Mary Magdalene The Illuminator

William Henry presents new evidence about the secrets and the true history of Mary Magdalene, including the reasons why she was called the Illuminator or Illuminatrix and why the Knights Templar were attacked by the Church of Rome. In this book, he explores the core of the mysteries of Mary Magdalene to study knowledge of the ‘ultimate secret’ of the Tower or Ladder to God, also called the Stairway to Heaven. The astonishing facts about the secret teachings of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and their connection to the Illumined Ones of the past are discussed. Other subjects include: The Gnostics and Cathars and their connection to Mary Magdalene; The alchemical secrets of Mary Magdalene’s anointing oil and how it transformed Jesus; The Magdalene’s connection to Ishtar, Isis and other ancient goddesses; The reality of an extraterrestrial presence in the Bible and Gnostic Christian texts; How the Knights Templar encoded the secret teaching of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in religious graffiti at Domme, France; more.

A dazzling look at the most elusive figure in Christ's life Mary Magdalene was a key figure in Christ's life. She was present at his Crucifixion and she was also the first person to see him resurrected. According to Dan Brown's multi-million selling THE DA VINCI CODE, she was also his wife and the mother of his children. In the Gospels, she is described as an outcast and a harlot. This may be due to the disciples' jealousy of Jesus' love for Mary and the closeness of his relationship with her that was not replicated in his relationships with them. In SECRETS OF MARY MAGDALENE, Dan Burstein explodes the myths and analyses who Mary Magdalene was, the true nature of her relationship with Christ and her role in the Christian faith. Did Mary write her own Gospel? If so, what did it say? Where did she come from? Was she Jewish? How did she live? So many questions exist about this lady, Google can find mention of her on 1,740,000 sites in 0.3 seconds. This book will find the answers.

The figure of Mary Magdalen has fascinated and perplexed people for centuries. She is portrayed in the Gospels as a neurotic woman, possibly with a past, yet she is the first to encounter the risen Christ and he charges her with the responsibility of proclaiming the resurrection. She is therefore Christianity's first evangelist - a difficult concept for churches with exclusively male hierarchies who prefer to think of her as just a reformed prostitute. The belief that Mary Magdalen was married to Jesus and that the Church has tried to suppress this truth was not invented in recent years but is almost as old as Christianity itself. This gives a grand tour through 2000 years history, art and tradition with surprises and discoveries all the way.

Mary Magdalene is a larger figure than any text, larger than the Bible or the Church; she has taken on a life of her own. She has been portrayed as a penitent whore, a wealthy woman, Christ's wife, an adulteress, a symbol of the frailty of women and an object of veneration. And, to this day, she remains a potent and mysterious figure. In the manner of a quest, this book follows Mary Magdalene through the centuries, explores how she has been reinterpreted for every age, and examines what she herself reveals about woman and man and the divine. It seeks the real Mary Magdalene in the New Testament and in the Gnostic gospels where she is extolled as the chief disciple of Christ. It investigates how and why the Church recast her as a fallen woman, it traces her story through the Renaissance when she became a goddess of beauty and love, and it looks at Mary Magdalene as the feminist icon she has become today.

After two thousand years of flawed history, here at last is a magnificent new biography of Mary Magdalene that draws her out of the shadows of history and restores her to her rightful place of importance in Christianity.Throughout history, Mary Magdalene has been both revered and reviled, a woman who has taken on many forms—witch, whore, the incarnation of the eternal feminine, the devoted companion (and perhaps even the wife) of Jesus. In this brilliant new biography, Bruce Chilton, a renowned biblical scholar, offers the first complete and authoritative portrait of this fascinating woman. Through groundbreaking interpretations of ancient texts, Chilton shows that Mary played a central role in Jesus’ ministry and was a seminal figure in the creation of Christianity. Chilton’s descriptions of who Mary Magdalene was and what she did challenge the male-dominated history of Christianity familiar to most readers. Placing Mary within the traditions of Jewish female savants, Chilton presents a visionary figure who was fully immersed in the mystical practices that shaped Jesus’ own teachings and a woman who was a religious master in her own right.

Mary Magdalene, Jesus's Closest Disciple Marvin Meyer, one of the foremost scholars of the Gnostic Gospels: translates and introduces the Gnostic and New Testament texts that together reveal the story and importance of Mary Magdalene includes new translations of the Gospels of Mary, Thomas, Philip, and related texts about Mary Magdalene discloses, with Esther A. De Boer, the long-suppressed story of Mary's vital role in the life of Jesus and in the formative period after his crucifixion presents as authentically as possible the real Mary Magdalene

Ingrid Maisch in this study of Mary Magdalene leads her readers throughout the centuries, developing the images of Mary current in each era, showing that she is always a bellwether for the image of woman at a particular time.