text: VISIT :\n\nhttp://africanamerica.org/groupee/forums?m=63070547&a=tpc&cdra=Y&s=60260642&f=40070883D\n\nAND/OR READ:\n\n\n\nThis is exactly the kind of hostile rejection that the prominent role of women in the early church has faced for hundreds of years.\n\nCanon Edward Norman, a noted Church historian in England, has defined this as a struggle between "dubious feminist theology" and "rigorous \nscholarship."\n\nNotice that Norman says that the only things we know about Mary Magdalene come from the Gospels. Yet, he goes on to say that what we have there is an \naccount of a "repentant ex-prostitute" who became a faithful follower of Jesus. If anyone's theology is dubious here it is Norman's. It is a fact that the Bible does not say that Mary Magdalene was ever a prostitute. I pointed this out in my essay. Yet, Norman can blatantly say that the Gospels portray her as a repentant ex-prostitute. Even as he is saying that "there is no other source" of knowledge about Mary Magdalene other than the Bible, he strongly asserts that she was an ex-prostitute even though that notion comes to us from extrabiblical noncanonical sources.\n\nRigorous scholarship reveals that there is no reference to Mary Magdalene as a prostitute at all in the Bible. If anything, "dubious traditionalist theology" has thought it important enough to label Mary Magdalene as a \nprostitute even though the Gospels do not say that. It is the traditionalist view that engages in much speculation about Mary Magdalene. It is kind of \namazing when you think of all the stories, homilies, and sermons that go on and on about Magdalene the "penitent whore." Most people think that this \ncomes from the Bible simply because it has been repeated so often.\n\nTraditionalist church historians have no problem believing sources outside of the Scriptures IF those sources do not challenge their own notions. For \nexample, most of them teach that Paul was beheaded by the Romans between 66-69 AD. They teach that Peter was crucified upside down. They teach that \nJohn lived to be 90 or 100 years old in exile. ALL of this information comes to us from noncanonical writings. And they are all probably true. However, noncanonical writings that challenge their own ideas are quickly and \nsummarily discredited and not even seriously discussed.\n\nMy point is that traditionalist scholars like Norman seem to believe that they are unbiased and objective while the scholars that they don't agree with are biased, slanted, and pushing an agenda with ulterior motives. In fact, we can see from Norman's statements that he seems to be pushing an agenda himself. He seems intent on perpetuating this image of Mary Magdalene \nas an ex-prostitute even though he knows that the Scripture says no such thing. And yet he says that this account comes from the Gospels!! He KNOWS \nthat the Bible says no such thing. Well, I'm assuming that he knows. If he doesn't, then he can't be much of a church historian.\n\nIt is "dubious traditionalist theology" that maintains that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute even though the Bible does not say that. It is the same "dubious traditionalist theology" that maintains that the Beloved Disciple is St. John even though the Bible does not say that either.\n\nThe traditionalist view(s) are NOT free of all bias. Therefore, it is fair to scrutinize widely held beliefs even if they have been believed for a long \ntime.\n\n\n\n\n1830 ~ 1912 \n\nby Patricia Chadwick\nwww.historyswomen.com \n\nThe name “Mary Magdalene” can evoke different images to various people. Many see her as a deranged woman suffering from being possessed by demons, while others view her as a fallen woman, even a prostitute. Although the Biblical record is not silent on the matter, we are only given a few details about the life of Mary Magdalene in the Bible - and you may be surprised what the Scripture do