Customer Reviews

Gospel Of Mary Magdalene

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene as transilated, interpeted and expanded by Jean-Yves Laloup seems to be a Crossroads whereon "Christian", "Gnostic", "Exoteric", "Esoteric", "Masciline", "Feminine" and "Personal" Traditions Meet. The Gospel of Mary Magdaline would seem to NOT be a formal part of any particular Tradition having been found "in Cairo by C. Reinhardt and preserved since 1896 in the Egyptology section of the National Museum of Berlin". And in Coptic [not Greek or Aramaic] and apparently hard to date altho likely an "early text". Also I greatly enjoy the Skill and Style of Jean-Yves Laloup--especially the way the text was in digestable portions enhanced by expanded interpetations aided by wonderful charts and diagrams. A Hidden Rose on the Cross+++

This book contains a reasonable description of what the Gospel of Mary is, where and how it was found, and what it implies for early Christianity. It is not the last work on the subject, but it is written in a fairly accessible way, and avoids the conspiracy theories that are so common when discussing the early history of Christianity. Jean-Yves Leloup's translation of the Gospel does show a feminist bias. This is not nessesarily a bad thing considering that the Biblical gospels show a strong patriarchal bias, but it is distracting and I found myself translating the translation at times. My only other concern with this book is that it is not always made clear that the Gospel of Mary was not written until at least a generation after the death of Jesus, and was probably not written by anyone who had first-hand knowledge of the what the Apostles did in the days after the Crucifixion. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn about the Gospel of Mary, and about Gnostism, but this should not be the only book that you read on the subject.

Leloup's edition of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene is of minimal value in light of the new publication of an authoritative edition by Karen King: The Gospel of Mary of Magdala. Karen King's edition offers both a far superior translation of the original text, and a superb commentary on importance and interpretation of the Gospel of Mary.

If you do choose to purchase this Leloup edition, please be sure and also pick up a copy of King's new edition. Then judge for yourself.

What I enjoyed the most about The Gospels of Mary Magdalene was the fact that it was written with a female perspective. As a woman I find the Old Testament to be "Barbaric" at times towards women. Jesus loved everyone equally rather male or female. The only problem I had with this book was that it left me wanting to know more.

I found more in a book here on Amazon called The Book of Thomas by Daniel Aber and Gabreael that went places most author's fear to tread. It is written from an Esoteric Christian perspective as well. It dealt with issues such as The Christ Consciousness, Universal Law, The Genetic Code, The Levels of Heaven and Hell, Reincarnation, and much more.

As a previous reviewer stated better than I can, many questions about the source of the King James' bible remain unanswered. Why were many books discarded in the formation of the Gospel, leaving us with the four we are familiar with? As a curious Christian I cannot but wonder abut the messages concerning my faith that certain church bodies and governing powers have tried to exclude from my scrutiny.

After finding the Book of Thomas on the Internet and learning that I could approach God directly, without having to go through the Pope, my interest in these controversial "lost" Gospels was piqued. Later my wife introduced me to the theory of the Priori Scion, that I believe Brown also discusses in his "Da Vinci Code" which basically states members of the Priori Scion are keepers of the blood of Christ-that is, descendants of Christ. If this is the case, who bore a child from Christ? The Gospel of Mary Magdalene sheds light on this question.

Another similar concept concerns the Holy Grail, which most of us believe refers to a cup that held the wine used in The Last Supper. While visiting the original painting of the Last Supper, I noticed the grail is not depicted in Da Vinci's famous painting, however a V, which refers to a female, is depicted in the painting, and suggests Mary Magdalene is the cup (meaning holder) of the blood of Christ. Also, Mary's uterus is referred to as the "cup."

This book reveals a side of Christ from Mary Magdalen's perspective, free of papal revisionism. I highly recommend this book for any scholar or casual inquirer of the truth. In my opinion, the information in this book strengthened my faith, rather than threatened it.

I had read the 'Gospel of Mary Magdalene' in 'The Other Gospels: Non-Canonical Gospel Texts', by Ron Cameron. Finding the commentary a little thin, I looked for something a bit more thought provoking and got a copy of this book.

The book is organized into introductory comments, the ancient text itself and an extended exegesis. For my taste, the introductory comments were too short and the exegesis too long. I had to force my way through LeLoup's geometric hierarchies of spiritual insights which include a quadrangle labeled in counter clockwise order from the top, 'I AM', 'The Teacher', I am not' and 'The Human'. In the center, within 4 concentric circles is (from top to bottom) 'masculine,' ANTHROPOS' and 'feminine'. Additionally, LeLoup provides us with a 10 page commentary on the 10 Commandments, almost 10% of the exegesis.

The ancient text provides LeLoup plenty of justification for this numerology. Mary describes a vision that includes the soul's journey through 4 climates. The 4th climate (also called wrath) had 7 manifestations darkness, craving, ignorance, lethal jealousy, enslavement of the body, intoxicated wisdom, guileful wisdom. Though I winced more than once, I'm glad I read it. It is important to slow down the thought processes while trying to tease out a context for the ancient-source text. I had to wonder if one could compare the numerology to that originating in India a few hundred year before Jesus and Mary walked the earth.

The introduction was all to brief and will leave you wanting more. The Berlin Papyrus, and the Rylands Papyrus should have been described as physical objects with a chemical composition, process of creation, evidence of age and current condition. What do we know about other documents of the same age? What group of people would have been writing it? Storing it? What can we surmise regarding the missing pages 1-6 and 11-14. Is the Nag Hammadi library's 'Sophia (Wisdom) of Jesus' an embellished version of the Mary Gospel?

More could be done with the translation of specific terms. In particular, what in other translations is rendered 'male' is rendered here as 'fully human'. What is elsewhere rendered 'mind', is rendered 'nous'. The delicate shades need to be explicitly explored, probably by multiple authors (including someone familiar with the 7 chakras). LeLoups takes a start at this, but I can't abide with his geometric solution. Additionally, there ought to be a discussion of what clues in the text might suggest the authority of eye-witness commentary (or lack of same).

I was transfixed by the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Jean Yves-Leloup has provided the reader with a beautiful esoteric interpetation of the words of Mary Magdalene. In the remaining pages left from this gospel, she reveals to the apostles' the words of Jesus and their deeper meaning. The fact that his words are delivered by a female, causes Peter some misgivings, but is eventually accepted as truth by the apostles' as the words resonate with power. Jean Yves-Leloup has given a line by line commentary that enlightens as it describes and is wise in it's explanations. Apart from the recent hoopla from popular books such as the DaVinci Code, this is a refreshing look at an important aspect of Chrisianity, the feminine divine, that has been overlooked and misplaced for centuries. Being a Roman Catholic, I truley believe that this and other gospels not in the bible do not take away from what we have always believed, but deepen and enrich our faith enormously.

Let's be honest here and cut through the chase. In this age of rampant conspiracy theories and films that excite the imagination the idea of a secret coverup by the church to defame these wonderful works makes a tempting plot. And there is just enough truth to make it sound feasable. But before you all tell me how closed minded I am, let me offer a few alternatives.

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO LEARN ABOUT GNOSTICISM: Research it throughly from BOTH sides, and keep an open mind. This was a major struggle in the early church. A lot of scholarly work is available from different perspectives. Gnosticism is alive and well today, as is orthodox Christianity. Many good books are available on Amazon.

IF YOU REALLY WANY TO READ ONE OF THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS:
I suggest you choose the Gospel of Thomas. It is easy to find and has a lot more meat. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene has only 161 lines and about 175 pages of author added commentary and filler to stretch it out. The Gospel of Magdalene is not a complete work.

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DEBATE OVER MARY:
I suggest you purchase the video, "Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait" It is sold by Amazon. I reviewed it and find it to be a balanced, serious attempt at honesty without dodging extreme views on any side of the debate.

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO STUDY THE "LOST BOOKS OF THE BIBLE":
I suggest you begin with the "Shepherd (Pastor) of Hermas" This book was so accepted in the early church that it can still be seen in our earliest known New Testament, Codex Sinaiticus, dating back to the 4th century. Then, after inclusion, it was removed, because it flunked the test of "Apostolic Authority". Other major very early works include the Didache, and Apostolic Constitutions. These will open plenty of scholarly debate.

IF SOMETHING INSIDE YOU STILL SAYS YOU JUST HAVE TO HAVE THIS BOOK:
Then download it over the net. The book isn't much longer than this review and it is in the public domain.

If these weren't spiritual matters it would blow me away that the authors of these Mary Magdalene books can so easily create doctrines and write off the Gospel of the New Testament based on obscure and questionable documents that only recently "surfaced." While writing off the faith of the historical and majority of Christiandom which is based on the Bible, they set forth a gospel of their own, decrying Biblical Christianity as ignorance while projecting their own views as "educated" and "scholarly". Their Gospel is definately different than that declared by Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and other in the New Testament. The Gospel of the New Testament has the power to save. Jesus came to earth to die in the place sinful humanity so that whoever would put his only hope of being made right before God (justification) can have eternal life through Christ taking our punishment on himself. Paul has something to say about this sort of thing in his letter to the Galatians: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-9)"

The Gospel according to Mary is a most welcome addition to the many once suppressed scriptures of early Christianity, discarded by Constantine and his councilman at Nicaea in the third century CE. The reasons for the exclusion of some texts over others would be an in-depth study of its own. In any event, the Naga Hammmadi texts, including the now famous Gospel of Thomas and Phillip, has not only shed new light on the history of Christianity, but has deepened our understanding of Christ's teachings, informing our faith and belief. Although the Gospel of Mary Magdalene has come to us in fragments, (parts of the text are missing) Leloup has proved himself an informed and intuitive exegete, giving us access to the meaning within the scripture. As Jacob Needleman expresses in his well written Forward: "One of the most remarkable aspects of 'The Gospel of Mary Magdalene' is that the more it shows us about the meaning of Christianity, the more the mystery deepens." This, to my mind, is the all-important aspect of spirituality, and that is our search is an on-going journey, in which the more the hidden is revealed, the greater the mystery becomes.

The figure of Mary Magdalene appears not only in the New Testament but also in the so-called Gnostic Gospels. She is referred to as the 'apostles apostle' because she was a witness to Christ's death and the first He appeared to upon his resurrection. The figure of the Magdalene has appeared throughout the world in the form of myth, history and legend over the last two thousand years. The suppression of her importance within the church is a mystery, and the fact that this gospel was discovered a century ago in Egypt, its existence excluded to a small circle of scholars, and only now has come into the mainstream, is also a mystery. After reading this text, it became apparent that The Gospel according to Mary is that important feminine perspective of Christianity that has been missing for the last twenty centuries. It is that missing piece of doctrine that now gives us a fuller picture of Christ's ministry and his teachings.

As Leloup writes at the end of the text, The Gospel of Mary need not be "set up in opposition to other gospels or sacred scriptures, or against recent anthropological or scientific research." This gospel, in other terms, does not contradict orthodox, but compliments Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, including Thomas and Phillip, in such a way that enhances our understanding, belief and relationship with the Divine.

This wonderful text is very accessible and can be read in one sitting. However its contents demand more focused reading and engagement in order to gain greater understanding of its many levels.