There does seem to be an effort made to get rid of her by the early church followers. Implying that she was a whore could have been a strategy. It's weird because the Johannine community tried to save her in text. Which would mean it was the Paul crowd that did it and there is not a clear reason why. She would have had little interactions with the Paul community.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Source?

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The Bible. What do you want from me?

The Christ confessor in Mark, Luke, and Matthew is Peter while Mary gets to go to the cave. In John the Christ confessor is Mary and she gets to go to the cave. The early church fathers liked to really play up her supposed life of being a whore before repentance. Meanwhile Paul hints at her existence and says nice things about her. At the same time Mark makes her so dumb she "tells no one" about what would be the single most important moment in Christianity while Luke and Matthew give her a helper to make the right decision.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what happened but there is a trend. She goes from being a major leader of the earliest church to a whore that Jesus saves and is too stupid to know what she saw. If I had to take a bet: she was part of the very early church, funded and organized a lot, and had some falling out probably with someone from Paul's community. So Mark tried to memoryhole her and would have done it except John had some story about how she rocked and saved her.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

What do you mean the Christ Confessor? In Matthew 28 , Peter isn't mentioned, but Mary finds the empty tomb. In John 20 and Luke 24, Peter runs to the tomb after being told by Mary. In all of these accounts, Peter is given a position which appears to be "lesser" than Mary Magdelene. In Mark, she was too afraid to tell anyone until Jesus appeared to her and reassured her (John goes into detail about this, and notes how she was crying in distress). If she actually didn't tell anyone permanently, that fact wouldn't have been recorded.

Also worth mentioning, she had seven demons driven out. Wasn't a whore. This is basically just a weirdly elaborate theory which doesn't really hold any water or value whatsoever.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Christ confessor: the person who answers Jesus when he asks who I am for the first time. Check for yourself the first three gospels it is Peter the fourth it is Mary.

The endings of Mark wasn't part of the original. They were attempts at harmonizing the text. The original ending ends with Mary fleeing the tomb and telling no one.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The original ending was likely a literary device - perhaps encouraging the reader to do what Jesus said as Mary wouldn't do it. It is still recognised as a very early addition, and the fact it was just someone tying up the story to make it read better was also recorded early on. As a matter of fact, if you remove verse 8, it actually makes sense again, so verse 8 seems to be an intentional cliffhanger.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What blog did you copy that from? And yes it was a literary device but that doesn't suddenly mean whatever ending you want goes there.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You are right there in the sense that we know the early church added on to it, but basically every copy of the Bible I have minus the KJV (which doesn't use footnotes and is from 1611 anyway) mentions that they were added on. They aren't even that significant, unless you're that snake handling denomination. Everything said there is backed up by the other three gospels.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It is only backed up because the other gospels plagiarized from it. This is like being amazed that Batman is an orphan in the comics, movies, cartoons, and graphic novels.

Mark diminished Mary's role just like he did with the entire ministry. Matthew invented what happened next by trying to figure out what Paul was talking about in the letters.

Welcome to the Bible where what really happened doesn't matter.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The greek language structure of Mark seems to be cut off abruptly at the end. It doesn't conclude the Gospel properly. It wouldn't have made sense to end it here either as we know from Paul's letters which were written before. The end of the Gospel of Mark was likely a call to respond, to do what the women were told to do.

Secondly, you even seemed to say so yourself that John was written more isolated from the synoptics, so if they were trying to "censor" out when making stuff up, why would he include her in his gospel in the first place?

Lastly, that's assuming Marcan priority, which generally tries to presuppose that Matthew wasn't an eyewitness account in the first place. The early church clearly records Matthew as being written first and Matthew being written by Matthew (keep in mind that the Gospels were widely circulated by then and they had already rejected forgeries under names such as Peter) and Marcan priority was only hypothesised in the late 18th century, yet is still quite debated. Athiestic Bible scholars like it because it is useful for them to explain away the Bible.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It made perfect sense to cut it there. It was a cliffhanger with Paul finishing up.

Secondly, you even seemed to say so yourself that John was written more isolated from the synoptics, so if they were trying to “censor” out when making stuff up, why would he include her in his gospel in the first place?

Because there is no "they". It was separate groups putting out works.

Lastly, that’s assuming Marcan priority, which generally tries to presuppose that Matthew wasn’t an eyewitness account in the first place

Which is a valid assumption since Matthew was not an eyewitness and Matthew copied Mark word for word at places. There is no presupposing here. Whomever wrote those two books were liars writing propaganda.

The early church clearly records Matthew as being written first and Matthew being written by Matthew

Genetic fallacy, sub-type argument from authority, logical fallacy. Something is true because it happened not because someone said it happened.

keep in mind that the Gospels were widely circulated by then and they had already rejected forgeries under names such as Peter)

Irrelevant. Being right about one thing doesn't mean being right about everything.

and Marcan priority was only hypothesised in the late 18th century,

And so was the germ theory of disease which I sincerely hope you buy into.

yet is still quite debated.

The existence of an argument doesn't mean both sides are equally likely to be true.

Athiestic Bible scholars like it because it is useful for them to explain away the Bible.

Circumstantial ad homunium attack. Another logical fallacy. 4th by my count.

I suggest you read up on logic a bit before going further.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Matthew was an eyewitness, Jesus literally called him in person. And Mark could have copied from Matthew instead. This "genetic fallacy" or whatever you made up is purely ignorant, as people who actually knew this stuff and where it came from are the strongest and most reliable sources.

Saying "We know Mark was written first because Matthew copied from Mark" doesn't make any sense - as Mark could just have easily copied from Matthew. And I'm the one you say doesn't know logic? 😂

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The author of that book was not an eyewitness. If there was a historical Matthew he would have been an illiterate Aramaic speaking Jew not a highly literate Greek speaker. Even if the historical Matthew managed basic literacy he definitely would not have been witness to all the events that happened in secret, such as Mary speaking to the Holy Ghost alone.

And Mark could have copied from Matthew instead.

No. Matthew is a superset of Mark and religious writing get longer with time not shorter. 85% of Matthew is from Mark. Additionally we see Matthew break chiastic structures that Mark had to get results he wanted. Finally historically it doesn't make sense. Paul was either freshly dead or very old so it would make sense for Mark to recast Jesus as Paul, by the time Matthew was written the Jerusalem community has been mostly destroyed so they needed recruits from Jews. Hence the echoing and rewriting to cast Jesus as the new Moses.

This “genetic fallacy” or whatever you made up is purely ignorant

Logical fallacies. I didn't identify them first. They were discovered 5 centuries before Paul made up the Jesus myth.

as people who actually knew this stuff and where it came from are the strongest and most reliable sources.

Argument from authority. Present your evidence. The attributions of the Gospels were done by people over a century later. If it is so obvious why not just present your evidence?

Saying “We know Mark was written first because Matthew copied from Mark” doesn’t make any sense - as Mark could just have easily copied from Matthew. And I’m the one you say doesn’t know logic?

Repeating yourself.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago

Matthew was a tax collector. It would have made no sense for him to be illiterate at all. And he would have likely known Greek as it was a common language in Judea at that time.

Again, "religious writings get longer with time not shorter" doesn't necessarily make sense either. Because the book of Jude, John's epistles, etc were all also written later. Papyrus was expensive. It would have made sense to make an abridged work with teachings in it from your own teachers as well for difference.

Matthew has a large chiastic structure too, so I don't know what that point was about.

Iraneus and Papias both referred to the gospels, and that was only within centuries.