Mary and Metaphor

>A clear, concise, much-needed perspective on the beginnings of Christianity. Critiques the limitations of the Theology perspective and the Historical Sociopolitical perspective, and explains why scholars are averse to looking at the origins of Christianity from the point of view of religious experiencing.

>Central chapters cover glossalia and especially sacred meals, looking for the kind of experiencing that was common to the Mystery Religions and Jewish initiation. The convenient footnotes have valuable references to the books he praises and critiques. Ends with a call to start looking for religious experiencing as the main cause of Christianity.

>The cover has a good painting of Mary "John" Magdalene the Beloved Disciple, and Jesus feeding the Eucharist to Judas.

"Jesus feeding the Eucharist to Judas" -- correction:

The cover with the painting:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0800631293.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

To zoom this picture in Windows XP: right-click: Save Picture As: [My Pictures] Save: Right-click: Go to My Pictures: double-click 0800631293.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg: Windows Picture and Fax Viewer appears. Click the + magnifying glass icon. The cover of the actual book is perfectly sharp, though this zoomed online image is blurry.

Judas and Jesus share something in common in this painting: neither has a halo. Judas clasping the purse is praying with bent knee and looking up as Jesus. Jesus' finger and the piece of bread both are touching Judas' lips; Judas is kissing the piece of bread. Judas' head, like Mary/John's, is lower than Jesus'. The cup on the table is like a spiky hand-grenade; compare the "teeth" veil remnants on Amanita.

I could not determine the painter; the cover notes say La Cene [The Communion], Musee d'Unterlinden, Colmar, France. This cover reproduction is monochromatic orange-brown.

Jesus has a hand on the table, but Judas doesn't. Jesus' left arm is fully visible and has no folded cuff. The right hand administering Communion to Judas is disconnected visually by Mary/John's halo and has a folded cuff. Mary's left hand, arm, and folded cuff are visible; that hand rests on a right hand that is visually disconnected and has no sleeve or cuff visible. If the hand holding the bread is Jesus', then his left sleeve lacks a folded cuff while his right hand has a folded cuff. If the hand holding the bread is Mary's, then both of Mary's cuffs are folded.

The grey-haired balding man on Jesus' right (compare http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/l/lorenzo/viterbo/madonna.html) has one hand on the table and this would probably be Peter (though arguably possibly James). We can expect it to be either James or Peter, because the main apostles are Peter, James, and John, and John (Mary) is already accounted for, the Most Beloved Disciple with head on Jesus' bosom. As always, the scene has Jesus plus 12 figures, one of whom is indicated as Judas.

Luke (short version that omits the "for you" vicarious atonement phrases):

Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, "Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, "This is my body. But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table."

The painting makes Judas as holy as Jesus -- neither has a halo, though the Beloved Disciple Mary/John does. With respect to "the one who betrays me is with me and his hand is on the table", it implies Mary/John and Judas are innocent, while Peter (or whoever sits at his right hand) and other apostles are the betrayers.

I would like to know the painter and date, and a URL to see this painting clearly.

http://ramon_k_jusino.tripod.com/perugino.htm - Mary "John" Magdalene

http://www.magdalene.org/contents.htm - Mary (with jar)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892819979 - Amanita encoded in Christian art

http://www.entheomedia.org/ - Amanita and Datura encoded in Christian art

The image is now available at http://www.egodeath.com/entheogenpicfinds.htm.

Da Vinci Code, bloodline, Mary Magdalene as Mrs. Christ

Monday's tv show The Da Vinci Code was connected with Dan Brown's book.

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385504209

Rank: #1

Dan Brown, Starbird, Pagels and Baigent or Leigh spoke in the television program.

Many people are unfamiliar with any alternative theories such as this.

I note that given that Jesus and Mary and the rest are mythological figures -- maybe invented in the Middle Ages along with the whole of "ancient" church history per Edwin Johnson -- they can only have had mythical children.

Brown's book's popularity may explain the great popularity of my book list:

Mary "John" Magdalene, The Beloved Disciple

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/CV3ZTFHJV6TP

http://lumen.org/issue_contents/contents51.html

Gnosis final issue, page 49

The Priory of Sion Hoax

by Robert Richardson

Some claim that the Grail is the bloodline of Christ, perpetuated in the Merovingian dynasty of France. Where did this idea come from? [answer: right-wing power-mongers]

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Priory+of+Sion+Hoax%22

http://www.alpheus.org/html/articles/esoteric_history/richardson1.html

by Robert Richardson

In recent years, a great deal of information has been published in books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail alleging that the Holy Grail actually refers to a bloodline descended from Jesus. By this account Jesus and Mary Magdalene produced offspring, and their descendants gave rise to the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled France from 476 to 750 A.D. Well intentioned readers and even authors have been deceived by this story and have mistaken it for the revelation of a suppressed history. Unfortunately the only thing that has been suppressed is the truth.

The Grail is not a bloodline. This false story originated in reams of fraudulent documents created by an extreme right-wing French sect. The group responsible for these fictions, calling itself the "Priory of Sion" and claiming an ancient esoteric lineage, has kept its own authentic history carefully hidden. How it constructed its fraud has not been revealed. It is long past time for the light of truth to reveal the "Priory of Sion" and the fictional bloodline it has promoted for what they are really are -- a fraud. The background of this group reveals its actual motives and sources of information.

---end---

http://www.anzwers.org/free/posmis/

Priory of Sion Misconceptions –

Robert Richardson and Steven Mizrach

VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING on the Internet about the Priory of Sion can be described as pure hokum that cannot be treated seriously. The various accounts found on all the websites are all similar to each other and are mostly plagiarisms of the accounts found in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail [1] and in The Messianic Legacy [2], and one is led to believe that the whole world is composed of Flat Earthers who do not want to accept the evidence of the Hubble Telescope (Plantard was a proven charlatan and forger who lived in a world of his own [3]). Authors Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh were obviously not competent 'critics' in the basic sense of what is expected from objective historical research and merely took all the Pierre Plantard gobbledygook seriously – if Plantard claimed that the Priory of Sion was linked to world politics, an ‘American contingent’, the Kreisau Circle, the Knights of Malta and the Vatican, with Roberto Calvi, etc, then this was all ‘historical fact’ and not the twisted aberrations of some fantasist.

There are a couple of exceptions to this unfortunate situation, and one of these exceptions contains basic mistakes. Robert Richardson's The Priory of Sion Hoax, an abridged version of The Unknown Treasure: the Priory of Sion Fraud and the Spiritual Treasure of Rennes-le-Château (Houston, TX: NorthStar, 1998) sets out to debunk all the lies, the myths, and the legends and to ‘finally prove’ that everything about the Priory of Sion was a waste of time.

Robert Richardson's well-intended debunking contains allegations that need to be debunked. ... What Richardson's article reveals however, is that he got his ‘information’ – which he seems to have uncritically accepted - from Gérard de Sède's 1988 book, Rennes-le-Château – Le Dossier, Les Impostures, Les Phantasmes, Les Hypothèses. Gérard de Sède in turn claimed to have got his ‘information’ from the ‘diaries of Émile Hoffet in 1966’ that he was not allowed to take photocopies of (here Gérard de Sède had obviously gotten himself into the habit of copying Plantard's methods of creating fantasies ...

---end---

>>>Jesus and Mary and the rest are mythological figures -- maybe invented in the Middle Ages along with the whole of "ancient" church history per Edwin Johnson -- they can only have had mythical children.

>>How can we have Christians running around in first century, being the main event in circus maximus, and possibly the ones who torched rome in 64... if the whole thing was "maybe invented

in the Middle Ages"

There were no Christians -- in any meaningful sense -- in the first century; no persecution of Christians; no blamed Christians for the fire. The whole official history is back-projected fiction and fabrication created some centuries later. At most, there were folkish and mystic-state tales involving the apostles, prior to the fabrication of the official Catholic Church history which was dreamed up around 1500.

That's according to the most radical scholarship, particularly the later Edwin Johnson: "Pauline Epistles". The Nag Hammadi scrolls are a problem or challenge for the theory to explain -- if it weren't for the scrolls, this theory would be pretty easy to maintain. So radically late-dating the scrolls as medieval forgeries is a task at hand, to maintain this theory.

The New Chronology: The Dark Ages Didn't Exist -- time falsification, Edwin Johnson, Heribert Illig, Uwe Topper, Hans-Ulrich Niemitz, Christoph Marx, Jean Hardouin, Wilhelm Kammeier

http://www.egodeath.com/newchronology.htm

Edwin Johnson, A Radical Advocate of Chronology Criticism -- Uwe Topper on Edwin Johnson

http://www.egodeath.com/uwetopperonedwinjohnson.htm

Study Version of Edwin Johnson's "The Pauline Epistles - Re-Studied and Explained", 1894 -- Reformatted copy for increased comprehensibility by Michael Hoffman Oct. 8, 2003. Proposes that the years 700-1400 didn't exist, and that Christianity, the "early" Christian texts, Paul, the Gospels, the Church Fathers, the Dark Ages, and the Middle Ages were literary inventions fabricated in competing monasteries around 1500.

http://www.egodeath.com/edwinjohnsonpaulineepistles.htm

Book "Historical Mary": "Mary" means sacred prostitute

>>why the Parisee called Magdalene is a sinner? She was thief or burglar? ... Yes, she maybe was a harlot for some reasons. Anyway, I think she was a harlot before meeting Christ as did another Sophia's reincarnations at every age, Helen, Cleopatra, etc.

The Historical Mary: Revealing the Pagan Identity of the Virgin Mother

Michael Jordan, Feb. 2003

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1569753342

A major theme in the Jewish bible is the popularity of cultic prostitution. Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary should be considered as a cultic prostitute, or considered in light of cultic prostitution. The book _The Historical Mary_ proposes that the name "Mary" connotes cultic prostitution. Matthew's genealogy of Jesus includes five women who weren't monotheistic but who instead acted like cultic prostitutes, which were used to engender divine kings.

I'm especially interested in understanding what the veneration of Mary during the Middle Ages was really all about. This book covers that, and first establishes a base of cultic prostitution in the ancient Near Eastern religions and the Jewish religion. Apparently there are three intermingled ways of reading "virgin":

1. In ancient and later times, themes around the "virgin" idea had mystic/mythic meaning, in which religious mythic figures represent aspects of the psyche, particularly reflecting the experiences and the insights of the intense mystic altered state. I haven't determined yet whether the book discusses mythic figures as personifications of the phenomena of the psyche encountered during intense mystic altered-state experiencing.

2. By the principle of "as above, so below" -- as in the mythic/mystic realm, so shall we literally act out -- actual sex was integrated into cultic practice, both in ancient Near East religions and in medieval esoteric practice (that is, European religion other than that of the official Church).

3. In opposition to the mystic altered state meaning, and in opposition to the cultic sex practice that largely reflected the mystic altered state meaning, the official Church sought to create a competing, different reading of the "virgin mother of God" concept, one that was suitable for strategically co-opting and obscuring the mystic and cultic systems' reading of "virgin" and "Mary" themes.

This book doesn't integrate the cultic sex practices with a developed theory of entheogen use, but does mention possible "drug" use, and mentions the trial by drinking "dust and water", which Dan Merkur in "Mystery of Manna" has shown probably meant trial by ergot. Entheogen theory holds that "under the tree", a main theme of fertility cults, means, first of all, the Amanita mushroom, which grows under the exactly the species of trees used in the fertility cults.

John Allegro was severely punished for writing a book that combined several radical proposals together: Jesus didn't exist, some early Christians were into cultic sex, and some early Christians used entheogens. It is fully understandable that few authors are eager to cover more than one controversial aspect of Christian origins, with Allegro swinging by the neck in the background. The inquisition doesn't kill authors literally these days, but it effectively kills authors as far as their viability as respected scholars.

People should expect that if the actual history of Christianity is profoundly different than the professional Church historians claim, it is likely to be different in more than just one or two ways: radically different in many ways, ways that all come back together to form a system of religion that is wholly alien from the picture painted by the official Church.

Single-issue would-be "radical" historical revisionism is titilating but single issue revisionism, by itself, is no threat to the official picture. Only when all ten, say, of the radical revisions are reassembled, does the seriously threatening coherent alternative telling of history fall into place.

The book essentially confirms my still unformed hypothesis that the Virgin Mary somehow "is" Mary Magdalene. It proposes that the intended number of Marys is seven. I hold that all the Marys, all the Jesus/Joshuas, and all the Simons/Peters are *essentially* myth, and are functionally entirely independent of any historical figures that may have been similar.

Like nearly all published books, this book is absurd in assuming the Bible characters existed -- "we know that Peter was in Rome...". However, it is redeemed in that it mentions "evidence that Jesus existed", thus admitting that we can't simply take it for granted that Jesus existed.

The sacred mushroom and the cross; a study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East

John Allegro

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340128755

Book lists:

Philosophy of Mother of God:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/20S7TV13O9SLD

Mary "John" Magdalene, The Beloved Disciple:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/CV3ZTFHJV6TP

>>does Gnostic Christianity believe that one must be a Gnostic Christian to survive the Final Judgement?

Some Gnostic groups did. Mystically, by definition, survivors of the Final Judgement are Gnostic elect. Surviving the wrath of God and knowing and experiencing God's omnipotence against the lower self amount to two metaphors for the same thing.

Resurrection of Mary instead of Lazarus

Jay Raskin proposes that a Mary rather than Lazarus was resurrected in the original version of the story.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/message/16744

Beloved disciple is Mary M - wide-open artistic secret

This posting relates to the theme of figuring out open secrets in Christian allegory.

The most beloved disciple of Jesus is Mary Magdalene. This is a wide-open artistically conveyed secret.

It is blatantly, openly obvious from the Last Supper that "John" is a name representing Mary Magdalene and that Mary Magdalene is Jesus' favorite, beloved disciple. The church authoritarians were unable to suppress this view except in the scriptures they controlled. John is always shown as a woman, even in 19th-century Bibles. There are 12 people around Jesus and one of the 12 shown is clearly indicated as Judas, and one of the 12 shown is the woman close to Jesus, clearly the most beloved disciple.

This easy puzzle relies on the way the canon says there are 12 but never commits to naming and tracking them.

In sacred geometry, perfection is a sphere fully surrounded by 12 spheres that touch it.

From the astrotheology perspective, Mary Magdalene is the moon, reflecting the light of Jesus the sun.

I was able to immediately confirm that this theory is pretty much standard.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22beloved+disciple%22+%22mary+magdalene%22+%22last+supper%22

One of the most interesting things about this revision (or partially suppressed key tradition) of Mary Magdalene and the Beloved Disciple is the immediate spreading of interlocking ramifications, showing a homeostatic state shift from one stable state (the Literalist network of notions) to a quite different stable state (the Gnostic network of notions). This one change -- asserting that the Beloved Disciple is Mary Magdalene -- in isolation may seem of limited import. But when you consider the several other revisions that fit together with it, this adds up to an earthquake of a change, a paradigm shift.

Mary Magdalene was one of the 12 disciples and should possibly be considered one of the 12 apostles.

Mary Magdalene was the favorite of the 12 disciples.

Mary Magdalene was Jesus' consort.

At his crucifixion Jesus created a household family parent/child relationship between Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary.

This tradition is evident in art and in the Nag Hammadi scriptures, which indicates that this whole time there has been a thriving tradition -- folk and Gnostic -- set very much against the authoritarian tradition.

Gnostics were far more influential in creating and shaping the Christian storyline, and have been a much stronger tradition, than the authoritarians have admitted.

Christianity was largely created and shaped by women.

Early Christianity was much more egalatarian regarding women than the authoritarian tradition lets on.

The Gnostic tradition has more uniformity in spirit than the authoritarian tradition lets on. The authoritarian tradition has been as diverse as the Gnostics.

This Mary Magdalene-centered revision adds up to a peripheral yet moderately significant area relevant to the theory of ego death. It helps define Gnostic Christianity against Literalist Christianity. The more we understand Gnostic Christianity and their telling of the history of Christianity, the more we find that they essentially knew the theory of ego death, and used the same sacramental rites and techniques (sketch an Amanita here) found in the entheogenic theory of the origin of religions.

We are missing four key pages from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, in which she reports strange teachings. Regardless of what was printed on those pages, there are indeed a *distinct set* of "strange teachings" constituting the theory of ego death, such as the illusory aspect of personal moral responsibility, and the timeless fixity and pre-existence of our future stream of thoughts.

The Literalist version of Christianity adds up to essentially a single closed *set* of notions, and the Gnostic version of Christianity adds up to essentially a different single closed *set* of notions. In switching from the egoic mental worldmodel to the transcendent mental worldmodel, the words we use to talk about time, control, and self may be the same, but the network of associations changes dramatically or profoundly.

It is remarkable how perfectly we can find two opposing versions of Christianity -- the Literalist tradition and the Gnostic tradition -- and map them exactly to the egoic and transcendent way of thinking. The Literalist version/tradition of Christianity clearly goes with egoic thinking, and the Gnostic version/tradition of Christianity clearly goes with transcendent thinking.

The official or fitting version of Christianity for the theory of ego death is the Gnostic version, including identifying Mary Magdalene with the Beloved Disciple. The Theory is not a Christian theory as opposed to an Islamic or Buddhist theory. All religions have a lower, Literalist version and a higher, Gnostic version as defined by Freke & Gandy. Egoic thinking fits with Literalist religion; transcendent thinking fits with Gnostic religion, even when considering world religions.

Freke & Gandy's book on world religion or world mysticism covers entheogens, as every valid book on world religion should.

As far as I can tell, these three titles contain essentially the same material. The first seems impossible to get in the U.S. The 2nd two are definitely the same material.

Older edition:

The Complete Guide to World Mysticism

by Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749917768

Nov 1998, 176 pages

4 reviews.

Newer edition, hardcover:

The Encyclopedia of Spirituality: Information and Inspiration to Transform Your Life

by Timothy Freke

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0806999055

256 pages, June 2000

Newer edition, paperback:

Spiritual Traditions: Essential Teachings to Transform Your Life

by Timothy Freke

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/080699844X

256 pages, May 2001

"John" as a code-name for Mary Magdalene

>>The beloved disciple was and has been considered, in esoteric Christianity, to be Mary Magdalene, and "John" is a code-name for her.

>What sources show that "John" is a code-name for Mary Magdalene?

There are numerous sources.

In all good paintings of the Last Supper, the beloved disciple next to or resting on Jesus is provably female, lacking the Adam's apple and having emphatically female characteristics.

Freke & Gandy present this tradition.

Ramon Jusino asks why the orthodox scholars pointedly ignore the possibility of MM as the solution to the "mystery" of the identifty of the Beloved Disciple. His website is Mary Magdalene: Author of the Fourth Gospel?

http://www.beloveddisciple.org.

The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John?

by James H. Charlesworth

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1563381354

See the elipses here too, replacing Jusino's comments:

The Secret Identity of the Beloved Disciple

Joseph A. Grassi

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0809131218

Probably relevant:

http://www.magdalene.org/contents.htm

Highly relevant search:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22mary+magdalene%22+%22beloved+disciple%22+john

Book list: Mary "John" Magdalene, The Beloved Disciple

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/CV3ZTFHJV6TP

All evidence consistently points to a very strong tradition of popular Christianity holding MM to be the Beloved Disciple, and orthodoxy considers John to be the Beloved Disciple. This particular "mystery" is a no-brainer. It's just one component of many that build up together a *coherent* esoteric popular tradition opposed to the pretense of the aristocrat-clergy that John is the Most Beloved, male, Disciple. Also, from a mythic consort point of view, a male Beloved makes less sense than female.

I haven't looked far enough into this to have a prepared comprehensive list of evidence, but look through my book list. My initial survey tentatively concludes that there is a plethora of evidence for a popular female-John tradition.

One confusing thing about the book Jesus and the Goddess is that too many things are equated. Sophia is the Virgin Mary is John is the Beloved Disciple is Mary Magdalene. Adding in Andrew Welburn, the equation continues: ... is Lazarus, is the initiate. I reconcile these by saying that they are various aspects of one part of the psyche.

Probably relevant:

Book list: Philosophy of Mother of God

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/20S7TV13O9SLD

Book list: Sophia, religious comprehension

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/2T2MEH0AIY432

All polar pairs map to the pair "unenlightened vs. enlightened", including the pairs "unfaithful vs. chaste", "prostitute vs. virgin mother", and "sinner vs. saint" -- and "Mary Magdalene vs. Virgin Mary". As the sinner is transformed to become saved, so does Mary Magdalene, in the psyche of the initiate, become converted into the Virgin Mary. This is how a prostitute becomes a pure virgin mother.

Jesus' last act from the Cross is to unite the lower, mundane, egoic part of the psyche (Mary Magdalene) with the higher, divine, transcendent part of the psyche (the Virgin Mother of the Deity).

John and Mary Magdalene are so close, closer than twins, they converge into one person. The official Literalist version of Christianity attempts to separate them.

That should be enough background and leads to enable confirmation that the original Christians and the later heretics-mystics traditionally considered John a code-name for Mary Magdalene.

Book rvw: Brock: Mary M, First Apostle: Struggle for Authority

Today I posted this book review.

Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority

Ann Brock, 2003

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674009665

5 stars

Democratic Mary M. vs. Hierarchical Peter and Virgin Mary

Brock shows that any given early Christian writing portrays authority as being concentrated either in Mary Magdalene or Peter, but not both. Mary Magdalene is often replaced by Mary mother of Jesus, who then is passive and affirms Peter's authority. The Peter figure is consistently elevated in writings that promote hierarchical, male, formal authority such as Deacons, Bishops, and Archbishops.

The Mary Magdalene figure is consistently elevated is writings from which formal leadership roles are absent. The Paul figure is more involved in a tug-of-war between these two opposing systems of church government.

Brock tends to speak as though taking for granted the historical existence of the Bible figures -- that may or may not be excusable. Those who wanted to concentrate power exclusively in the hands of the leaders of a hierarchical church had good reason to literalize all the Bible figures, whereas I would expect the democratizers such as elevated Mary Magdalene as authoritative would be inclined to democratically put forth the whole scheme as mythic-mystic metaphor.

I would like to see this motive for literalization treated and possibly contrasted between those who elevated the figure of Mary Magdalene (women, mystics, and those not in power) and those who elevated the figure of Peter (male Roman rulers).

Brock demonstrates that among the gospels, Luke is the most pro-Peter and most pro-hierarchy, promoting the narrowest and most formal concept of "apostle". The whole idea of a firmly restricted number of "apostles" aligns with the motives of the Petrine camp and is against the spirit of the Mary Magdalene camp.

I am still trying to understand whether this book postulates that Christianity began as a women-driven religion that was later taken over by the men in power; whether Mary Magdalene is practically the same as the Beloved Disciple and the traditional figure of "John"; and whether Mary Magdalene should be thought of as the mythic consort of the godman figure in the Christian system of mythic-mystic religion.

This is a solidly scholarly work that greatly advances Mary Magdalene studies and shows the importance and full relevance of Mary Magdalene. Before reading Brock, I was inclined to think that because the Mary Magdalene early tradition has been largely suppressed in the canon, a theory of the core Christian mythic-mystic system need not cover her.

Brock clearly reveals the importance of tracing in the canon the boundaries of this battle for authority between the democratic and hierarchical camps. To a significant extent, the canon is intrinsically shaped in the form of a conflict and contention between the two camps; the canon reflects a great tug-of-war between two main scripture-shaping camps, and cannot be meaningfully understood when approached as a single, coherent, harmonious construction.

Brock opens up the canon by demonstrating that it reflects opposing efforts to define the structure of the church, the content of Christian doctrine, and the socio-political role of women. The scriptures can be rightly divided, putting aside the familiar Petrine authoritarian tradition which was convenient for the Roman rulers, and freshly opening up the democratic direct experience associated with the Mary Magdalene camp.

I would like to see more about the association of direct mystic experiencing with the Mary Magdalene advocates. This book is more concerned with establishing the evidence for its specific, delimited thesis that there was a struggle for authority, than with speculating about the motives and mode of operation of the Orthodox authoritarian Christians (bishops and other powerful, elite rulers) against the Gnostic Christians.

Book: Brock: Mary M, 1st Apostle: Struggle for Authority

I posted the book review of Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority, shown below. Even though it is a Radical review, it is marked as a Spotlight Review, with 30 of 41 people so far voting that it was "helpful" in understanding what the book is about and in deciding whether to purchase and read it. For the first few months, as I recall, this book was ignored, and less of a majority voted my review as "helpful".

Sales of Brock's book increased after the book Da Vinci Code became a bestseller.

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385504209

March 2003, Sales rank: #1, Reviews: 1,645

Out of my 45 book lists

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-fil/-/A1YFCQT60M4XAJ

the following book list, which includes Brock's book, became the most popular:

Mary "John" Magdalene, The Beloved Disciple

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/CV3ZTFHJV6TP

Here are my most popular book lists, showing the number of times viewed:

1386 -- Mary "John" Magdalene, The Beloved Disciple

943 -- Picture story Bibles

927 -- Gnosticism

838 -- The entheogen theory of religion

730 -- Historical Jesus, or Christ Myth?

503 -- Mystery Religion, Myth, and the Mystical State

474 -- Mythic-only Christ theory

393 -- Ecstatic Alchemy

376 -- Ancient Near Eastern religion

365 -- Reformed/Calvinist theology and determinism

364 -- Original, experiential, mystical Christianity

_____________________

Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority

Ann Brock, 2003

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674009665

Rank: 8K (very popular)

5 stars

Democratic Mary M. vs. Hierarchical Peter and Virgin Mary

__________________________

>Is the "Da Vinci Code" ... highly relevant to the Egodeath discussion group?

Tangentially relevant. It's Liberal Literalism, lacking the mythic-only paradigm. Jesus and MM literally existed and were literally married and had literal offspring carrying the literal blood of a literal dynasty of literal kings. It's not based in mystic-state experiencing.

>Should be read by anyone interested in the field ?

One should know the poor paradigm it reflects: Liberal literalism deficient in mystic altered-state experiencing, misreading metaphorical description of mystic experiencing in a literalist mode.

Female John in Golden Children's Bible

Golden Children's Bible: The Old Testament and the New Testament

Joseph Miralles (Illustrator)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307165205

Classic, reprinted 1993, many pics, 512p, 9.7x7.0" (med-size), 58K rank (popular), intermediate.

The classic book Golden Children's Bible, following perhaps the dominant artistic tradition, portrays John as a female. I agree with the tradition that holds that the figure of Mary Magdalene was renamed to "John" as a code-name due to orthodox coercion. Mary Magdalene as a figurehead is associated with Gnostic Christian roots, while Peter is the conflicting champion of the official hierarchical Church.

In this book, Joseph Miralles represents John as having almost shoulder-length blond hair, parted in the middle -- the same as Jesus. John is beardless, has no visible breasts, and none of the figures have a visible Adam's apple. John almost always wears a lavender robe with separate dark-blue sash. Jesus wears a white robe with separate light-blue sash. When Jesus is shown with generic unnamed people, John is not shown. When the people around Jesus are specifically the apostles, John is sometimes shown. Peter wears a light brown robe with separate medium-brown sash, and from one picture, wears a green undergarment.

Page 375 - The 12 apostles are chosen

Jesus sits on a rock, elevated above the apostles. John sits at his left.

Page 441 - Last Supper

John sits at the left of Jesus, and Peter sits to the left of John. Jesus holds out half a loaf of bread in either direction. John looks disturbingly transvestite-like, with blatantly ambiguous gender, mainly female, but too tall and subdued, almost flat chest.

Page 442 - Foot washing

Jesus on left washes Peter's foot on right. John, looking like a pretty, tall blond with flat chest and soft chin, and now fully shoulder-length hair, looks face out but down to the foot washing.

I haven't yet read the text, but this part is a highly objectionable distortion of scripture: "Now close beside Jesus at the table was one of the disciples whom he loved." That is a blatant, flat contradiction of scripture, which clearly says *the* disciple whom Jesus loved, above the others, in contrast to the others.

Page 454 - Removal from cross

A woman with white robe and blue top garment holds Jesus' body. Behind her is John, holding part of some white cloth. A closer woman wears burgundy robe with dark gray top garment. I would identify the woman holding Jesus as Martha's sister Mary, because a woman in white and blue is shown in the Lazarus scene on page 424. I would identify the closer woman as possibly Mary Magdalene, though these Marys are a major shell game, and the semi-suppressed tradition would say that John is Mary Magdalene.

Page 459 - Doubting Thomas

The apostle with parted blond hair is only visible near the neck and top half of the head. In this picture alone, the apostle with parted blonde hair is shown wearing a combination of dark brown and red, barely visible.

Page 464 - Peter heals the lame beggar

The accompanying text begins "Now Peter and John went together into the temple [with the gate called Beautiful]." Peter and John are shown with their usual garments and hair style. John appears as a tall blonde, female but not exactly pretty -- somewhat ambiguous in gender, but more female than male, despite the height.

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