 | |
| Author | Margaret George |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical novel |
| Published | Viking, 2002 |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0670030965 |
Mary, called Magdalene is a 2002 historical novel by Margaret George about the Mary Magdalene.
As a woman in the Bible, Mary Magdalene's story is not recounted as fully as that of some of the males associated with Jesus. The novel presents a new view of Mary Magdalene – a female apostle who was the first of Jesus' followers.
Author Margaret George, known for writing historical novels on such famous figures as Mary Queen of Scots and Cleopatra, decided to turn to the gospels for inspiration. She noted that they "provide me with something unique to build on. You inherit an existing curiosity about the characters, especially the more iconic ones, but very little detail. With what you might call the 'celebrities' like Mary Magdalene, you just have this outline of her life and the drama in it, even if it is shadowy, tantalisingly brief and potentially misleading". [1]
Mary, called Magdalene was released in 2002 by Viking. [2] Some journalists have observed the increasing interest in Mary Magdalene, and have cited the popularity of George's novel as evidence of this trend. Mary, called Magdalene became a best-seller in 2002, followed by The Da Vinci Code in 2003. [1] [3] Books on Tape and Chivers Sound Library adapted the novel into sound recordings. [2]
Publishers Weekly thought that the pacing of Mary, called Magdalene started out slow and then grew better once the titular character became possessed by demons, but called the final act of the book "safe, though readable". [4] Maureen Dowd of The New York Times called the novel's premise – that Mary was a "good girl" rather than someone who tempts Jesus to evil – "intriguing". [5] Dowd noted George's "rigorous research" but felt that she "goes a bit overboard with her feminist fable, turning Mary into the Gloria Steinem of Galilee". [5] The reviewer concluded that "despite the demonic possession and all her dazzling adventures, this Mary never seems vivid or beguiling". [5]
Mary Magdalene was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurrection. She is mentioned by name twelve times in the canonical gospels, more than most of the apostles and more than any other woman in the gospels, other than Jesus's family. Mary's epithet Magdalene may be a toponymic surname, meaning that she came from the town of Magdala, a fishing town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in Roman Judea.
Mary of Rome was a 1st century Christian woman mentioned in Paul the Apostle's Epistle to the Romans (16:6). She is said to have treated Paul with special kindness, and to have "laboured much among" the early Christian community.
Martha is a biblical figure described in the Gospels of Luke and John. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Mary of Bethany, she is described as living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem. She was witness to Jesus resurrecting her brother, Lazarus.
James the Just, or a variation of James, brother of the Lord, was a brother of Jesus, according to the New Testament. He was the first leader of the Jerusalem Church of the Apostolic Age. Traditionally, it is believed he was martyred in AD 62 or 69 by being stoned to death by the Pharisees on order of High Priest Ananus ben Ananus. James, Joses, Simon, and Judas are mentioned as the brothers or siblings of Jesus as well as two or more unnamed sisters.
In Christianity, a disciple is a dedicated follower of Jesus. This term is found in the New Testament only in the Gospels and Acts. In the ancient world, a disciple is a follower or adherent of a teacher. Discipleship is not the same as being a student in the modern sense. A disciple in the ancient biblical world actively imitated both the life and teaching of the master. It was a deliberate apprenticeship which made the fully formed disciple a living copy of the master.
In the New Testament, Salome was a follower of Jesus who appears briefly in the canonical gospels and in apocryphal writings. She is named by Mark as present at the crucifixion and as one of the Myrrhbearers, the women who found Jesus's empty tomb. Interpretation has further identified her with other women who are mentioned but not named in the canonical gospels. In particular, she is often identified as the wife of Zebedee, the mother of James and John, two of the Twelve apostles. In medieval tradition Salome was counted as one of the Three Marys who were daughters of Saint Anne, so making her the sister or half-sister of Mary, mother of Jesus.
The Gospel of Mary is an early Christian text discovered in 1896 in a fifth-century papyrus codex written in Sahidic Coptic. This Berlin Codex was purchased in Cairo by German diplomat Carl Reinhardt.
John 20 is the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament. It relates the story of Jesus' resurrection. It relates how Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Jesus and found it empty. Jesus appears to her and speaks of his resurrection and dispatches Mary to tell the news to the disciples. Jesus then appears to his disciples. The events related in John 20 are described somewhat differently in Matthew 28, Mark 16, and Luke 24.
John 20:18 is the eighteenth verse of the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament. It occurs after Jesus' resurrection and appearance to Mary Magdalene. In the previous verse Jesus has given Mary a message to deliver to his disciples, this verse describes how she delivers it.
Joanna, the wife of Chuza, is a woman mentioned in the gospels who was healed by Jesus and later supported him and his disciples in their travels. She is one of the women recorded in the Gospel of Luke as accompanying Jesus and the twelve apostles and as a witness to Jesus' resurrection. Her husband was Chuza, who managed the household of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee; this is the origin of the distinguishing epithet commonly attached to her name, differentiating her from other figures named Joanna or Joanne.
Margaret George is an American historical novelist specializing in epic fictional biographies. She is known for her meticulous research and the large scale of her books. She is the author of the bestselling novels The Autobiography of Henry VIII (1986), Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles (1992), The Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997), Mary, Called Magdalene (2002), Helen of Troy (2006), Elizabeth I (2011), The Confessions of Young Nero (2017), and The Splendor Before the Dark (2018).
Junia or Junias was a Christian in the first century known from Paul the Apostle's letter to the Romans.
Luke 8 is the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is anonymous but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke the Evangelist, a companion of Paul the Apostle on his missionary journeys, composed both this Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. This chapter mentions the women who supported Jesus and records some of the great miracles he performed, as well as several parables told by him.
Kathleen McGowan is an American author. Born Kathleen Harkey-Smith, her first book was “Tragic Kingdom: Inside Michael Eisner’s Disney”. As Kathleen McGowan, her novel The Expected One sold over a million copies worldwide and has appeared in over fifty languages. She claims to be a descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
The Memoirs of Cleopatra is a 1997 historical fiction novel written by American author Margaret George, detailing the purported life of Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt. Published on April 15, 1997, it landed on The New York Times Best Seller list for Fiction Hardcover. In 1999, the American network ABC adapted it for television, and released it as a four-part mini series entitled Cleopatra starring the French-Chilean actress Leonor Varela alongside Timothy Dalton and Billy Zane.
James, son of Alphaeus was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, appearing under this name in all three of the Synoptic Gospels' lists of the apostles. He is generally identified with James the Less and commonly known by that name in church tradition. He is also labelled "the Minor", "the Little", "the Lesser", or "the Younger", according to translation. He is distinct from James, son of Zebedee and in some interpretations also from James, brother of Jesus. He appears only four times in the New Testament, each time in a list of the twelve apostles.
The roles of women in Christianity have varied since its founding. Women have played important roles in Christianity especially in marriage and in formal ministry positions within certain Christian denominations, and parachurch organizations. In 2016, it was estimated that 52–53 percent of the world's Christian population aged 20 years and over was female, with this figure falling to 51.6 percent in 2020. The Pew Research Center studied the effects of gender on religiosity throughout the world, finding that Christian women in 53 countries are generally more religious than Christian men, while Christians of both genders in African countries are equally likely to regularly attend services.
Jesus's interactions with women are an important element in the theological debate about Christianity and women. Women are prominent in the story of Jesus. According to the resurrection story, the resurrected Jesus was first seen by women.
Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary refers to a Biblical episode in the life of Jesus in the New Testament which appears only in Luke's Gospel, immediately after the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Luke's account reads:
The name Mary, appears 54 times in the New Testament, in 49 verses. It was the single most popular female name among Jews of the Roman province of Judaea at the time, borne by about one in four women, and most of the New Testament references to Mary provide only the barest identifying information. Scholars and traditions therefore differ as to how many distinct women these references represent and which of them refer to the same person.