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Ann Naffziger Answers:
Mel Gibson took some “creative license” in his movie, including making the unfortunate connection you mention here.
John’s gospel recounts a story of a woman, unnamed, who is caught in the act of adultery (Jn 7:53-8:11). As she is about to be stoned, Jesus says “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” There is no mention of the woman’s identity, and certainly no evidence to suggest any connection with Mary Magdalene. For some reason, some Christians like Mel Gibson have repeatedly marred Mary Magdalene’s reputation by making this unfair and biblically unwarranted connection.
Contrary to being identified as an adulterer or otherwise sexual sinner, the portrait of Mary Magdalene in the gospels is a supremely positive one. Never is there any mention of her sinfulness. In fact, the only biographical detail we have of her is a mention by Mark (Mk 16:9) and Luke (Lk 8:2) that Jesus cast seven demons out of her. Otherwise, she is given prime importance as a witness to the crucifixion, her presence at the empty tomb, and then meeting the risen Jesus. Her witness at these events surpasses that of even Peter who was said to have deserted Jesus at his Passion. In John’s gospel, especially, Mary Magdalene is upheld as an apostle in the most positive sense when Jesus appears to her first after his resurrection and missions her to proclaim the resurrection to his other disciples. (Jn 20:11-18).
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Anyone who complains about Mary Magdelene being unfairly maligned by being conflated with the saved adulteress or the repentant prostitute is missing the point of those stories, and maybe Christianity all together. It’s true that there is no Biblical reason to connect Magdelene to those other women, and Gibson and other deserve criticism for bad scholarship. But the idea that Magdelene’s reputation is marred by the suggestion of past sexual sin reflects immature prudishness and a failure to take seriously the universality of sinfulness, the efficacy of grace, and the genuineness of repentance. The proper response is, there’s no reason to believe she was the adultress (or prostitute), but so what if she was? So much the better for her, to be a paragon not only of witness and service, but of repentance and redemption.
I wouldn’t look to Mel Gibson for guidance in anything Catholic
@Zeb… Good point, and true, “So what if she was.” But… She WASN’T. And that IS the point, entirely. There are many women who admire and look up to what Mary Magdalane represents. To some, even non-Christians like myself, she is a Goddess and a symbol of strength, in the midst of the chaos of what Christianity has become (overall), today.
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