HER STORY: Leaders in the Cause of Christ, Mary of Magdala, a Disciple of Jesus

Like the five men called to be disciples at the beginning of John's Gospel, and the woman at the well in Samaria in Chapter 4, Mary of Magdala's story includes all twelve elements unique to Jesus's call. #MaryMagdalene #John20 #WomanDisciple

Though Mary of Magdala is a well-known figure in the gospels, she is not introduced by name until Jesus’s crucifixion in John’s Gospel (John 19:25). John doesn’t explain who she is, or what her relationship is to Jesus or his family, but there she is, with John and Mary, Jesus’s mother. That alone says how important she was to Jesus’s inner circle. In fact, Mary of Magdala is the only other…

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Technology just revealed a new name to women’s history.

For nearly 1,300 years, no one knew it was there. The name of a highly educated English woman, secretly scratched on to the pages of a rare medieval manuscript in the eighth century, but impossible to read – until now.

Academics have discovered the Old English female name Eadburg was repeatedly scored into the surface of the religious text, using a method that kept it hidden from the naked eye for more than 12 centuries.

The covert writing of the woman’s name was finally revealed when researchers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford used cutting-edge technology to capture the 3D surface of the ancient manuscript, a Latin copy of the Acts of the Apostles that was made in England between AD700 and AD750.

It is the first time this technology, capable of revealing “almost invisible” markings so shallow they measure about a fifth of the width of a human hair, has been used to record annotations on the surface of a manuscript.

“There are only a limited number of surviving early medieval manuscripts which contain clear internal evidence of a woman having created, owned or used them,” said Jessica Hodgkinson, a PhD student at the University of Leicester who made the discovery while researching her thesis on women and early medieval manuscripts.

“Most of these manuscripts are from the continent – it is much rarer to find evidence of this in surviving manuscripts which were made and used in the geographical area we now call England.”

Writing Eadburg’s name on the book quietly asserted her power and high status at a time when only a few elite, highly educated women were able to write and read both Old English and Latin. “It’s a hugely significant and very powerful text – the word of God, conveyed through the apostles. And I think that might be at least part of the reason why somebody chose to write Eadburg’s name into it, so that she was close to that.”

It is not clear why the name was written so stealthily, with a drypoint stylus, rather than ink. “Maybe it was to do with the resources that person had access to. Or maybe it was to do with wanting to leave a mark that put that woman’s name in this book, without making it really obvious,” Hodgkinson said. “There could have been some reverence for the text, which meant the person who wrote her name was trying not to detract from the scripture or compete with the word of God.”

Significantly, she found Eadburg’s name passionately etched into the margins of the manuscript in five places, while abbreviated forms of the name appear a further 10 times.

This suggests it is likely to have been Eadburg herself who made the marks. “I could understand why somebody might write someone else’s name once. But I don’t know why you would write somebody else’s name so many times like that,” Hodgkinson said.

An Old English transcription, and tiny, rough drawings of figures – in one case, of a person with outstretched arms, reaching for another person who is holding up a hand to stop them – were also discovered etched on to the small book, which is barely bigger than an A5 pamphlet.

Hodgkinson hopes further study will reveal the meanings of these figures and the ancient transcription, which has so far proved impossible to translate.

She also hopes to eventually discover who Eadburg was. Certain features of the manuscript suggest the book was produced in Kent, where a woman called Eadburg was abbess of a female religious community at Minster-in-Thanet in the mid-eighth century. However, there are at least eight other known contenders for the role.

But whether or not these mysteries are ever solved, for Hodgkinson there is something very empowering and meaningful about the discovery of Eadburg’s name. “Still, to this day, there’s this human urge to leave a mark of your presence on something that is meaningful to you or is a record of where you’ve been,” she said. “We don’t know all that much about Eadburg, but now, because of this amazing technology, we’ve seen her name, we know she was there. She’s here, in this book – and it speaks across the centuries.”

The biggest indicator to me that dokja actually just has shit taste in novels is that he was genuinely supprised that han sooyoung(as the first apostle) was a woman

I'm reading The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr (finally), and I'm on Chapter Two and I'm so fucking mad. I'm fully on board with what she's saying. I'm mad at patriarchy. A lot of the arguments are familiar to me (I've been egalitarian for years), but the one that's standing out to me and making me rage at the way the church patriarchy has sanitised and obfuscated things, is learning how dang GENDER TRANSGRESSIVE women in the early church were. "One more piece of evidence that convinces me that the household codes should be read as resistance narratives to Roman patriarchy is how early Christians were perceived by the Roman world: as "gender deviants". . . . Not only did early Christians place women in leadership roles; they meet together on equal footing—men, women, children, and slaves—in the privacy of the home, a traditional female space. Christianity was deviant and immoral because it was perceived as undermining the ideals of Roman masculinity." Early Christianity was QUEER. It was all about breaking down gender norms of Roman society. Like Paul said "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." And I'm so mad that we haven't been taught that.

The actual Mary Magdalene

I will never forgive Pope Gregory I for what he did to Mary Magdalene and how she's been demonised for years because of it. Mary Magdalene was never a sex worker, and was one of the most devout women within the Bible. SHE WAS RIGHTFULLY AN APOSTLE, St. Thomas Aquinas even called her the Apostle to the Apostles, she only got a specific saint day (not a memorial day) in 2016-

Mary Magdalene has been destroyed by history, which she never deserved.

Doing an Early Church study and they casually hit us with “the ten thousand martyrs [from a single city/location]” and “So many were killed on a single day that the axe, blunted and worn out by the slaughter, was broken in pieces, while the exhausted executioners had to be periodically relieved.”

Then you look it up and learn that, yes, the martyrdom of ten thousand people in Nicomedia is supported by historical documents and they can actually specify it likely happened in the year 303 A.D. under the beginning of Diocletian’s reign.

Historians estimate that between 250 and 311 A.D, 60,000 Catholics were martyred. That’s around 1,000 a year, or three a day, for SIXTY YEARS.

“✨We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn.✨” Oh yeah? Well we’re the descendants of the Catholics you couldn’t kill. Of people who stood firm in the face of horrors beyond comprehension, who knew that hours or days of pain was nothing compared to the ecstasy that awaited them. I pray that I can have a fraction of their courage and dignity, a hint of their resolve and charity.

Holy martyrs, pray for us.

deseret book is more persistent than duolingo.

i ordered 2 books for a church research project on Black saints in the early Church and also in the Reorganization, on which the one book had a small section us and all had info from the our shared early church history, and it was an ebook too!

and i get physical mail from them once a month. i have no idea how to cancel.

herald house, the community of christ publishing house, contacts me much less, and i buy books from them all the time.

and oh their church book app reminds me to read my scriptures and the words of their prophets regularly if it's not in sleep mode.

i have to admire the effort behind it, ngl.

I still cannot believe they did that to my girl Almalexia. Tattoos labled as Almalexia and it's actually Sotha Sil

' I am not the seraphic ideal so many paint me to be! ' songbird loses control of her carefully crafted persona, ' just for once, I want to be loved! I want to be choked by true love until I weep with joy and revelry! so, chain me, if you like! possess me! love me, Apostle, love me! fulfill the frantic wish that even all this fame could never fulfill! fulfill me! I will sing away all that haunts you, I will hypnotize you and remove all of your burden. I will give you peace. ' ( shall we be a bit fucking insane 😳 )

@scrtilegii

There is never trust in anything that looks divine. Divinity is a lie and the gods are cruel. There is deep unsettlement whenever the concept of religion and holiness comes into place. She, who has used religion and holiness, witnessed all it had done to the minds of others. The seraphs will be praised, people will kneel before them and pray upon their salvation (Cleanse me, cleanse me, cleanse me) while forgetting the true nature of these creatures. But the galaxy seems to be filled with more than just ideals and ideations, it is filled with those who live such lives through and through. 

I was the god, the saint, the destroyer, the devil, the sinner, the peasant and the empress. I was everything and nothing, I took on roles of holy worship and satanic rituals. This body is not pure and it will never, it’s been tainted by more than others fear. The energy of Honkai found its way to deep, altering everything and anything it came into contact with. 

The maiden of lying masks tells her, persona slipping and she looks all the more beautiful in her imperfections. The wings on her head are lies told by those who wish to take them for granted, and Zarina thinks their white color is beautiful and pretty when coming together with Robin’s general color palette. The soft blue, the gentle touch of the sky in her hair and such a gentle shade of green in her eyes. The winter within her craves to have more of these colors inside of it, to dance in a flurry of snow around her to witness all that she is and to preserve in memory and in ice the sight of her beauty. 

There is never trust in anything that looks divine, but there is trust in the one who lets her facade fall and expose her selfishness. There is trust in the rawness of emotion and the desire to be loved. Is it not the most perfect imperfect thing? To be loved wholly, truly, with the vices and imperfections included? The angel shows her true face and the Apostle finds it better than any alcohol she's ever tasted, an intoxicated feeling of appreciation and delight. Her frozen core beats for she no longer has a true heart that acts like it, her being yearns to touch her, to taint her more, to possess more of her voice, her warmth, her lips, her gaze, her everything.

Chain me, she says. Possess me, she says. Love me, she says.

It's impossible to stay away when such allure is presented. No, not impossible, but she doesn't want to. Zarina always chooses what she wants to do and now she steps so close to the seraphim that their chests touch and her hand rests on the songstress' waist while the other tilts her chin up so she could look at her. How frantically she's been speaking, but the Sovereign (Herrscher) can only look in admiration, fascination, and adoration. Perfection bores her, perfection brings out her apathy and disinterest but this? Oh, Robin's truth is what intrigues her and brings her here like a moth to a flame (you were a flamechaser too, faux goddess, once).

Red lips part to begin to speak:

"I will not chain you for freedom fits you better," her words are a melody laced in velvet, deep and sultry. "I will not possess you for obsession is my love's face," she presses her thumb against Robin's lips while looking into her eyes, enjoying the perfection of her rosy lips. "But I will love you. I will love you as people love in winter to stay warm, I will kiss you breathless and steal your voice when the moon is high." Now her thumb traces across the lower lip. "Be my duet in the song, Robin. Be my equal, want me and yearn for me as much as I yearn for you. I'll let you sing me to sleep, I'll let you be my final lullaby."

There is a pause between them to let the words sink in, sink as in the abyssal ocean where countless memories will forever be buried. The voices, oh, the voices are so loud but they will never be forgotten! The Discipline orders you to remember and it's a golden necklace around your neck, Apostle, you'll never be free from the God's Voice! But Zarina knows, she listens to the angel's words and she accepts them. Not recklessly, but solely because there is nothing left to lose and because she'd love to jump into this horror with her arms open for the seraphim to claim her love.

"But you must be my equal. Be selfish, be greedy, be loving. Want me and desire me, reach out your hands and cling to me to not let me go," she whispers now, so it will be only heard to by the wings of faith and fate. Harmony won't interrupt them as Sokolova's arm circle around Robin's waist, hugging her close and her hand cups the songstress' cheek. Golden eyes - half-lidded - are full of winter charm, warmth within them is both tempting and dangerous. How can ice be warm? Just like people fall asleep under the layers of snow never to wake up again. "I will only ever love the [real] you, not the diva, not the daughter of Oak Family, but you - the one so imperfect, so selfish, and so greedy. So be wanting with me," Zarina then kisses her forehead, too tender of a gesture for words spoken but a promise done before her lips press against her eyebrow. "Because the others will see perfect, what beautiful mask, but I want to see you come undone with me," another kiss to her cheek, it's reverence for the truth and true beauty in the eyes of gold. "I'll be loving with you, Robin, I will revere you and worship you but only if you do the same. Obsess with me as I obsess with you. I don't want half-loves, I want all that you are. So give it to me, give me your voice, your lips, and your soul. And you will have it all from me." Another kiss to the corner of her lips.

Origin is all about Ego, the true self. Thus, Zarina exposes the truth of herself before Robin and wishes for the same. Reverence for the Ego, love for the Ego, adoration for the Ego. She is the Apostle of Origin, the Messenger of Ego, and the one who continuously begins.

"I will be your true love, so be mine."

Now, the angel's lips are captured by the apostle's. A kiss to seal the promise.

Women Disciples: Conclusion to the Series

The high view of Christ and of the Scriptures will lead Christians today to hearken to John’s portrayal of women and men in Jesus’s apostolic mission and support Christ’s work in calling women and men to every area of ministry and leadership in the church

The Twelve Elements in Jesus’s Call to Discipleship The Greek verb ζητέω | zēteō held a centuries-old spiritual significance sourced in the Hebrew scriptures and was well-known to Jewish students of sacred writings. It means to seek God, in the hope that God may be found. Within a hundred years before Jesus’s ministry, it came to mean seeking the scriptures in order that God, and wisdom from…

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i cannot fucking believe i've finally gotten to judas

love the christian justification for not allowing women to be priests/ministers, "jesus didn't choose any women apostles or send women as missionaries" ok well jesus didn't say anything abortion either but that doesn't stop you

I forget how I even came across this video. Once I watched it, I was so mad that this was the first time I had ever heard of the Apostle Thecla or this book. The early church has so much to answer for. Ugh.

Also, none of this improves my opinion of Paul, and my opinion of him was already in the toilet.

Thecla is pretty awesome, though!

Women Ministers of the Gospel

We have all heard the arguments of well know preachers that are men saying women can not teach or preach. Such men use Paul the apostle’s letters to support this way of thinking. Very “cherry picking” if you read his letters.

For example Paul writes to Timothy and says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” but in his letter to the church at Colossae at the end of his letter he writes, “Greet the brothers and sisters who are in Laodicea and also Nympha and the church that is in her house.” Notice Nympha is a woman with a church in her house.

Now one could argue that Nympha was not the leader of her house church as Paul did not specify whether she was or not, or if her house church was only women. For none of that is available to us, but as I considered these scripture passages some very simple questions came to mind about this subject.

First question, “If a woman shares the gospel with an unbeliever that is a man and converts him to Christ, is he any less of a convert than a man that was converted to Christ by another man?”

Answer; No he is not. For both converts are in Christ.

Second question, “If a woman preaches the truth of salvation and the way of true righteous living before God to men and women, does the truth become something less because she is a woman and not a man?”

Answer; No, the truth has no darkness or falsehood in it. That is why it is called the truth. In fact that way of thinking is more in line with Islam than Christianity.

In Jesus’s Great Commission He never said, “Only men are allowed to proclaim the good news in My name!” But perhaps you might say, “Only men were there.” To that I would say, “Where you there receiving those words Jesus spoke? If the great commission was only for those standing there, then how would the gospel spread to every nation and reach us today? For by both men and women the gospel has gone out to every nation. By saying women can not preach or teach others The Way, we are effectively calling them false teachers and prophets”.

What did Jesus say about false prophets? He said, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.”

Did He say anything about their outward appearance or was it their fruit? It was all about their fruit not what they looked like. For The Lord told the prophet Samuel this, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

If you look at why Paul said he did not allow women to teach it was a matter of Adam came first then Eve, and Eve was the first to sin not Adam. However, Adam still heeded the words of the serpent through Eve, and committed the same sin. If we apply Paul’s point of view to todays church world we might find ourselves listening to the wrong person. For example, if you had two preachers in a room, one being a man and the other a woman, and the man was a wealthy preacher who was known for using the Bible to get rich off of while the woman preacher was a humble servant of Christ who was known for preaching the gospel correctly and encouraging others to good deeds and righteous living, who would you listen to? Would it be the man who was corrupt or the woman who was living righteously before our Lord and Savior? I would hope that in this situation it would be the woman, not the man.

Now am I saying that we should not listen to Paul? Not at all! Paul was a great apostle and fellow worker in the ministry of The Lord Jesus Christ. His letters and teachings are full of understanding and spiritual wisdom, but the church world today is full of division and false teachings that would greatly grieve anyone from that time if they were here today. For they warned against fractions, arguments, debates, harsh words and rebukes, divisive people, and so on.

When we get up on our pulpits whether in a church setting or online and start preaching against fellow servants of The Lord because of what they look like, then we bring great shame to the gospel. For Jesus told us to, “love one another as I first loved you”. Accusing others of heresy because they are women preachers or teachers is not loving, but rather another argument for those that seek the truth to see and look elsewhere for God.

Today we also celebrate the Holy Myrrhbearer Joanna. Saint Joanna was one of the women who came to Christ's tomb to hear the joyous news of the resurrection and reported it to the disciples, thus becoming an apostle to the apostles. She is also known for finding the head of Saint John the Baptist after King Herod had disposed of it after his martyrdom. May she intercede for us all + #saint #joanna #myrrhbearer #myrrh #tomb #christ #apostle #disciple #resurrection #woman #women #womenatthetomb #saintjohn #john #johnthebaptist #saintjohnthebaptist #kingherod #king #herod #orthodox (at Galileia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfSDr2qvEXw/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=