Publication
Inner Traditions (2002), Edition: First U.S. Edition, Paperback, 200 pages
Call number
GT-C-EW / Mary
ISBN
0892819111 / 9780892819119
Original publication date
1997
Collections
CSS Library Notes
Gospel of Mary , Mary Magdalene
Physical description
200 p.; 8.88 inches
Description
Perhaps no figure in biblical scholarship has been the subject of more controversy and debate than Mary Magdalene. Although she is discussed in the gospels of Philip, Thomas, Peter, and Bartholomew - in the collection of writings known as the Gnostic gospels that were rejected by the early Christian church - there is no better insight into this mysterious and influential woman than Mary's own gospel. The gospel text and the spiritual interpretation of Jean-Yves Leloup reveal unique teachings that emphasize the eminence of the divine feminine and an abiding love of nature over the dualistic and ascetic interpretations of Christianity presented elsewhere. What emerges from this important source text and commentary is a renewal of the sacred feminine in the Western spiritual tradition and a new vision for Christian thought and faith throughout the world.… (more)
Language
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User reviews
LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
The gospel of Mary Magdalene was discovered in the late 19th century as part of the Berlin Codex; it is not part of the later Nag Hammadi finds, although they may have stoked interest in it. Translators and readers in the first few decades after its discovery tended to pass over it in favor of the
As appetizing as I found the ancient text, I was actually a little put off by the front matter. Jacob Needleman, whom I have read with enjoyment in more scholarly contexts, effuses in his foreword about "the way that is offered by all the spiritual traditions of the world." (vi) English editors Tresemer and Cannon provide a preface called "Who Is Mary Magdalene?" in which they exhibit various sorts of credulity, including praise for the "meticulous research" in Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln's Holy Blood, Holy Grail. (x, n.)
But Leloup's commentary is worth reading, and on the evidence of his notes, French-to-English translator Joseph Rowe has done a capable and thoughtful job. I was not entirely sympathetic to Leloup's perspective: his being-based metaphysic, his emphasis on deity as "creator," and even his borderline monism were all features I could live without. Still, he artfully invokes Corbin's mundus imaginalis, and his final pages exhort the reader to self-overcoming in a way I could not help but admire. Most surprisingly, he offered philologically-informed readings of the great Abrahamic "mountaintop" dicta, i.e. the Decalogue of Mount Sinai and the Beatitudes of Mount Eremos, that I found palatable as a Thelemite.
The ancient text has a tone rather comparable to the Gospel of Thomas. I can imagine both Christian and Thelemic neo-Gnostics putting it to good use.
Show More
Pistis Sophia. The text itself is brief and amply intriguing. Perhaps a third of the book-in-hand consists of front matter and the nine surviving pages of the Gospel. This English edition includes the original Coptic on facing pages, almost as an ornamental touch, since the book is clearly addressed more to a popular than to an academic audience. The remaining two-thirds of the volume provide a decidedly modern commentary on the text, by its translator into French, Jean-Yves Leloup.As appetizing as I found the ancient text, I was actually a little put off by the front matter. Jacob Needleman, whom I have read with enjoyment in more scholarly contexts, effuses in his foreword about "the way that is offered by all the spiritual traditions of the world." (vi) English editors Tresemer and Cannon provide a preface called "Who Is Mary Magdalene?" in which they exhibit various sorts of credulity, including praise for the "meticulous research" in Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln's Holy Blood, Holy Grail. (x, n.)
But Leloup's commentary is worth reading, and on the evidence of his notes, French-to-English translator Joseph Rowe has done a capable and thoughtful job. I was not entirely sympathetic to Leloup's perspective: his being-based metaphysic, his emphasis on deity as "creator," and even his borderline monism were all features I could live without. Still, he artfully invokes Corbin's mundus imaginalis, and his final pages exhort the reader to self-overcoming in a way I could not help but admire. Most surprisingly, he offered philologically-informed readings of the great Abrahamic "mountaintop" dicta, i.e. the Decalogue of Mount Sinai and the Beatitudes of Mount Eremos, that I found palatable as a Thelemite.
The ancient text has a tone rather comparable to the Gospel of Thomas. I can imagine both Christian and Thelemic neo-Gnostics putting it to good use.
Show Less
LibraryThing member mzzkitee
I liked this book because of the history but it wasn't what I expected and I thought it was lacking something. it left me unsatisfied.
LibraryThing member AnArtsNotebook
This book has a very comprehensive introduction for the only mildly clued in reader. A good companion to those people who like the scathingly anti-Catholic part of the DaVinci Code. Also pairs nicely with Tori Amos's "Piece by Piece."
LibraryThing member madamejeanie
Let me start off by saying that my discovery of the texts found at Nag
Hammadi and the Dead Sea Scrolls have changed the way I look at a lot of
things, including but certainly not limited to, religion and world
history.
Back in the third and fourth centuries, when the Christian Church was in
it's
and offshoots, monumental changes were brought forth. After Constantine
married a Christian woman and learned of the massive numbers of "closet
Christians" there were throughout the world, he had his big "conversion
experience. The fact that utilizing those massive numbers of Christian
warriors would almost guarantee his take-over of the Roman Empire
probably had nothing to do with it (yeah, right. ) But logic and
study of history does convince me that Constantine and the other "powers
that be" in those days created the Church as they wished it to be in
order to control more of the masses and put forth their own concepts of
right and wrong, good and evil, and they completely ignored what
thousands had held to be the truth.
The Nicene Council of bishops chose (and rewrote in some cases) the 66
books that we know as the Holy Bible, and they had an agenda to put
forward -- that of controlling the masses of humanity and making The
Church the ruler of everything on this earth. Anyone with an ounce of
curiosity and common sense, it seems to me, would be interested in
knowing just what was in those texts that they discarded and later
suppressed and tried to destroy. These texts make up what has come to
be known as the Gnostic Bible, and ladies and gentlemen, there is no
more fascinating reading to be found.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is one of those forbidden texts and this
book explores in detail exactly who Mary was and why the Church fathers
wanted her and her gospel suppressed. This text, unfortunately, did not
survive in it's entirety, so this study is incomplete, but what does
remain is very powerful.
It has long been believed among Gnostics that Mary Magdalene was the
wife of Jesus, and this gospel goes a long way to proving that. Not by
coming out with it in so many words, but by the insinuation that the
truths Jesus revealed to Mary were much deeper and more mystical than
any he ever revealed to any man. Remember how the gospels agree that
Mary was the first person to see the resurrected Christ on Easter
morning? And how he told her not to touch him? LeLoup in this study
opines that a world of information passed between them in those silent
moments in front of that tomb that morning, in a form of information
conduit between two joined souls. Anyone who has ever been fortunate
enough to marry their "soulmate" will understand exactly how such a
thing can be. The other disciples, especially Peter, were exceedingly
jealous that Jesus would choose to reveal these truths to Mary, a mere
woman, and not to one of them. Some of the disciples joined him in his
scoffing, but others (most notably Thomas and Bartholomew) studied at
Mary's feet. It was in these moments, as Mary taught them the truths
revealed to her by Christ, that the chasm between the Gnostic Christians
and what would later go on to become the Catholic Church began.
Obviously, this particular Gospel was discarded and suppressed because
it came to us through a woman, but there is a great deal more to it
than that. It reveals the innate equality between men and women in the
mind and heart of God and the men who ran the church just couldn't abide
that. It also reveals certain "truths" that are diametrically opposed
to what the Church wanted to embrace, pertaining to the nature of God
and spirituality itself.
This gospel is a fairly short text, fragmented by the loss of time, but
still holds many powerful truths. Leloup's commentary is easy to follow
and understand and it is very well researched. There is much food for
thought within this slim volume, which is why I would not recommend it
as a "quick read." It should be eaten in small bites and chewed long.
But at the end of it, I walked away more satisfied than I've been in a
long time.
Hammadi and the Dead Sea Scrolls have changed the way I look at a lot of
things, including but certainly not limited to, religion and world
history.
Back in the third and fourth centuries, when the Christian Church was in
it's
Show More
infancy and still finding it's way among all the different sectsand offshoots, monumental changes were brought forth. After Constantine
married a Christian woman and learned of the massive numbers of "closet
Christians" there were throughout the world, he had his big "conversion
experience. The fact that utilizing those massive numbers of Christian
warriors would almost guarantee his take-over of the Roman Empire
probably had nothing to do with it (yeah, right. ) But logic and
study of history does convince me that Constantine and the other "powers
that be" in those days created the Church as they wished it to be in
order to control more of the masses and put forth their own concepts of
right and wrong, good and evil, and they completely ignored what
thousands had held to be the truth.
The Nicene Council of bishops chose (and rewrote in some cases) the 66
books that we know as the Holy Bible, and they had an agenda to put
forward -- that of controlling the masses of humanity and making The
Church the ruler of everything on this earth. Anyone with an ounce of
curiosity and common sense, it seems to me, would be interested in
knowing just what was in those texts that they discarded and later
suppressed and tried to destroy. These texts make up what has come to
be known as the Gnostic Bible, and ladies and gentlemen, there is no
more fascinating reading to be found.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is one of those forbidden texts and this
book explores in detail exactly who Mary was and why the Church fathers
wanted her and her gospel suppressed. This text, unfortunately, did not
survive in it's entirety, so this study is incomplete, but what does
remain is very powerful.
It has long been believed among Gnostics that Mary Magdalene was the
wife of Jesus, and this gospel goes a long way to proving that. Not by
coming out with it in so many words, but by the insinuation that the
truths Jesus revealed to Mary were much deeper and more mystical than
any he ever revealed to any man. Remember how the gospels agree that
Mary was the first person to see the resurrected Christ on Easter
morning? And how he told her not to touch him? LeLoup in this study
opines that a world of information passed between them in those silent
moments in front of that tomb that morning, in a form of information
conduit between two joined souls. Anyone who has ever been fortunate
enough to marry their "soulmate" will understand exactly how such a
thing can be. The other disciples, especially Peter, were exceedingly
jealous that Jesus would choose to reveal these truths to Mary, a mere
woman, and not to one of them. Some of the disciples joined him in his
scoffing, but others (most notably Thomas and Bartholomew) studied at
Mary's feet. It was in these moments, as Mary taught them the truths
revealed to her by Christ, that the chasm between the Gnostic Christians
and what would later go on to become the Catholic Church began.
Obviously, this particular Gospel was discarded and suppressed because
it came to us through a woman, but there is a great deal more to it
than that. It reveals the innate equality between men and women in the
mind and heart of God and the men who ran the church just couldn't abide
that. It also reveals certain "truths" that are diametrically opposed
to what the Church wanted to embrace, pertaining to the nature of God
and spirituality itself.
This gospel is a fairly short text, fragmented by the loss of time, but
still holds many powerful truths. Leloup's commentary is easy to follow
and understand and it is very well researched. There is much food for
thought within this slim volume, which is why I would not recommend it
as a "quick read." It should be eaten in small bites and chewed long.
But at the end of it, I walked away more satisfied than I've been in a
long time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member PaperDollLady
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene -- Translation and Notes by Joseph Rowe.
This is a translation by Joseph Rowe of a translation by Jean-Yves Leloup of the Coptic gospel of Mary Magdalene. It’s an excellent book for anyone unfamiliar with the Gnostic gospels because its well-footnoted Preface and
This is a translation by Joseph Rowe of a translation by Jean-Yves Leloup of the Coptic gospel of Mary Magdalene. It’s an excellent book for anyone unfamiliar with the Gnostic gospels because its well-footnoted Preface and
Show More
Introduction give concise explanations of the history of these gospels, along with a fair bit of information on the compiling of the Bible. In Part One, the book has the side-by-side Coptic text and English translation, followed by Part Two with translation and commentary on the Mary Magdalene Coptic text by Jean-Yves Leloup. Although some readers may find the commentary part the most interesting; for me--and I’m only slightly familiar through online reading of the Gnostic gospels--I found that the summarizing of the historical certainties is what held my attention. Even more noteworthy for me was the care given to how Mary Magdalene’s role in Jesus’s life had been interpreted, diminished, and marginalized by some disciples (men) and followers throughout the early years of Christianity, only for her role to reemerge centuries later after Mary’s Coptic gospel texts were found in Egypt in 1896 (now held in the Berlin Museum). This is an excellent and worthwhile read on a captivating subject and it highlights the pivotal role that Mary Magdalene played in early Christianity. Show Less