Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene was a Jewish follower of Jesus who appears prominently in the canonical Christian Gospels. Luke describes her as a woman from whom seven demons had gone out and names her among those who supported Jesus’s ministry. All four Gospels place her among the women connected with the crucifixion and burial traditions, and she is one of the principal witnesses in the resurrection narratives, receiving a particularly prominent encounter with the risen Jesus in the Gospel of John.

The canonical texts do not identify Mary Magdalene as a prostitute, although Western Christian tradition later merged her with other unnamed or differently named women in the Gospels. Her role as a witness to the resurrection led later Christians to call her “apostle to the apostles,” and devotion to her developed in many forms across Eastern and Western Christianity. Historical evidence for her life beyond the Gospel traditions is limited, so precise birth, death and family details cannot be established.

Angela Hunt’s Magdalene gives Mary Magdalene a fictional domestic past while grounding her transformation, discipleship and witness in the Gospel movement towards crucifixion and resurrection. Margaret George’s Mary, Called Magdalene imagines Mary Magdalene as a Jewish woman of Magdala whose ordinary family life is disrupted by spiritual terror, social suspicion and an overwhelming need for deliverance. Further fictional perspectives on Mary Magdalene can be found in Jeffrey Archer’s The Gospel According to Judas, Mika Waltari’s The Secret of the Kingdom, Robert Graves’ King Jesus, and Doug Peterson’s Swords in the Desert.