Why did the lord appear to Mary Magdalene first?

[Dovekin]

The link I sent above clearly refutes your statement.

It does not. You claimed there was no exclusive and specific statement that MM was first in Scripture. That is false, so I provided a citation of a specific and exclusive statement.

Is that statement accurate? IDK. Depends on what it means. Does Emmerich’s vision show that it is false? Does JP2’s fallible exegesis show it is false? What in your link “clearly refutes” it?

 

[ConstantLearner]

No. Do your homework. Read what I said. It’s the writings of Anne Catherine Emmerich, the same book used by Mel Gibson for the movie The Passion of the Christ.

With all due respect, ACE was not a witness to the resurrection. Nor was Mel Gibson.

I don’t think we know who saw him first, or will ever know. Nor does it matter.

I apologize if I’ve taken anything in your post out of context. Some posts have been deleted, so perhaps I misconstrued.

 

[ConstantLearner]

Mary Magdalene is perfectly logical. God has this sneaky habit of using the least likely of us to do His work. Just look at the saints throughout history.

Would you please cite at least five other irrefutable times God used this “sneaky” habit? Thank you.

 

[ConstantLearner]

See Biblical, Logical, and Historical reasons For believing that the blessed Virgin Mary was the 1st person visited by resurrected Lord.

Mark says that. The other Gospel writers do not. There would be far more clarity had anyone written in the months immediately following the events.

 

[midori]

Moses was a rotten speaker (speech impediment? slow thinker? hesitant speaker? garbled words?), but was expected to be a great leader.

Peter was the rock he would build his church on-- and he flat-out denied even knowing Christ during the Passion, and cussed anyone who accused him of being a follower.

David was a shepherd and became one of the greatest leaders of the Israelites.

Joseph was sold as a slave and ended up saving multiple countries from starvation.

Mary was a poor girl (12? 13? 14?) living in an obscure corner of the empire when the Annunciation happened.

Matthew was a tax collector (to be read: traitor to his countrymen and probably a thief) and was hand-picked to be one of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles.

Paul persecuted Christians all over the place, but ended up being one of the greatest theologians working on behalf of Christianity.

Joan of Arc was a peasant who helped bring the Hundred Years’ War to a close.

Bernadette Soubirous was a peasant— and six million people a year visit her grotto, where all sorts of people experience miracles, both physical and spiritual.

Faustina Kowalska applied for a convent, and was written off as “nothing special”… but her Diary is the basis for one of the greatest devotions of the 20th century.

Therese of Lisieux died at age 24 after a long fight with tuberculosis— but still managed to become one of the greatest saints of modern times, according to Pope St. Pius X.

The Cure d’Ars and Solanus Casey were both so ignorant, and such rotten academics, they almost didn’t get ordained in the first place— and yet they converted so many hearts (and performed a few miracles along the way).

That was thirteen off the top of my head. History is full of God using the smallest and the weakest and the most ignorant to do his work. Half the point is that they are small and weak and poor and ignorant— there’s no way that an illiterate person with hardly any education can become a Doctor of the Church otherwise.

St. Vincent de Paul said–

“It is on humble souls that God pours down His fullest light and grace. He teaches them what scholars cannot learn, and mysteries that the wisest cannot solve He can make plain to them.”

 

[Pattylt]

Just to make a quick correction… a woman’s testimony was accepted in civil Jewish courts of law. Where they could NOT testify was anything regarding Torah law. Witnessing what took place at a burial was very much within a woman’s domain and would be accepted in court. Normally, a female family member would be expected to attend and anoint a body for burial. This would have normally been Jesus mother. The fact that it was Mary Magdalene instead is not explained but may have been a simple case that His mother was unable to.

I hear the comment about women’s testimony not being acceptable a lot and it is just not true. It was avoided if possible due to the cultural sensitivity that it was unpleasant to expose women to court proceedings due to modesty concerns but women often did appear in court and their testimony was completely accepted if it was a civil case. If her testimony was not needed due to men also being a witness, then they would not make a woman appear since men were available.

 

[ConstantLearner]

Peter was always part of Christ’s inner circle. It would be expected Peter would succeed Christ.

As for the visions of saints, those are private revelations, and I do not buy into private revelations in any way, shape, or form.

There is no evidence that Moses or Matthew or Mary even existed.

And I am definitely a theist; I’m not even agnostic. And I do have an MA in theology.

 

[ConstantLearner]

Do you have a source?

The well-known first-century Jewish historian Josephus made his case early in his polemic work, Against Apion : “A woman, it says, is inferior to a man in all respects. So, let her obey, not that she may be abused, but that she may be ruled; for God has given power to the man.” Regarding the issue of marriage and fidelity, Josephus stated in the text that women are to be transferred from the hands of one male authority figure to another, and that a man is to “betroth [a woman] from the man with authority to give her.” Women had no legal status and their testimony was inadmissible in court: “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.” Women were put in the same category as slaves, who were not allowed to testify due to the “ignobility of their soul.” Reinforced at multiple levels of Hellenistic Jewish culture, women were regarded as socially dependant, a status which is seated in the very nature of her gender, anchored in the order of creation.

https://www.armstrong.edu/history-j...yth-how-the-new-testament-elevated-the-status

Josephus was not only a very learned Jewish historian, he lived during the first century, so would be quite conversant with the customs and attitudes.

 

[AugustTherese]

There is no evidence that Moses or Matthew or Mary even existed

We have Matthew’s remains. Moses and Mary, we do not.

 

[ConstantLearner]

It’s believed the Matthew of Biblical writings was buried in a monastery in Kyrgyzstan, but it has never been confirmed.

 

[AugustTherese]

It’s believed the Matthew of Biblical writings was buried in a monastery in Kyrgyzstan, but it has never been confirmed.

The relics of Matthew are venerated in the crypt of Salerno’s Cathedral of St. Matthew.

 

[ConstantLearner]

The relics of Matthew are venerated in the crypt of Salerno’s Cathedral of St. Matthew.

How were those relics verified as his?

 

[ConstantLearner]

In “Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve” author Tom Bissell sets off to discover whether the Twelve Apostles were actual historical figures or merely characters in a fictional story. On the way, he walked for 500 miles along the Camino de Santiago pilgrim route in northern Spain, visited the place where Judas Iscariot reportedly hanged himself, and hunted in vain for a mysterious monastery in Kyrgyzstan where the bones of the Apostle Matthew are believed to be buried. It’s a journey full of false starts, dead ends, and unsolved riddles that leaves him as perplexed as when he began.

These 12 men shaped Christianity—but did they really exist?

Historical evidence of the Apostles is scarce, and some of it contradicts core Christian beliefs.

www.nationalgeographic.com

“National Geographic” has no axe to grind with Christianity. They’d probably be overjoyed if evidence of Jesus and the Twelve were found. Give them more to write about to sell more magazines and make more TV specials.

There really is no hard evidence that any of them were real people. One has to take the whole of the NT on faith alone. No one else wrote about these miraculous goings on, etc. One would think a resurrection, etc., would warrant other people, not involved, becoming involved and writing something. Historians, e.g., Josephus, did exist.

I’m not saying Jesus and the apostles did not exist; I’m just saying there has never been any evidence found for their existence.

And, as I said, I am very much a theist. I am in no way an atheist saying “G-d does not exist.” I very much believe that G-d does exist. Nor am I trying to change anyone’s faith. I don’t know why anyone would want to do that. Faith is very personal, and each person must come to his or her own conclusions, to a point.

Edit: I do believe Jesus existed, and the letters of Paul exist. Paul mentions Peter and John, but he mentions no one else. So, I do definitely believe Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and James existed, but I have my reservations about the others.

 

[Pattylt]

Well, Josephus, for example, has his entire account of the heroic sacrifices at Gamala and Masada from no other source than two women in each case. So obviously he did trust their testimony. As long as it was within their sphere of knowledge ( the household, childbirth) or as a witness to what they saw, it was accepted. So, they could report a crime they witnessed, testify to what they saw if no men were present or if it was directly related to womanly issues, it was accepted. Hearsay evidence was not.

Discussion is in the Encyclopedia Judaica vol.16 under Witnesses. Also discussed in the Sanhedrin which has a list of all who are disqualified from testimony (mentally incompetent, the deaf, etc.) and does NOT list women.
Hope that helps.

 

[ConstantLearner]

Discussion is in the Encyclopedia Judaica vol.16 under Witnesses. Also discussed in the Sanhedrin which has a list of all who are disqualified from testimony (mentally incompetent, the deaf, etc.) and does NOT list women.

Thank you for the correction!

 

[ConstantLearner]

The relics of Matthew are venerated in the crypt of Salerno’s Cathedral of St. Matthew.

Yes, I know, but those relics have never been definitively identified as Matthew’s. If you read the “National Geographic” article, the monastery where Matthew was said to be buried never even existed.

 

[Seagull]

My Priest - at church - during the homily - said Jesus appeared - to His mother first.

That obviously caught my ear -

Never heard that one before !

 

[ConstantLearner]

In case anyone else is wondering, Here’s what the Encyclopedia Judaica says about female witnesses that @Pattylt pointed out:

By the method of gezerah shavah (see *Interpretation ), it is derived from Scripture that only men can be competent witnesses. Maimonides gives as the reason for the disqualification of women the fact that the bible uses the masculine form when speaking of witnesses (Sif. Deut. 190; Shev. 30a; Sh. Ar., ḤM 35:14; Yad, Edut 9:2), but Joseph Caro questioned the validity of this derivation in view of the fact that “the whole Torah always uses the masculine form” ( Kesef Mishneh to Yad, Edut 9:2). Another reason was suggested in the Talmud: that the place of a woman was in her home and not in court (Shev. 30a; cf. Git. 46a), as the honor of the king’s daughter was within the house (Ps. 45:14. It is perhaps noteworthy that the Tur (ḤM 35) omits women from the list of incompetent witnesses). Women are admitted as competent witnesses in matters within their particular knowledge, for example, on customs or events in places frequented only by women ( Rema ḤM 35:14; Darkhei Moshe ḤM 35, n. 3; Beit Yosef, ibid. , n. 15; Terumat ha-Deshen Resp. no. 353); in matters of their own and other women’s purity (Ket. 72a; Ket 2:6); for purposes of identification, especially of other women (Yev. 39b); or in matters outside the realm of strict law (BK 114b). In post-talmudic times, the evidence of women was often admitted where there were no other witnesses available (cf. e.g., Resp. Maharam of Rothenburg, ed. Prague, no. 920; Resp. Maharik no. 179), or in matters not considered important enough to bother male witnesses (Resp. Maharik no. 190; Sefer Kol Bo no. 116). In Israel, the disqualification of women as witnesses was abolished by the Equality of Women’s Rights Act, 5711 – 1951.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/witness

Women anointed and prepared a body for burial, so it would be a woman to go to a grave, not a man, but the men were brought in pretty quickly. That pretty much quashes the argument that not making men the “first” witnesses “proves” anything.

Thank you @Pattylt.

 

[Gab123]

With all due respect, ACE was not a witness to the resurrection.

That’s assuming that what Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich didn’t have authentic visions. But there’s a history of God granting visions to mystics of the Church; this is known as private revelation. Thus whether one physically witnessed the resurrection or witnessed what happened in visions granted by God is a witness to the actual details of how things went down. After all, as Scripture explains: Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

One doesn’t have to believe private revelation, yet private revelation does have a place in our life of faith, being that its purpose is to light zeal in the heart of the faithful. Plenty of saints were edified through private revelation. St Teresa of Avila, a Doctor of the Church, was given a private revelation vision of hell as a reminder to the faithful of the reality of hell which Jesus did not describe in detail in the Scriptures.

 

[joeybaggz]

joeybaggz:

Mary Magdalene is perfectly logical. God has this sneaky habit of using the least likely of us to do His work. Just look at the saints throughout history.

Would you please cite at least five other irrefutable times God used this “sneaky” habit? Thank you.

Moses was an outcast who had a terrible stuttering problem
David was a simple shepherd boy
Jesus’ cousin, John, was a wild man who lived in the desert and at locusts and honey
Paul was a coatrack at Stephen’s stoning
Simon was a Cyreanean who wanted nothing to do with Jesus
Then there were the three kids at Fatima
An itinerant laborer in Mexico named Juan
Oh, that’s seven. Didn’t realize 60 seconds could go by so quickly