Mary Magdala
When I first started reading I didn’t realise that Disciples could be women, it was really nice to see that Mary was well respected by the Savior and some of the other male disciples. Although she still faced opposition in her text from Peter and Andrew (section 10), her gospel reveals the importance of women involvement in religion, yet it also highlights how women are not treated with the same respect as men. Peter and Andrew do not trust her words and believe that their Savior only favours her because she is a woman, “Are we to turn around and listen to her? Did he choose her over us?”(section 10, line 4) The disciples are offended by her words, believing that she’s incapable and that she must be lying, instead of perhaps thinking they made an error in their own ways. They don’t question their own actions and instead blame her. Mary was chosen because she understood the Savior’s teachings better than any of the other disciples and proved herself trustworthy and honest.
In The Savior’s Farewell Jesus confirms this distrust in his disciples, he says to them “[Do] not lay down any rule beyond what I determined for you, nor promulgate law like the lawgiver, or else you might be dominated by it.” (section 4, line 10-11) Where in which Jesus warns his disciples that they are prone to power corruption.
Judas Iscariot
I’ve always seen Judas being painted as the bad guy in Christianity, but his gospel tells a different story. I’ve always had a curiosity for Judas, I questioned why he gave up Jesus to the Romans, and for so little too. How I see it is that Judas fulfilled the prophecy, someone needed to be the villain. It’s curious because he was Jesus’ most trusted apostle, he was the only one on the right path, he was even shared the secret of the cosmos. I don’t believe Judas was inherently a bad guy, he just happened to play the part so Jesus could be elevated.
Looping back to Jesus, he seems to be distrustful of both his disciples and apostles, only choosing a few honest ones. This is seen in The Disciples See The Temple and Discuss It, where the Disciples have this vision about 12 priests that commit evil deeds. Jesus then tells them that those are their future selves, consumed by greed and corruption.
Summary/ Final notes
I really enjoyed reading these gospels and I can certainly understand why they’re so controversial. They basically go against everything Christians believed were true. “There is no such thing as sin”? (Mary, section 3) Of course there’s sin! That’s preposterous!! How could there not be? What can I blame my own misdeeds on besides temptation!
Okay enough with the sarcasm, there are a lot of lost gospels and religious texts I’m sure would have given us a clearer picture. If 85% are lost.. that means we have 15%, but the 15% has been mistranslated and altered through out the years.. so that would mean only 1% or even less is pure text. I hope that in the future more texts will be discovered and we’ll be able to paint a fuller picture.