Around Jesus
Mary Magdalene was a woman from whom Jesus drove out seven demons. She followed him in Galilee and helped support his work from her own means. She stood by the cross, saw where he was buried, and on Easter morning was the first person to see Jesus risen. He sent her to tell the others.
6 moments
See where Mary Magdalene fits on the Bible timeline
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Luke names her among women Jesus healed: “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out.”
She stands near the cross with Jesus’ mother and watches him die.
She watches Joseph of Arimathea lay Jesus in the tomb and sees where it is.
Early on Sunday she finds the tomb open and runs to tell Peter and John.
Weeping outside the tomb, she thinks Jesus is the gardener, until he says her name.
Jesus sends her to his brothers, and she tells the disciples.
Read these first
and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and illnesses: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out…
Luke 8:2Healed by Jesus
Jesus said to her, “Mary.” Turning toward him, she said in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (meaning Teacher).
John 20:16He says her name
Mary Magdalene came to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what he had said to her.
John 20:18I have seen the Lord
Questions people ask
Each answer is marked: in the Bible, tradition, readers disagree, or not known.
Tradition, not the Bible
No. The Bible never says so. The idea took hold after a sermon by Pope Gregory I in 591 joined her to the unnamed sinful woman of Luke 7. The Catholic Church dropped that link from its calendar in 1969.
Tradition, not the Bible
Nothing in the Bible or the early church says so. The idea comes from modern novels and readings of a few later writings outside the Bible.
In the Bible
“Magdalene” means from Magdala, a fishing town on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee.
In the Bible
Mary Magdalene. John’s Gospel tells it, and the longer ending of Mark, which is missing from the oldest copies, says it outright.
See John 20:14-16
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