Oh, so who is his reliable source, Mary Magdelene herself?
Or maybe some "ancient writings"?
Please don't believe all of those many books circulating to discredit Jesus or the Bible.
Just stick to reading the Bible, pray for understanding, and you'll be well-established in the truth.
Dan Brooks? I find no mention of him in the NKJV Bible.He definitely was not an apostle and probably not from that time period. I would pay it no mind.
Mary Magdalene was not married to Jesus, but might have been a disciple, not just a follower. Two 1st century scrolls recently found in different places seem to give credence to this idea, which I find totally harmless as far as traditional Christianity is concerned. As I understand it, the Mary Magdale scrolls are similar to those used to compile the Bible, so may well be legitimate.
Is this a veiled attack on Christianity?
No, it is an overt attack on Christianity.
Like endthematrix said, your sister is referring to The Davinci Code by Dan Brown. As the background premise for his mystery, Brown takes some interesting historical oddities and weaves a mythological version of Christianity where Christ married and early priests conspired to wipe-out all traces of this from the record. Basically, the novel claims Mary Magdelene was "whored up" by men who did not want to acknowledge her special role in their religion. The reason they would go to such lengths to do this is chalked up to the desire for power and generally to keep women down. The theology in the book, which is a fast-paced cryptological murder mystery, is a mix of Christianity and goddess worship. The bad guys are Opus Dei, what you might call a fundamentalist catholic sect. As such, they were a safe smear target which, along with its generally sacrilegious rendition of Christianity, ensured the book would be lauded by reviewers (Mel Gibson has been criticized for having informal relations with Opus Dei, if that gives you any indication). Brown took more than a few liberties with historical facts, to put it mildly. But it is true that if you look at the Last Supper, the person seated next to Christ in the painting is certainly a woman upon close inspection, and long before the book was published I had read theories that Christ married and fathered children who began the various royal lines of Europe (which--even though I don't believe it is true--would explain how the royal families developed and why there was such a persistent belief passed down through the ages that they were chosen by God). As a piece of fiction, The Davinci Code is a bit shallow and gimmicky, but a fun, if silly, read. As a historical account, it's a just piece of fiction.
The only way we know about certain historical facts (the life of Constantine for instance) is that there are books that survive from the era. All later historians base their histories on these original documents--and if they stray too far afield from the people who first reported these events, you know they're pulling stuff out of their you-know-whats.
It just so happens that there are a LARGE amount of Christian writings that are preserved from the first centuries of Christianity. Eusebius, the first Church historian, was a rough contemporary of Constantine. Now you'd think that a few or even one of these early documents would mention some of these allegations Brown makes. In fact they don't, there is *no* indication from reliable, authentic historians that any of this Da Vinci stuff is true. Historians specializing in early Christianity have said as much.
If you're really interested in the early church period, you're way better off going over Brown's muddled head and reading the actual documents from the time period. Most of them you can find here: Church Fathers. Scroll down a bit for Eusebius' Church History and his life of Constantine. You'll also find at the bottom the various apocryphal gospels, some of which I understand Brown drew from, but which are more in the nature of Paul Bunyan-type tales than real history.
Oh and yes, Christianity's impact in "liberating women" was huge. I'm not a historian of women's issues, but from what little I know it was a decided improvement over the defective morality of paganism.
OK, Dan Brown is certainly out to make war against Christianity. He makes a whole lot of extremely false, nasty accusations, painting Christianity as some plot to suppress women. The truth was Christianity did so much to liberate women that it was slandered as a religion of "women and slaves." From the start, even St. Paul was concerned that the religion not be viewed as a rebellion of women and slaves, hence his references to slaves and women obeying their masters and husbands. (Anti-Christians and chauvinists conveniently skip over the next passage where St. Paul commands husbands to be love their wives as Christ loved the church... That meant putting their wives' lives first.)
As to specific allegation made, there was a religion in ancient Rome called gnosticism. They were pagans who incorporated other religions' myths and searched for deeper understanding through numerology and other occult practices.
The gnostics used the Christian bible as a source for several of their "gospels." It is important to understand that they thought that history could be revealed to them through their own discernment. Hence, they recorded things which they admitted having no objective knowledge, even things for which they recognized no-one could have any objective knowledge.
Since the gnostics were claiming to be Christian, and they believed knowledge was subjective and known through private revelation, early true Christians asserted that THEIR scriptures were created by first-hand witnesses, and that THEIR traditions were handed down by the apostles. And that THEIR knowledge was objective; it could be known and understood by anyone, and it was universally true. Hence, as early as the start of the 2nd century, they insisted that theirs was the universal truth and the universal Church. The Greek word for "Universal" is "Catholikos." And hence, the Church proclaimed itself to be "one, holy, catholic and apostolic," as opposed to the gnostics who were divided, unholy, subjective and lacking in apostolic succession.
The gnostics believed that gender was an illusion of our existence on Earth, and used Mary Magdeline as an example of asserting this, creating the Gospel of Mary, in which the masculinity of Jesus is balanced by the feminity of Mary. Anyone who thinks this gospel is enlightened or the "real truth of Christianity" should simply read it. It's laughable, and horrific.
I thought this piece of trash book was a "novel", like it says on the cover.
Try this one.
THE TRUTH BEHIND THE DA VINCI CODE by Richard Abanes
Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon
Less than $8.00 and well worth the money.
At your local bible book store
OK. Look at his sources.
Even better, study biblical history. If you're concernced about books being ommitted from the current bible, you're on the right track.
Has anyone else heard of this? Is this a veiled attack on Christianity?
No such thing exists. A 'veiled attack'? Please.
The contention is that women were liberated prior to Christianity and that it was Constantine's version of Christ's history that stole that liberation away from women.
That's a rather unique take on things. Women have been liberated from day one, hour one.
Or, haven't you noticed?
The History Channel did a very good special last year about Mary Magdalene indicating that she may have been an unmarried woman, not necessarily a prostitute. Also, there are several references which confuse which Mary is which.
There are also some committed Christians who believe that some books which were not included in the Bible could have been, such as the Gospel of Thomas. Also, years ago Rush Limbaugh spoke on why his Methodist minister contended that Revelation should not have been included.
Whatever one's opinion, it is wonderful that thanks to the Passion and books like this that Jesus' life is being discussed.
It depends on which ancient society and which area. Though slaves of either sex were at the bottom of society, Roman pagan women had the right to draw up contracts without husband’s permission, divorce rights, and the right to keep their dowry assets if they divorced, as well as some other privileges. I would infer that female Christian converts of the empire would have the same rights. Jewish women in Judea may have been more restricted. Since most of the early Christian converts were indeed women, they did indeed have leadership roles in the early church before the gender balance changed. One of the Paul’s lettera is addressed to a female deaconess.