60 Fun Facts About Mary Magdalene

Magdala, Mary Magdalene's presumed home village, lies on the shore of which body of water?

Magdala was known in antiquity chiefly as a fishing town.

Some scholars argue 'Magdalene' may have been an honorific nickname meaning what?

Elizabeth Schrader Polczer and Joan Taylor have made the case.

Why did the gospel writers need to call her 'Magdalene' at all?

Several other women named Mary followed Jesus, including his mother.

According to the Gospel of Luke, how many demons did Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene?

Seven was the Jewish number of completion, so it may simply mean she was completely overwhelmed.

Which gospel, thought to be the earliest, does not mention Mary Magdalene at all until the crucifixion?

Luke 8:2-3 gives the only brief summary of her role during the ministry.

Luke names Mary Magdalene alongside which other women who 'provided for' Jesus 'out of their resources'?

Joanna was the wife of Herod's steward Chuza; the passage implies Mary was relatively wealthy.

Whenever Mary Magdalene appears in a list of women in the Synoptic Gospels, where does she come?

Carla Ricci compares her position among the women to that of the leading male apostle among the Twelve.

How many of the four gospels explicitly name Mary Magdalene as a witness to the crucifixion?

Luke mentions a group of women watching but gives no names.

According to Mark 15:40, which women watched the crucifixion alongside the Magdalene?

Matthew instead lists the unnamed mother of the sons of Zebedee, who may be the same person Mark calls Salome.

Which man do all four gospels say buried Jesus, with Mary Magdalene watching in two of the accounts?

John mentions Nicodemus, a Pharisee, at the burial but no women.

Whom does 1 Corinthians 15 credit with the first sighting of the risen Jesus?

It preserves a creed written roughly 20 years before any gospel.

On what do all four gospels agree about Mary Magdalene and Easter morning?

The details of who was with her and what happened next differ drastically.

In Mark's original ending, what do the women do after the young man in white tells them Jesus has risen?

The gospel then stops abruptly; scribes later added 'shorter' and 'longer' endings.

In Luke's account, how do the eleven apostles react when the women report the empty tomb?

In Luke, Jesus never appears to the women; his first appearance is on the road to Emmaus.

In the Gospel of John, whom does Mary Magdalene mistake the risen Jesus for in the garden?

She recognizes him only when he says her name.

What Aramaic word does Mary cry out when she recognizes Jesus in John 20?

It means 'teacher'.

'Noli me tangere', the Latin title of countless paintings of the garden scene, translates as what?

Some scholars prefer 'stop clinging to me'; a piece of Mary's forehead flesh venerated in France is even called the noli me tangere.

By what title is Mary Magdalene known for being sent to tell the disciples of the resurrection?

The Latin apostolorum apostola became commonplace in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Which second-century pagan critic dismissed Mary Magdalene as 'a hysterical female' who hallucinated the resurrection?

Origen answered him in Against Celsus by pointing out Matthew names a second witness, 'the other Mary'.

Which pope's 591 sermon fused Mary Magdalene with Luke's 'sinful woman', casting her as a repentant prostitute?

He read her seven demons as the seven deadly sins; the gospels never call her a prostitute.

Which Church Father, unusually, argued there were two different women called Mary Magdalene?

One found the empty tomb, he proposed, and another saw the risen Christ.

Which pope dropped the identification of Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman from the calendar in 1969?

Historian Michael Haag calls it an admission that the old teaching had been wrong.

On what date is the feast of Mary Magdalene kept in Western and Orthodox calendars?

In 2016 the Vatican raised it from an obligatory memorial to a full feast, like those of the apostles.

Besides Myrrhbearer, by what title does the Eastern Orthodox Church honour Mary Magdalene?

The Orthodox have always taught she was a virtuous woman her whole life.

In Orthodox tradition, Mary Magdalene's egg turned red before which Roman emperor?

The story is one origin of the custom of sharing dyed eggs at Easter.

An eastern tradition says Mary Magdalene retired and was buried in which city with Mary the mother of Jesus?

A later patriarch of Jerusalem said she went there to live with the apostle John.

Odo of Cluny made Mary Magdalene a wealthy noblewoman; some manuscripts name her parents as what?

One version gives the family land in Bethany, Jerusalem and Magdala.

Which Burgundian abbey claimed from around 1050 to hold Mary Magdalene's skeleton?

It was later eclipsed by a rival tomb discovered in Provence in 1279.

Charles II of Naples's 1279 excavation found a rival tomb of Mary Magdalene in which Provençal town?

Its residents were exempted from taxes in return for housing pilgrims; her skull is still displayed there.

Which Dominican friar compiled The Golden Legend around 1260?

Bart Ehrman sums up its Magdalene as 'fabulously rich, insanely beautiful, and outrageously sensual'.

In the Golden Legend, Mary, Martha and Lazarus's rudderless boat washes ashore where?

Mary converts the governor by praying successfully for his wife to become pregnant.

According to the legend, how did Mary Magdalene spend the last thirty years of her life?

At every canonical hour, angels lifted her up to hear their songs in Heaven.

A medieval legend cast Mary Magdalene as the jilted bride at which biblical event?

King René d'Anjou gave Angers Cathedral the Cana amphora in 1449, saying she had brought it from Judea; the groom was supposedly John the Evangelist.

Which sculptor's gaunt wooden Penitent Magdalene (c. 1454) shows her as a beaten ascetic?

It was inspired by a friar's biography describing her mutilating herself after giving up prostitution.

What did the Sorbonne do in 1521 to Lefèvre d'Étaples's claim that the three women were separate?

Debate was soon overtaken by Martin Luther, who himself supported the composite Magdalene.

Which reformer demanded that the cult of Mary Magdalene be abolished and all images of her destroyed?

Calvin merely called Catholics ignorant for believing in the composite Magdalene.

Which English word for sickeningly sentimental derives from depictions of Mary Magdalene weeping?

It comes from the medieval English pronunciation of Magdalene, still heard in the Oxford and Cambridge college names.

In medieval art the 'Penitent Magdalene' is often shown naked but covered by what?

Her story merged with that of Mary of Egypt, a hermit whose clothes wore out in the desert.

In Gothic crucifixion paintings, Mary Magdalene usually wears a dress of what colour?

A kneeling Magdalene by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel around 1305 was especially influential.

The Gospel of Mary was first discovered in 1896 in a codex written in what language?

The fifth-century Berlin Codex was bought in Cairo by a German diplomat.

In the Gospel of Mary, which apostle defends her, saying 'If the savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her'?

Andrew had called her teachings 'strange ideas'.

The Gospel of Philip calls Mary Magdalene Jesus's koinonos, a Greek word usually translated how?

Its famous fragment about Jesus kissing her is badly damaged; the location of the kiss is a hole in the papyrus.

The Gospels of Thomas and Philip were among texts found in 1945 in a library unearthed where?

Scholars regard these Gnostic texts as far too late to tell us anything reliable about the historical Mary.

In the Pistis Sophia, how many of the 64 questions put to Jesus come from Mary Magdalene, annoying Peter?

One apostle complains, 'we cannot endure this woman who gets in our way'.

Which 2003 novel popularised the idea that Mary Magdalene was Jesus's wife and sits beside him in the Last Supper?

Art historians say the figure is the apostle John; Fra Angelico had openly painted her at the Last Supper anyway.

What did Karen L. King's 2012 "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" papyrus prove to be?

By 2016 King herself conceded the fragment was probably forged.

In which 1971 rock opera does Mary Magdalene sing 'I Don't Know How to Love Him'?

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice portrayed her as a reformed prostitute, as did Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988.

Who played the title role in the 2018 film Mary Magdalene?

Critics praised its score and cinematography but found it slow and too solemn.

Which English singer-songwriter released the 2019 album Magdalene?

Lady Gaga had sung from Mary's perspective in 'Judas' and 'Bloody Mary' in 2011.

Croatia's 1999 Eurovision entry 'Marija Magdalena' by Doris Dragović finished in what place?

It scored 118 points and remains one of her best-known songs.

Mary Magdalene's name was given to what 18th-century institutions for 'wayward women'?

The last of the associated laundries did not close until 1996.

A relic said to be Mary Magdalene's left hand is kept at Simonopetra on which mountain?

Her supposed left foot, in a reliquary by Benvenuto Cellini, is in Rome.

Excavations at Magdala in 2009–13 uncovered a synagogue and a carved stone bearing what symbol?

A collapse layer supports Josephus's account of the Romans destroying the town in the First Jewish-Roman War.

What does the Catholic Church recite on Mary Magdalene's feast, otherwise reserved among women for the Virgin?

She is the only female saint so honoured apart from Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Which German diplomat bought the Berlin Codex containing the Gospel of Mary in Cairo in 1896?

The fifth-century codex is in Sahidic Coptic; Greek fragments later turned up among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.

How many pages are missing from the start of the Gospel of Mary in the Berlin Codex?

Four more are missing from the middle, so the narrative begins mid-conversation; some scholars think Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 5577 fills part of the gap.

Which apostle, in the Gospel of Mary, first doubts Mary's vision as 'of other ideas'?

Peter then asks whether Jesus really spoke secretly with a woman in preference to the men.

Which other three works are bound with the Gospel of Mary in the Berlin Codex?

All four are written in the Sahidic dialect of Coptic; the codex is also known as the Akhmim Codex.

Who directed the 2018 film Mary Magdalene starring Rooney Mara?

Joaquin Phoenix, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tahar Rahim co-starred; the film premiered at London's National Gallery.

Which studio dropped US distribution of the 2018 Mary Magdalene film in March 2018?

The release had already been pushed from November 2017 to March 2018 and then pulled; IFC Films eventually distributed it.