MARY MAGDALENE

The Magdalene is St Mary of Magdala who supposedly announced the resurrection of Jesus after he appeared to her to the apostles.

Those who want to wish away the sexism of the New Testament and Jesus focus on her too much.  There are claims that Jesus made her his messenger to the apostles supposedly shows he was not anti-women. But he was only asking her not to help the apostles see that he rose but for her to ask them to be ready to meet him for themselves.  I see that as in line with his culture's bad treatment of women.  She was treated like a post-it note.  And if the Jesus group was hated then and under threat, as we are told, he was putting her in danger.

Reports say only men were allowed to touch him.  He told her not to touch for he was going to God meaning she was dirty.
 
Anyway back to the beginning. 

Mary Magdalene and some other women went to Jesus’ tomb on Sunday morning to anoint his body. This was an excuse for decomposition was believed to have set in by then so what were they really going to the tomb for? They were up to no good. Plus what took them to the tomb so early in the morning? Why was it important to them that there would be nobody about?
 
The gospel says they wondered who was going to open the tomb of Jesus for them which had a big stone rolled across it. Why didn’t they bring somebody to help them? That they carried heavy expensive goods with them to anoint the body means they were lying when they said they had nobody to open the tomb. They must have had strong males with them to protect them in case the robbers were out and fancied stealing the goods from them. If they didn't want help, then the reason was because they were plotting something devious. They didn’t want to bring men with them to help for they were scheming.  You don’t go to all the trouble they went to unless you can open the tomb yourself.
 
If the women had expensive goods with them to anoint Jesus how do we know then that they didn’t bribe somebody to steal the body for them? They had the motive and money to do it with.
 
There is nothing in the gospels or New Testament or anything to indicate that the stone could not have been moved by the women.
 
When the women came to the tomb the guards were unconscious according to the Matthew gospel only. Matthew says the tomb was open by then and there had been an earthquake so did it move the stone allowing the women to steal the body?
 
In fact there were no guards. The Matthew Gospel says the Jews feared the apostles stealing the body to put out a resurrection report. If that was a real concern, the Jews would have put the body in a secret place. It wasn't. Why make extra trouble by posting guards when it was easier simply to move the body to the dump where it would never be found?
 
The women might have stolen the body. The act of stealing the body might have triggered hallucinations, or imaginations caused by the sheer passion of religious faith, of the risen Christ in the apostles if they thought the missing body was a miracle. Once they had the hallucination they wanted to believe it was real and convinced themselves they all experienced the same thing and had happened several times. Memory is very easily polluted. With faith, people generally persuade themselves that they believe what they want to believe. People do make sense of the silliest hallucinations in time as their memories and imagination and wishful thinking tell them a different story from what actually happened. That is how collective hallucinations, which are relatively common, become more credible.
 
The claim that the apostles were totally disillusioned with Jesus at the time of his death cannot be gleaned from the gospels. It’s a Christian lie to thwart attempts to suggest the visions of Jesus were hallucinations or just mystical experiences rooted in psychological need. It is argued that the apostles gave up on Jesus therefore they could not hallucinate appearances of him. Mark only says the apostles didn’t believe the women about the resurrection vision which could mean they just didn’t believe the women but did accept that Jesus could be alive. In John the apostles going back to their former trades, only means they went back to their jobs. Even if they believed Jesus rose, it was all different now and they couldn’t walk around with him as before.
 
The women were very loyal to Jesus and determined that he would not be perceived as a failure so they perhaps concocted a pious fraud. The claim that the women must have been telling the truth when they seen Jesus for nobody regarded female testimony as true proves nothing. Christians did regard female testimony as valid. So the gospels using such testimony proves nothing about the believability of the claims. Besides, if the gospels were using women for evidence when women were considered to be bad testators that does not speak well of their objectivity and fairness.