In reply to:

one of the gnostic scriptures (read apocrypha) is "The gospel according to Mary", which gives a very different picture of Mary Magdalene -- one of a disciple rather than a prostitute and supplicant, and a very different view of women in that time.

as always, the question to be asked is: why was this suppressed?

In reply to:

I don't know what, if any, research Ms. King did, but her reason given in the novel was that it was suppressed in order to maintain male dominance (or the appearance of it).

The Gospel According to Mary exists in a very fragmentary state (a translation is here http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/library/marygosp.htm ) so we can't really say what view of women of that time it gives. We have to beware of reading modern preoccupations back into other past societies. I'm not saying they never mentioned the power relations between the sexes or that males were not dominant, just that it wasn't a major issue for them, more of an undiscussed assumption.

I suspect that the reason the Gospel of Mary was "suppressed" or not included in the canon was more to do with the nature of the spirit journey that seems to be being described with the soul having to meet challenges from powers and so on, which does not really fit in with Christianity as it was developing at the time the canon was being fixed.


I was interested to see the spellcheck wants to change "an undiscussed assumption" into "an undisturbed assumption".


Bingley


Bingley