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Mistaking Mary Magdalene
The subject of numerous controversies, she is defined by ambiguity, welcoming outcasts to the Church and provoking more imaginative approaches to faith.
In the Book of John, Jesus commissions her to share the good news of his return with the other disciples, which is why Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century theologian, names her “the apostle to the apostles.” Nonetheless, Magdalene has been maligned by Church fathers throughout the centuries; in the present day, feminist scholars have championed her. Based on her reading of Papyrus 66, thought to be the world’s oldest complete copy of the Gospel of John, and other crucial manuscripts, Schrader Polczer, an assistant professor of New Testament at Villanova University, argues that a second-century scribe deliberately suppressed the role of Mary Magdalene. When a woman, who some scholars suspect is Mary Magdalene, is erased from this passage in John 11, her role is significantly diminished; it is Peter, the first apostle to recognize Jesus, who comes to the fore in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and whose name is passed down through history.
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