Jaguar Prince

Reasons why a male can't be the beloved disciple:

1. In Hebrew thought, God is the active partner in the loving relationship and Israel is His bride. Since Jesus is God... :rolling:

2. A notorious male disciple of Jesus standing at the Cross would have been immediately arrested by Jewish and Roman authorities.

3. None of the other Gospels mention the presence of John, or any other member of the Twelve, on Golgotha, something that should have attracted their attention had it been the case. What 'John' and the other Gospel writers unanimously mention is the presence of women (this is only normal since Jesus' death is a new birth!). 'John' in particular tells us that three compassionate midwives, all of them called 'Mary', stood at the Cross. Obviously, one of them must be the beloved disciple.

3. Jesus predicted, on the basis of the Tanakh/OT, that the Twelve would abandon him. This is indeed what happened. The Gospel authors make it clear that the Twelve were terrified and stayed in hiding during the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus (historically I think that it makes much more sense to think that they fled Jerusalem on the very night of his being arrested, but that is another question...).

4. A male disciple would not have remained anonymous! Remaining anonymous casts a shadow of doubt on the validity of his testimony and therefore on the validity of the Gospel as a whole. It could also lead the reader to surmise that the person was a female since females often remain anonymous in ancient narratives. IOW, humility is not an argument to explain why the author of the Fourth Gospel, if he was a male and one of the pillars of the church in Jerusalem, decided to conceal his identity.

5. How could two Jewish males have physical intimacy at a meal, an intimacy of the kind described in John 13:23, without causing deep offence?

6. How are we to explain that, although he was the beloved disciple, John wasn't the first person to see Jesus after his resurrection? If one argues that he is in fact the disciple who had an insight in the cave, my reply is that insight is different from sight.

The fact is that Mary Magdalen was the first witness of the visible Christ, which makes her the most important witness of the risen Master. Remember that who had seen Jesus first after his death was crucial in determining who was to lead the new community. This is so true that we find Paul claiming in Corinthians (if I'm not mistaken) that Simon Peter, the Johannine fool par excellence, had been the first witness of the resurrection (something none of the Gospels confirm and that 'John' flatly contradicts).

7. How could a notorious male follower of Jesus have entered the palace of the High priest without getting arrested? How could a poor Galilean fisher with a thick local accent get through the guard (and know the High priest)?

8. How could John have a house of his own in Jerusalem? 'John' tells us that the beloved disciple took Mary to 'his' household in the Holy City.

Positive reasons for believing that Mary Magdalen is the (first) beloved disciple

1. She is a disciple since she was called by her name by Jesus (remember the beautiful/good shepherd allegory in John).

2. She didn't abandon Jesus and was present at the cross.

3. She was the first to see the resurrected Jesus.

4. She, as a female, could have physical intimacy with Jesus and she could be present at a seder or pre-seder meal since such meals always involved entire families, not just a group of celibate males.

5. She qualifies as God's bride in the line of the tradition of the Song of Songs.

6. Her name is hidden in the number of fish caught by the fishing expedition in John 21. 153 is Greek gematria for 'the Magdalen'.

7. She is the anonymous companion of Andrew in chapter one of 'John'. Andrew is a Greek name meaning 'man' or 'male'. Obviously a human couple was the first nucleus of the church. Just as in Genesis.

8. The meeting of a 'gardener' by Mary in the Easter Sunday apparition story irresistibly reminds the reader of the story in Genesis, where Adam is also described as someone who tends the garden of Eden for God/Elohim.

Therefore Mary is Jesus' Eve, or better said: ishah, wo-man. Wo-man, rather than Eve, because 'Eve' is the name of the Wo-man after the Fall...

Possible objections:

-son: the beloved disciple is called a 'son' by Jesus in John 19. This is not a problem since Jesus himself was Mary's son. What Jesus is saying is that Mary Magdalen is now Mary's son, viz. Himself. Mary Magdalen is Jesus redivivus, reincarnated. She is His posterity, which is only normal since women are the only ones in God's creation who can prolong a man's life beyond the grave by begetting children. Any man's life is rendered possible and fruitful by two females figures: the mother and the wife, which is btw one of the reasons why I believe that Jesus had two beloved disciples, not just one, and that both of them were females.

-masculine pronouns: the beloved disciple is consistently referred to by using masculine pronouns in Greek (and in English). This again is not a problem because in the grammar of many languages the masculine can stand for unsexed mankind. The use of the masculine with respect to Mary magdalen has three main meanings:

1. It conceals the identity of the beloved disciple from phallocratic priests and other pastors, from the macho church of Peter and from the biased Greek scholars of all times;

2. it stresses the spiritual character of the relationship between Jesus and the Magdalen (this is shown also by her name, which is derived from a Hebrew root meaning 'tower', a metaphor for chastity in Hebrew literature);

3. it reveals the radical transformation undergone by the Magdalen in following Jesus: she is now a human being who has completely moved beyond gender (in keeping with Paul's statement in Galatians that there is no male and female in Christ).*

-nakedness: a rather silly objection by people who neither understand Jewish habits nor Gnostic thought on this very important topic.

1. Jewish habits: the fishermen on the boat in John 21 were strictly speaking not naked. Stark nakedness was taboo among Jews.

2. Gnostic thought: the Greek text uses the word 'gumnos', which does mean 'naked'. What we have here is an allusion to the end of the Adamic shame about being naked. May Magdalen is on a boat with a naked Peter means that she is beyond the edenic shame thing. One could also say that she is a male, but that is a bit misleading unless we understand that maleness here means 'redeemed' or 'spiritualized'.


Have the laugh of your life, o male scholars of the world! :love:



*this shows that mere knowledge of grammar doesn't help one to understand the Gospels. Qu'on se le dise!

trittydi

It had to be a couple of years ago that I heard a bible scholar discuss the St. James translation on NPR. He indicated that it had come about in a round-about way - hebrew to greek to english? or something like that.

His point was that many parts were badly translated and often simply mistranslated. The one example I remember is that the "Red" sea was actually a "reed" sea. That the terraine that Moses fled through was actually a swamp and as such was a "sea of reeds" This scholar also indicated that this was possible according to likely physical location which also dismissed the idea of the red sea.

It was a long time ago, but that was the gist of it.

I would be interested in a bible translated directly from the hebrew from the most ancient version possible. I'll bet it would be a completely different read.

Regarding your interesting arguments that John was the Magdalene - they're very iteresting and I'll want to go over them again and think about it. I have no objection to the idea myself. DaVinci thought she was at the last supper anyway!

*

Amaleq13

This is just another indication that this story, like the others, is theological fiction.

This is just an example of the sort of unique additions each author provides to the story created by "Mark".

The author of Mark, using Hebrew Scripture to create his story, has Jesus make this prediction.

All of the Gospels were originally anonymous. The specific attributions are 2nd century speculations.

This is what can happen when one rewrites a story several decades old while introducing a new character.

Not in the original version of the story. The women were the first to visit the tomb and the first to be told Jesus had risen. The author has women visit the tomb for literary reasons.

Even if your argument is accepted, all it really establishes are some interesting beliefs (apparently completely supressed/ignored/missed by those who canonized it) that were held by at least one of the authors of the latest revision of the original Gospel story.

Jaguar Prince

I never said that the stories told in the gospels were historically true. But this doesn't mean that they are worthless, though. They are valuable as myths (I take myth in the noble sense of the word) and inasmuch as they are good myths rather than stupid religious propaganda.

Amaleq13

Please forgive the misunderstanding. I got the impression you believed you were uncovering the hidden history of what really happened. Like I said, I would find it interesting if it could be established the (primary?) author of John held such beliefs.

Chili

An argument can be made in favor of Magdalene being the favorite disciple since Jesus died and reason must prevail.

I'll do it tomorrow.

Chili

There is not myth except noble myth unless they have been 'Disneyfied.'

There was a historial Jesus but not in the literal sense of the word. In fact, we all are potentially brothers of Jesus before we can be one in Christ (if we belong to our mythology).

Jaguar Prince

Mary: Usual English form of Maria, which was the Latin form of the New Testament Greek names Mariam or Maria (the spellings are interchangeable), which were from the Hebrew name Miriam. The meaning is not known for certain, but there are several theories including "sea of bitterness", "rebelliousness", and "wished for child". However it was most likely originally an Egyptian name, perhaps derived in part from m.r.y "beloved" or m.r "love".

Chili

They all work for me because there is two of them. Mary the inner beauty of man, the womb of man, or the template after which man was formed (she was taken from man) and, hence, Mary is the soul wherein man can find himself. Mary is the celestial sea to which enrichment is added by the serpent Eve (Mary Magdalene here) . . . who was not 'the woman' but was (and still is) the earthly equivalent in bitterness and rebellion from where she must constantly push hu-man (Adam) to gather dust and transform that dust into her 'idea of beauty' (because she is barren and soulless wherefore her offspring remains at enmity with the offspring of Mary).

Wallener

I take it you have little experience with farm life. I have seen many animals slaughtered/butchered - sheep, goats, cows, chickens, even pigs - and not one of them ever looked "triumphal" going into the event. Mostly, they looked like they had no idea what was going on, except for the brief moment between end of innocence and onset of death when they simply looked and acted terrified.