contradictions.

[latin_rite]

Ok talkingto someone on yahoo. Andthey asked me to explain a contradiction in the bible. He said that one passage has mary magdaleine at the cross. but another says she wasn’t there. is this true as i can’t pick it out. maybe some of youpeople could and explain this contradiction (if any)

 

[PhilotheaZ]

The only evangelist who doesn’t mention her by name mentions “women” who were there:

Matthew 27:

55 There were many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him.
56 Among them were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

Mark 15:

40 There were also women looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome.
41 These women had followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him. There were also many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

Luke 23:

48 When all the people who had gathered for this spectacle saw what had happened, they returned home beating their breasts;
49 but all his acquaintances stood at a distance, including the women who had followed him from Galilee and saw these events.

John 19:

25 Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.

 

[NPC]

As PhilotheaZ has shown, the key to answering this question is to realise that omission of information on the part of the Evangelists (or indeed, any other author) does not mean that a certain event did not happen. The person with whom you were talking on Yahoo has made the error of accepting Luke’s non-naming of Mary Magdalene as Luke meaning that she was not there. The Gospels each tell many stories of the life of Christ - some are recounted in all four Gospels, while certain accounts may only be found in one or two of the Gospels. There is only one of Christ’s miracles which is recounted in all four Gospels - the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, however this does not mean that the miracle at Cana, for example, did not take place because all four Evangelists did not write down the account. In addition, we know that the Gospels do not record every event in Christ’s life - even the last line in John’s Gospel tells us this - “There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.”(Jn. 21:25).