies at death, why not Jesus, too? One Gnostic text, Pistis Sophia, I think, teaches that he stayed after the resurrection for 11 years to continue teaching his pupils.

I think the resurrection was needed to get their message — the wisdom teachings — recorded and written down.  If the resurrection story hadn’t happened, we might all be classical pagans, members of either the Isis or Mithras cults depending on our gender (as was the rule in the Greco-Roman world).  Or we would be northern European heathens, or Muslims, or who knows what, if the resurrection story hadn’t shook up enough people to make them write it down for all time, and spread the story like wildfire.

Goddess and God knew that some of us (such as yourself, Lore!) wouldn’t need Jesus’ physical body to rise again in order to help you spiritually evolve, help you realize the inner luminosity of the myth symbols.  But they also knew (I think) that humanity as a whole needed that significant event to start the myths rolling again, to provide the catalyst to get the Great Lesson out to everyone. (okay, “Great Lesson” is a rather lame term, but you get the idea. )

Sincerely,

Katia
P.S. If you find yourself debating these issues, be sure to check out Dinesh D’Souza’s book What’s So Great About Christianity from which the article, “Did the Resurrection Actually Happen?” was adapted from.

Told In Memory of Magdalene, Day of His Anointing

The Wednesday of Holy Week is possibly the day Magdalene anointed Jesus with the oil of kings contained in an alabaster jar. To be called Messiah, a word meaning “anointed one”, Jesus had to be anointed at some point in his ministry. The rites of Sacred Marriage known throughout the ancient near east also required an anointing to establish sacred kingship. A priestess representing the holy bride would do the anointing of the sacred king, he would die and then be resurrected 3 days later as a symbol of bringing life (the life of Spring) back to the “dead” earth. The Biblical evidence points to Jesus / Yeshua and Magdalene as having carried out this ancient rite of Sacred Marriage, including the public anointing of the Messiah and King of Kings.

RationalChristianity.net says “The anointing by Mary took place in the last week before Jesus’ death (Jn 12:1, Mt 26:1-2, Mk 14:1), and Jesus said the anointing was for his burial.”

Yeshua then prophesied that Magdalene’s anointing of him did was such a significant gesture it would be told in memory of her for all time. His exact words were: “She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:9).

On Holy Thursday at the “last supper” Jesus told his students and family to “do this in memory of me,” meaning break bread and drink wine. Interesting the remembrances — both of them sacraments? — that Jesus established.

Our Order of Mary Magdala observes the Wednesday before Good Friday as the day of anointing. There is no proof that it happened on that day, but it is quite possible.

View our esoteric observances of Easter Week.

Attended Margaret Starbird Workshop Today

Husband and I went down to The Villages, Florida this morning to attend a Margaret Starbird workshop. We first met Margaret back in Spring of 1999 in Dallas and have seen her at least once a year since then. This all-day seminar with her was awesome. She had so many new slides, new tidbits, and new anecdotes. Tomorrow she will be in Tampa, then Oklahoma, back home to Washington State, Eugene Oregon (to speak at my friend musician Katherine Conrad’s Unity Church!) followed by her trip to North Carolina in April. Margaret’s full 2008 schedule is on her webpage. She’s got some eclectic items on her page, everything from intriguing artwork with mysterious symbols and their esoteric interpretations to suggested movies with the Magdalene / Yeshua Sacred Union theme.

Nice to hang out with likeminded folk today, many of them senior citizens(!) and see the growing awareness of Her, Our Divine Lady of Christianity. I got some cool new ideas for my popular God Has a Wife! presentation, too… I will be presenting it in Gainesville, Florida in March at our new Christian Goddess live study / devotion group; or come check out our nine year old GoddessChristians forum with 1400 members [Update: Now 1900 members] — all part of the work of restoring the Sacred Feminine to Judeo Christianity from which She was violently removed centuries ago.

Hope to encounter you laboring in this vineyard, too…!

-Katia

The Virgin & the Whore, Mary & Magdalene, Gnosis of Melchizedek

For our Order of Mary Magdala we have a set of lessons based on the most-inspiring book, Saint Mary Magdalene: The Gnostic Tradition of the Holy Bride, by Tau Malachi.
On page 43 in the section titled, the Union of the Bride & Yeshua there is a reference made to what Sophian gnostics call the Gnosis of Melchizedek. It reads:

“The Virgin & the Whore

Now it has been said that the Mother was the virgin and that the Bride was the whore, and both were called “Mary.” Why should the Mother be called a Virgin and the Bride called a whore? Because Mother Sophia is concealed and Bride Sophia is revealed. Anyone who seeks to know the Holy Bride will know her, but no one shall know the Mother, save the Daughter.

There is a great mystery in this, for the Mother gives birth to the Son of the Father, and the Son recognizes the Holy Bride, who is the image of her Mother. Beholding the Daughter, the Son beholds the Mother; yet Mother Sophia is ever-transcendent and it is the Daughter who is realized.

The Mother remains ever in her purity, without taint, trace, stain, nor mark, and this is also true of the Bride. Yet the Bride becomes everything and everyone, and appears to have taint and trace and stain and mark! The Mother is transparent, but the Daughter is visible light and glory and she is also fire and darkness; though in her inmost essence, the Daughter is the Mother.

Thus it has been said that Logos came for the salvation of Bride Sophia, for it is she who was bound under the dominion of the demiurgos and became the whore to the archons and even to Satan. Is not Logos the presence of awareness through which cosmic ignorance is dispelled and Wisdom nature recognized, thus enlightening and liberating the soul? A great mystery is revealed in this, for in the inmost secret teachings, the Mother and the Son and the Bride are merely personifications — what they are exists within you and is your own bornless nature. This is called the Gnosis of Melchizedek.(13) [Footnote 13: The body of inmost secret teachings of enlightenment among Sophians.]

St. Mary Magdalene sought to impart these inmost secret teachings after the Lord’s ascension. Even among the chosen apostles, few would listen and hear the secret teachings from her because she was a woman. Indeed! Rejected, the Bride was labeled a “whore” in the ignorance of men! “

June 3rd Wedding at Cana? Jesus & Magdalene’s Anniversary?

Well shoot, I missed it by one day. I meant to post this yesterday on June 3rd.

Carol from Florida (whom I met in Phoenix last month at the 3rd annual Divine Feminine conference) told me according to an Edgar Cayce book, The Life of Jesus, June 3rd is the date of the Wedding at Cana. Has anyone else heard of other dates for Cana?

Carol wrote:

I think Sunday June 3, is the same day as the wedding in Cana, the day Yeshua turned the water to wine.
Do you believe it was the wedding of Yeshua and Magdalen?
I’m having a glass of red wine to celebrate.

I wrote back: Yes, I do believe the wedding at Cana was theirs. On a trip to Israel while on the way to Cana we sat at an intersection for a long time in a bus. I looked out the window and there was a sign saying, “Magdala” and another saying “Cana” with the distance to these villages in kilometers.

A sudden impression came to me confirming a long time suspicion (but I hadn’t been sure) — the wedding was theirs. It all fit together.

Most people who don’t agree it was his wedding cite John 2:2 where it says he was invited to the wedding, which of course a bridegroom would not be invited to his own wedding. They also say John 2:12 indicates Jesus going home with his mother after the wedding, but I disagree about that. It says he and his whole band go to Capernaum for a few days (why is that going home with mother?) and that could be their honeymoon! So there.

So we were supposed to have a glass of red wine yesterday, guys! Never too late — we can have it today in honor of their wedding, in honor of him turning water into wine. The wedding feasts often lasted for a whole week in the ancient world. If not, they would be on their honeymoon about now so we can still drink to them and the Sacred Union!

Katia

Not Magdalene’s Ossuary

Here I am in a hotel outside Disney World where daughter Rhea just had her fourth birthday today.  I found this Magdalene ossuary update in my inbox.  — Katia

SCHOLAR OFFERS NEW CRITICISM OF “JESUS TOMB” DOCUMENTARY
Associated Press, March 13, 2007

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/13/africa/ME-GEN-Israel-Jesus-Tomb.php

JERUSALEM – A prominent scholar looking into the factual basis of a popular
but widely criticized documentary film that claims to have located the tomb
of Jesus said Tuesday that a crucial piece of evidence filmmakers used to
support their claim is a mistake.

Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar and paleographer at the University of the
Holy Land in Jerusalem, said he has released a paper claiming the makers of
“The Lost Tomb of Jesus” were mistaken when they identified an ancient
ossuary from the cave as belonging to the New Testament’s Mary Magdalene:

http://www.uhl.ac/MariameAndMartha

Produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and directed by Simcha
Jacobovici, the documentary has drawn intense media coverage for its claims
challenging accepted Christian dogma.

Despite widespread ridicule from scholars, it drew more than 4 million
viewers when it aired on the Discovery Channel on March 4. A companion book,
“The Jesus Family Tomb,” has rocketed to sixth place on the New York Times
nonfiction best-seller list.

The film and book suggest that a first-century ossuary found in a south
Jerusalem cave in 1980 contained the remains of Jesus, contradicting the
Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven. Ossuaries
are stone boxes used at the time to store the bones of the dead.

The filmmakers also suggest that Mary Magdalene was buried in the tomb, that
she and Jesus were married, and that an ossuary labeled “Judah son of Jesus”
belonged to their son.

The scholars who analyzed the Greek inscription on one of the ossuaries
after its discovery read it as “Mariamene e Mara,” meaning “Mary the
teacher” or “Mary the master.”

Before the movie was screened, Jacobovici said that particular inscription
provided crucial support for his claim. The name Mariamene is rare, and in
some early Christian texts it is believed to refer to Mary Magdalene.

But having analyzed the inscription, Pfann, who made a brief appearance in
the film as an ossuary expert, published a detailed article on his
university’s Web site asserting that it doesn’t read “Mariamene” at all.

The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two
different hands: the first, “Mariame,” was inscribed in a formal Greek
script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box,
another scribe using a different cursive script added the words “kai Mara,”
meaning “and Mara.” Mara is a different form of the name Martha.

According to Pfann’s reading, the ossuary did not house the bones of “Mary
the teacher,” but rather of two women, “Mary and Martha.”

“In view of the above, there is no longer any reason to be tempted to link
this ossuary…to Mary Magdalene or any other person in Biblical,
non-Biblical or church tradition,” Pfann wrote.

In the interest of telling a good story, Pfann said, the documentary engaged
in some “fudging” of the facts.

“James Cameron is a great guru of science fiction, and he’s taking it to a
new level with Simcha Jacobovici. You take a little bit of science, spin a
good yarn out of it and you get another Terminator or Life of Brian,” Pfann
said.

In Israel Tuesday for a screening of the film, the Toronto-based Jacobovici
welcomed Pfann’s criticism, saying “every inscription should be
re-examined.”

But Jacobovici said scholars who researched the ossuary in the past agreed
with the film’s reading. “Anyone who looks at it can see that the script was
written by the same hand,” Jacobovici said.

Jacobovici has faced criticism much tougher than Pfann’s academic critique. The film has been termed “archeo-porn,” and Jacobovici has been accused of “pimping the Bible.”

Jacobovici attributes most of the criticism to scholars’ discomfort with journalists “casting light into their ossuary monopoly.”

“What we’re doing is democratizing this knowledge, and this is driving some people crazy,” Jacobovici said.

 

Magdalene & Jesus Painting, meeting of souls, minds

Mary Magdalene wife of Jesus paintingLook at this! A painting of Jesus and Magdalene together in a posture of mystical unity. Also, note the Asherah headband Yeshua is wearing. And the strings, ropes, what are they all about do you think? And the blue bottle behind Magdalene — is that supposed to be her anointing jar? It isn’t made of alabaster. My daughters are looking at this painting with me now (ages three and eight) and my oldest says, “Jesus walked and pregnant Magdalene rode on the donkey.”

I had to tell them, no, that was Mother Mary in the Christmas story, this donkey apparently is carrying furniture and other gear. Three-year-old Rhea pronounces after looking at the way their hands are touching, “He loves her.” And then a long pause.

Rhea ponders. “She was married to him. She is our Queen and he is the King.”

Sketch print given to me by Margaret Starbird originally titled Forgiveness by unreadable woman artist's nameIn our Order of Mary Magdalene we have a lesson exercise in which members are asked to design in their mind a painting of Mary Magdalene and Jesus/Yeshua in unity, as equals, etc.

Several years ago Margaret Starbird gave me the print / sketch pictured at left showing Magdalene and Yeshua in a nice posture as though in love, married, etc.  It was drawn by a woman artist whose name we cannot make out.

But be sure to study the new Frank Thomas painting at the top of this post, it is gorgeous and full of symbols we could decipher together.

What catches your eye?

I just ordered a copy of it to hang in our house chapel (aka the old living room parlor). My husband decided he’d better look at it since I just paid $400 for a painting. He said the bottle behind Magdalene looks to him like a wine bottle, so together she’s got the bread and wine of the eucharist. That’s interesting the eucharist is on her side, and the beast of burden and what looks like household goods are on Yeshua’s side. Hawk added that with her back to us we don’t have to worry about whether she’s pregnant or not. This painting is not about that tired old subject.

I thought Magdalene is rather plain looking, not the beautiful “sex object” others have painted her as, a pleasant change. We don’t have to worry about beauty distracting us. Distractions about Magdalene’s body neutralized, we can focus on their two hands in union, the first thing that caught my three year old’s eye, and I imagine the first thing that most people see. I saw their hands first, too, and then his Asherah headband got my attention. Such headbands symbolized goddess-men in the ancient holy land and during King Josiah’s reign were used to identify Asherah worshippers (and priests and priestesses) who had groves and altars to Her “in the high places” on hilltops and mountains. Women may have worn the headbands, too.

Magdalene is wearing blue and white which are Madonna colors. But in New Age reckoning, blue is the color of mental strength, perhaps indicating Magdalene has a mind, she is not just a body, not a sex object. This painting illustrates a meeting of the minds, too, therefore.

Above their hands in union is the Mount of Transfiguration aka Mount Tabor, a “high place” where once God-ess was worshipped, no doubt. Below their hands in union is a well, bringing to mind Jesus being the living water but yet the living water is obtained thru imaging them together in union.

This is not the woman at the well, that takes place in Samaria and Frank Thomas the painter says this is Magdalene and Jesus. His exact phrasing is: “JESUS and the MAGDALENE” (…Evening in the City of Nazareth…) Original 35″ x 48″ (12 sq. ft.) Acrylic/Canvas Painting by Artist Frank Thomas of Holden, Utah Artist comment: “My New Testament painting of the Christ, for women.” … Frank Thomas

See a larger version of the painting here as part of our God Has a Wife! slide show

Sophie2Uagain writes:

What about Jesus’ right hand in gesture? A hand sign?

Yeah, I was wondering about that, thinking of “occult” sign language hand signs I know.  This one seems to be a combination of two.  The painter is a Mormon so he may be depicting more “modern” sign language, even masonic since the LDS Church uses some of the masonic hand signs and grips.

If modern is what the painter is after, see how Jesus’ hand is clearly making a capital L, perhaps saying I am the Life, or water of Life.

It also looks like he’s about to wrap the rope around their wrists to do a hand-fasting.  This is fun, fun — deciphering a painter’s code.

Anyone else? C’mon!

Katia

Magdalene: Dresser of Women’s Hair, Yeshu

I have been reading a Wikipedia article about a Jewish character named Yeshu who lived around 100 BC.  He is mentioned in ancient Hebrew writings and a medieval Pope made the Jews remove all such Yeshu references from their books.  Luckily the Jews hid away uncensored copies of the Babylonian Talmud and other writings so we know about this Yeshu dude who pre-dates Christ, has a mother named Miriam, is born out of wedlock and gets executed for apostasy or magic or both.

Here is an excerpt that has Jesus’ mother Mary called “magdalene”.  Confusing, but most fascinating.

The character of Miriam the dresser of woman’s hair is of interest. (Her name is also mentioned briefly in Chagigah 4b in the Babylonian Talmud where it is used together with Miriam the teacher of children simply as an arbitrary choice of names in illustrating a point.) Some suggest that the expression “dresser of women’s hair” is a euphemism for a woman of ill repute. The original Aramiac for her name is Miriam megadela neshaya in which many see Mary Magdalene. Some have thus identified her with Mary Magdalene while others are more cautious merely suggesting dresser of women’s hair as a possible meaning of Magdalene alternate to the traditional understanding of the name as a toponymic surname. -  from the Talmud, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshu

* * * * * * * * * * *

The above is from the Talmud and is calling Mother Mary “magdala” meaning dresser of women’s hair.  Mary is also referred to in one place in the Babylonian Talmud as “Miriam, teacher of children”.  So maybe the Miriam e mara in the supposed Jesus family tomb was a “master” teacher.  We are told “e mara” means “known as a master”.  Then there is the other Mary buried there, too, the one who is supposed to be Jesus’ mother and spells her name Maria in the Greek fashion. 

Some scholars think one of those Marys is Mary Salome, Jesus’ aunt.

Why oh why are so many of them named Mary?– we can’t sort ’em all out!    The first Miriam in recorded history, sister of Moses was a teacher of the Children of Israel, right? She even taught their messiah, Moses.  A teacher of the Messiah.  And prophetess, seeress, songstress…  I have a cool tome called The Five Books of Miriam, meaning the Torah as if SHE had written it, not her brother. Here is the first sentence: “TORAH SPEAKS: In the beginning, Shekhinah, the Holy-One-Who-Dwells-in-This-World, spins the world into being: light, water, earth, heavenly bodies, seed-bearing plants, sea creatures, birds, animals-and Adam…”

Anyway, the dresser of women’s hair title is partially explained in the Wiki excerpt above.  The word was supposedly a euphemism for whoredom.  Of course, what else could it mean!  Women in the ancient world were virgins or prostitutes, nothing in between. Yeah, right.  Dubiousness aside, the fact that hairdressers were supposedly whores is probably why a woman with the epithet Magdalene got labelled a prostitute. 

Jewish scholars who read the New Testament and encounter Mary Magdalene know that Magdalene is Greek for Magdala (Aramaic) and that it means dresser of women’s hair.  They have no problem therefore seeing why she was called a prostitute.

* * * * * * * * * * *

All of this is from a search I was doing about the Yeshu of 100 BC: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshu#The_medieval_Toledot_Yeshu_narratives

Now don’t let the stuff on the page above about Yeshu shake your faith.  Yeshua “bore” a lot of archetypes. He embodied them just as Magdalene embodied Sophia, Isis, Inana. 
Yeshua/Jesus was Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Dionysius and the Son of God/ess.  Some
Moses-like tales were added to his life (slaughter of babies) and transfiguration on
a mountain.  These tales of Yeshu were also added to him or attributed to him.

Katia

Mariamne e mara known as the master – Magdalene?

Orthodox Icon of Maria MagdaleneOne of the ossuaries (small caskets) found in the supposedly family tomb of Jesus says:

“in Greek, Mariamne e mara — meaning ‘Mariamne, known as the master.’ “  The Jesus Tomb filmmakers say that means this is Mary Magdalene.

How come we’ve never heard this “known as the master” thing before, if it is supposedly Magdalene’s “real” name?  I’ll admit it’s fascinating since we believe our Magdalene was a teacher of wisdom.  However, Jesus was known as “the master.”  So what the heck are these filmmakers trying to prove or trying to debunk?  Are they saying Jesus wasn’t even the teacher, but Magdalene was the master?

I think this is not Jesus’ family tomb and fraudsters are enjoying trying to foist it on us.

They say in Aramaic “mara” means “master.” Yet the inscription is written in Greek, “Mariamene e Mara.”

Why wasn’t Magdalene put on the box if it was put into so many gospels, canonical and gnostic written around the same time period as the ossuary?

Here’s the excerpt I am referring to above:

The two provocative works suggest that ossuaries once containing the bones of Jesus of Nazareth and his family are now stored in a warehouse belonging to the Israel Antiquity Authority in Bet Shemesh, outside Jerusalem.

Although the evidence contained in the film and book is hardly definitive, it is compelling. Inscribed in Hebrew, Latin or Greek, six boxes — taken from a 2,000-year-old cave discovered in March, 1980, during excavation for a housing project in Talpiyot, south of Jerusalem — bear the names: Yeshua (Jesus) bar Yosef (son of Joseph); Maria (the Latin version of Miriam, which is the English Mary); Matia (the Hebrew equivalent of Matthew, a name common in the lineage of both Mary and Joseph); Yose; (the Gospel of Mark refers to Yose as a brother of Jesus); Yehuda bar Yeshua, or Judah, son of Jesus; and in Greek, Mariamne e mara — meaning ‘Mariamne, known as the master.’
According to Harvard professor Francois Bovon, interviewed in the film, Mariamne was Mary Magdalene’s real name.

The bones once contained in the boxes have long since been reburied, according to Jewish custom — in unmarked graves in Israel.

If the evidence adduced is correct, the bone boxes — and microscopic remains of DNA still contained inside — would constitute the first archaeological evidence of the existence of the Christian saviour and his family.

Tests on mitochondrial DNA obtained from the Jesus and Mariamne boxes and conducted at Lakehead University’s Paleo-DNA laboratory, in Thunder Bay, Ont., show conclusively that the two individuals were not maternally related. According to Dr. Carney Matheson, the lab’s head, this likely means they were related by marriage.

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Buried there in this supposedly family tomb of Jesus was a Matia / Matthew.  Matthew was a disciple, never listed as a brother, but since he is buried in this family tomb they now claim he was a family member.  They are stretching to make things fit.

Furthermore,  Judah / Yehuda is inscribed on another casket as bar Yeshua meaning son of Joshua (Jesus).  But the Bible says Jesus had a *brother* named Jude, not a son named Judah (Matt. 13:55.)  We have here alot of common names: Joshua, Mary, Judah and an extra Matia dude, while Joseph and James are missing and the Judah is a son of the Joshua person.  How can we know it was the family of Jesus of Nazareth/Galilee?  If they had said something like “known as the messiah”(!), or itinerate preacher and healer,  or mentioned Joseph of Arimethea whose tomb it supposedly was, maybe we might think it was the family we’re talkin’ about.

Oh, and unlike another article claims (see my blog https://northernway.org/weblog/?p=18 ) the inscription on the Joshua’s casket doesn’t read Jesus son of Mary, son of Joseph but just Jesus/Joshua son of Joseph.  There is a Maria also present in this family tomb.  They found out Jesus and the one they think is Magdalene are not maternally related but did they find out the Maria one IS maternally related to the Joshua bar Yosef one?  Seems too convenient that the bones found in the caskets are long since re-buried so we’ve only got microscopic DNA samples.  Convenient.

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Here’s another article about the Mariamene e mara inscription:

From the site for the Jesus Tomb film:

http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com/the_tomb/mariamene_e_mara.html

Mariamene e Mara

Ossuary 80/500: “Mariamene e Mara” – “Mariamne, also called Master”

The ossuary of a Jewish woman who moved in Greek circles.

The ossuary of an elite, a “Mara,” a “Master.”

The “Mara” added at the end of her name, in Aramaic, means “Master”
or “teacher.” It is usually a masculine term, but then, Mariamne was
performing duties usually restricted to men on the authority of Jesus.

Mary Magdalene was likely a woman of means, helping to fund Jesus and
his ministry. The Gospels tell us that the Magdalene, as she is
known, went with Jesus on his fateful journey to Jerusalem, where she
witnessed the Crucifixion. She was the first of the disciples to
discover the empty tomb of Jesus as well as the first to see the
Risen Jesus. She has been called “the apostle of the apostles”
because she was the one to bring the news to the rest of the
disciples.

To the Greek Orthodoxy, Mary is a Saint, the Holy Myrrh-Bearer and
“Equal-to-the-Apostles.”

From such non-canonical Gnostic texts such as The Pistis Sophia and
The Gospel of Philip, we glean that Mariamne/Magdalene was sister to
Philip (one of the twelve original apostles) and Martha; that Jesus
called her “chosen among women”; that she performed miracles and
baptized converts

And that she died at the Jordan River, “near Jerusalem,” not in
France or Ephesus as later tradition suggests.

Mariamne, Mary Magdalene, was indeed a Mara.

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The last line is true, and makes me want to believe it, but it just doesn’t “click” that this is our Magdalene.  Some have suggested she could’ve gone to France as the legends all say and then been returned to the family tomb after her death.  But she wasn’t a Jerusalemite.  Magdalene might be from Bethany if she’s also Mary of Bethany, which I believe she is.  Or she might be from Galilee, all the way in the North of Israel, far from Jerusalem.  Mary of Jerusalem, the woman in whose upper room the Passover Last Supper took place, might have been called “a master.”  Her son was Mark, a little boy at the time of the Resurrection who grew up, went to Rome to be with Peter and legend has it, wrote the oldest of the four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark.

And I wonder if Jesus’ own mother, as an incarnation of Sophia could have been called “Master”.  Then the other Mary buried in the Talpiot tomb could be Mary Salome, Jesus’ aunt, or as I suspect, we have the wrong family altogether.

Too many Marys!

How many Kids did Jesus have & did marriage, motherhood diminish Magdalene?

How Many Kids did Jesus and Magdalene Have? Does being wife & mother diminish Magdalene? Does an anti-marriage bias make some people resist a Jesus-Magdalene marriage?

Margaret Starbird writes, and I agree:

I personally believe that Mary was expecting at the time of the arrest and crucifixion, which would have been the reason that the friends and family of Jesus made an immediate move to get her out of town. She is never mentioned at all in the Acts of the Apostles — although the mother of Jesus and the apostles and brothers of Jesus are all together on Pentecost.

Katia inserts:
Magdalene is mentioned repeatedly in all four Gospels, yet not in Acts.  Something must have taken her quickly out of the picture.

Margaret continues:
What happened to Mary, his most devoted companion / beloved?… If she weren’t pregnant, there would have been no reason at all to get her out of town and protect her whereabouts and identity. But as the bearer of a royal bloodline, she would have been protected as a “national treasure.” I believe  Mary’s only child was a daughter — and that this piece of her story is part of the “underground stream” of European legend, art, and artifact (the subject of my 1993 “Alabaster Jar” book that apparently launched Dan Brown’s research). I was very reluctant to believe in the possibility of a surviving child, but numerous synchronicities eventually convinced me that it is at least a possibility.

I do not believe that Jesus and Mary had any other children. That view is supported by Barbara Thiering who postulated 2 sons and a daughter (Tamar) in 1992 (“Jesus the Man” aka “The Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls”). Thiering postulates that Jesus divorced Mary Magdalene, an idea that has IMO even less credible evidence. The “three children” theory was adopted by Lawrence Gardiner in his “Bloodline/Grail” book, and has recently surfaced again in K McGowan’s book.

For years I’ve heard people argue that believing Mary Magdalene married Jesus and had a child somehow diminishes her — identifying her with a husband and child-bearing role rather than as a strong teacher or priestess in her own right.

Katia inserts:
As if parenting and partnering mean you can’t be a spiritual, magical, religious leader or teacher.  How many pastors today are parents and married? How many great men of the world were married with children?  Yet if a woman is not childless and completely independent of men she can’t be a strong teacher or priestess?  As a spiritual teacher myself (online Mystery School has 500+ students, 100 very active) it is true I struggle with motherly and wifely duties.  My three girls, one of them a baby in diapers, need my attention for hours of every day.  Furthermore, my oldest, as well as two teen step-sons are homeschooling, so I’m a school-teacher too.  I am plagued with guilt and worry almost on a daily basis as to whether I am doing right by them.  Motherhood is time consuming, yes, and you might could call it “distracting.” But it does not diminish a woman anymore than fatherhood diminishes a man.  A woman can still be a spiritual leader, can still write and teach inspiring things with kids in her life.  Magdalene probably only had one child.  That’s nothin’! 

Margaret, mother of five grown children herself, continues:
And, because certain feminists and others are not interested in conventional marriage, they don’t like the idea of a married Jesus / Magdalene, so they are sure it couldn’t have happened.

I’m be more interested in knowing the truth than in supporting a falsehood for the sake of a certain anti-marriage agenda.

In memory of Her–
Margaret
http://margaretstarbird.net

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While I was putting this post together, my friend Lore who moderates the Magdalene-List forum at Yahoogroups.com, wrote to me as follows:

What interests me about Magdalene is that she can be used to set an example of what Yeshua really taught about women in order to wipe out the misogyny that gutted his teachings. Which is why I can agree both with Margaret about sacred union / their marriage and with Karen King that immersing her too far into marriage and motherhood might do more harm than good because she should be recognized as a spiritual leader in her own right.

Christian definition of marriage has done great harm to women over many centuries. We’re finally making progress in that realm but the [extreme Christian] fundies would like to turn around all the gains we’ve made and put women back into servitude to men via marriage. And the progress hasn’t gone far enough, which is why women file for more divorces than men. It is the party being harmed that generally wants out of any relationship. I knew before I filed for divorce that I would never marry again because I wanted control of my own life. The whole divorce debacle only reinforced that.

I didn’t find out until after I’d filed that he’d run up thousands and thousands on credit cards I didn’t even know we had. Because he was my husband, he had the right (at least back then) to sign my name and put me in astronomical debt without my even knowing about it — and the legal system said I had to pay. He also had the right to batter me emotionally and physically, then complain to the divorce judge that I was emotionally unstable because I sought therapy. My attorney told me that he could get custody of my children because I sought refuge and healing from him. How crazy is that?

That has changed somewhat today but not near enough, so I’d love to see a strong, single MM who chose to be in control of her own life, including being free to choose her sexual destiny. I think it would transform women’s image of themselves if that were true. I don’t believe it is though. I believe if they loved each other and spent so much time together, touching and kissing in public, then they had to be married.

The irony is that the RCC [Roman Catholic Church] never taught that Jesus was single or celibate. They avoided addressing that directly (probably because they knew he was married) but everyone thinks that was church dogma from the earliest days, therefore it must be true. Even those who railed against women and marriage as evil didn’t say he was celibate or unmarried.

-Lore