Why did the lord appear to Mary Magdalene first?

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For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
1 Corinthians 15:3-7

And the Apostolic Fathers
“But the works of our Saviour were always present, for they were genuine:-those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead, who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised, but were also always present; and not merely while the Saviour was on earth, but also after his death, they were alive for quite a while, so that some of them lived even to our day.”
Fragment of Quadratus of Athens

So basically their saying hey if you don’t believe me go ask all these other people for yourself.
 
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Gab123 said:
Everything, and I mean everything, always starts out as a tiny seed. Christianity is built upon the Old Testament and the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Messiah.
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But there’s the rub. Jesus did not fulfill all the messianic prophecies, and God did not “change” the Hebrew Bible. The Messiah will fulfill all of the prophecies in one go and usher in world peace.

I know you believe in a Second Coming, but that’s not found in the Hebrew Bible.

Oh, well. No reason for us to argue about it. You are Catholic and I am Jewish and that’s fine.

Thank you for the conversation.
 
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Dovekin said:
Yes, that is how St Paul’s letters can “influence the presentation of Mary Magdalene in Mark.” What is your point?
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We did not have the internet back then. Travel took a while. Paul wrote in the Diaspora. It’s very unlikely his material influenced the others. There is absolutely no evidence of this. And if we compare who each person was writing for, we see Paul writing about the Divinity of Jesus where Mark is more concerned about the human Jesus. Mark wrote during the destruction of Israel, or very soon before.

Paul also had a very good grasp of the Divinity of Jesus. Mark had a lot of hidden message for his audience, tensive symbols of the Kingdom of God, which was central to Jesus teaching
 
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Onthisrock84 said:
I feel like he was either the Son of God, a liar, or a lunatic as C.S. Lewis said. I choose the first.
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Well, his family, at one point, thought he was a lunatic.

Mark 3:20-22

20 Then Jesus went home, and once again a crowd gathered, so that He and His disciples could not even eat. 21 When His family heard about this, they went out to take custody of Him, saying, “He is out of His mind.” 22 And the scribes who had come down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “By the prince of the demons He drives out demons.”…

I don’t think he was the Son of God, a lunatic, or a liar. I think he fully believed in all he said, which doesn’t make him a lunatic. Either you or I are wrong about Jesus, but I think both of us are sane and rational and genuinely believe what we write. And there are plenty of others who hold viewpoints not conversant with yours or mine who are sane and rational.
 
My pleasure. I understand that apologists often have some good arguments for proving scripture or understanding it but this argument is nonsense and only makes them seem desperate when the truth is known. It has been passed along for so long that many just accept it as truth. It is not.
 
Pattylt said:
My pleasure. I understand that apologists often have some good arguments for proving scripture or understanding it but this argument is nonsense and only makes them seem desperate when the truth is known. It has been passed along for so long that many just accept it as truth. It is not.
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Yes, you’re right. It is used very often. I have even seen it used in books of apologetics written by esteemed theologians!

Thank you again.
 
ConstantLearner said:
I don’t think he was the Son of God, a lunatic, or a liar. I think he fully believed in all he said, which doesn’t make him a lunatic. Either you or I are wrong about Jesus, but I think both of us are sane and rational and genuinely believe what we write. And there are plenty of others who hold viewpoints not conversant with yours or mine who are sane and rational.
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It was St. Paul who said that faith in Christ is based on the resurrection. Paul states that there were witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus, not only by His disciples but by more than 500 people. Thus not only were Jesus miracles witnessed by thousands, his very authority over life and death was witnessed by thousands.

Your existence is much more incredible than you can possibly imagine. We live on a giant globe mostly covered with water and floating and rotating in a nothingness we call 'space". This is an an incredible reality that would be hard to believe even possible, yet here we are, standing on that globe in space.
 
ConstantLearner said:
If Jesus, and I mean no disrespect to Jesus or his followers, did so many extraordinary things, and most of them were not written down, there is something amiss.
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Huh?! Adam, Noah, and Abraham did not write one iota and yet God establish a covenant with all three! Was ‘something amiss’ there until Moses wrote the Pentateuch?

Christianity is not a religion of the book; it is a religion of a Divine Person who built a living organism, i.e. the Church, that would not be conquered until the end of time.
 
The text doesn’t say she was the first to see him. The text says she reported to the Apostles that she had seen him. There is small “t” tradition that holds that he appeared to his Mother first, but that she was not given the charge to tell the Apostles.

Our Lady tells the servants at the Wedding Feast at Cana to do whatever he says. After that, I don’t think she has any lines, does she? Like St. John the Baptist, her way was always “I must decrease, that He may increase.”
 
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AugustTherese said:
Christianity is not a religion of the book; it is a religion of a Divine Person who built a living organism, i.e. the Church, that would not be conquered until the end of time.
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To you. I am a Jew. Jesus was a Jew, who only wanted to speak with Jews. He celebrated Jewish holidays. Even Peter only wanted to speak with Jews. That was the source of his friction with Paul.
 
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Thank you, but Messianic Jews are a Protestant sect. Orthodox Jews have no use for them.
 
ConstantLearner said:
Messianic Jews are a Protestant sect. Orthodox Jews have no use for them.
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All of the first Christians were Jews. And one has to realize that the Talmud goes out of its way to steer Jews away from finding Christ by besmirching and discrediting Christ. A kind of a brain-washing against Christ. Here is one to watch:
 
AugustTherese said:
Huh?! Adam, Noah, and Abraham did not write one iota and yet God establish a covenant with all three! Was ‘something amiss’ there until Moses wrote the Pentateuch?
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No one claimed Moses did anything spectacular until he led the Israelites out of Egypt and G-d gave him the Ten Commandments.Just the opposite. Had he, there would have been something very amiss if no one recognized it.
 
Gab123 said:
All of the first Christians were Jews. And one has to realize that the Talmud goes out of its way to steer Jews away from finding Christ by besmirching and discrediting Christ. A kind of a brain-washing against Christ. Here is one to watch:
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No, it doesn’t. Most Jews I know have great respect for Jesus. We just do not see him as the messiah. He did not fulfill the messianic prophecies nor did he possess the personality of the messiah as described in the Hebrew Bible.
 
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ConstantLearner said:
My own feeling about Jesus is that he was a great teacher, a great rabbi (and he, himself, only wanted to speak with Jews), but not the messiah.
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One of the biggest things that has really served to open my eyes is word order in the Greek manuscripts.
“ConstantLearner said:
Jesus was a Jew, who only wanted to speak with Jews.
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This is debatable (that Jesus only want to address the Jews). Actually many of the most faithful responses to Jesus gospel in the synoptic gospels was by gentiles. You will see this throughout Mark and Luke especially (Gentiles themselves). In fact, one of the most direct expressions where Jesus explicitly states that he is the Messiah was to the Samaritan woman in John 4. Other examples include Jesus healing of the Centurion’s servant, the healing of the 10 lepers in Luke 17, and the responses that Jesus had in Tyre, Sidon, and the region of the Decapolis (all Gentile regions where Jesus preached and healed). I think you are actually misreading the story of the Gentile woman asking to be healed in Mark 7 and Matthew 15, overplaying Jesus words that he came to the Jews first. Also, there are some stylistic things especially evident in Mark’s writing that you probably are not taking into account. Lastly, you are also missing the great commission communicated by Jesus in Matthew 28 and Acts 1 where Jesus explicitly states that the gospel is to be proclaimed to all nations, not just the Jews. That being said, Jesus was a Jew and his message was directed first to the Jews who had the law and the prophets that attested to his work as Messiah. Thank you for your avid interest though. Would be interested in continued dialogue sometime.
 
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