Mary Magdalene

This study examines the text transmission of the figure of Martha of Bethany throughout the Fourth Gospel in over one hundred of our oldest extant Greek and Vetus Latina witnesses. The starting point for this study is instability around Martha in our most ancient witness of John 11–12, Papyrus 66. By looking at P66’s idiosyncrasies and then comparing them to the Fourth Gospel's greater manuscript transmission, I hope to demonstrate that Martha's presence shows significant textual instability throughout the Lazarus episode, and thus that this Lukan figure may not have been present in a predecessor text form of the Fourth Gospel that circulated in the second century. In order to gain the greatest amount of data on the Fourth Gospel's text transmission, I rely on several sources. Occasionally these sources conflict in their rendering of a variant; I have tried to make note of these discrepancies and look at photographs of witnesses whenever possible. Although this study is primarily focused on Greek and Vetus Latina witnesses, an occasional noteworthy variant (e.g., from a Syriac or Vulgate witness) may be mentioned when relevant to the subject at hand. The work of many established redaction critics, who have already hypothesized that Martha was not present in an earlier form of this Gospel story, will also be addressed.

Read the entire paper here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/was-martha-of-bethany-added-to-the-fourth-gospel-in-the-second-century/6CBD2C9576A583DD02987FE836C427B7

Mary, Universal Goddess – from the moment that I saw the statue of Mary in the pittoresque village of de Lutte (near Oldenzaal, the Netherlands) I was thrilled to my bones.
This Mary was a Queen, a Sovereign. Feminine energy, strength and power radiated from the statue. Everryting about Her resonated.  And following the years, I understood why. This is not Mary, the wonderful, most beloved mother of Yeshua. This is Mary the Magdalene, the Tower, Leader of the Herd. She who walks before us and with us. In our souljourney as in our wordly lives, with body, womb and yoni, with our female sexuality.
We are Goddess because Goddess lives within us. Which, by the way, counts for men too. With their hara they can relate to their inner soul and find their feminine qualities, the notion that all life springs from the Sacred Womb, and know that they are Her beloved sons.

The Talmud often suggests that male and female together image Elohim and that their separation reduced humanity from that reflective nature. The Gospel of John has Jesus seeking to restore humanity to this original ideal by his death, reuniting him with his feminine aspect.

Several methodologies have been used for the study of film. This article seeks to introduce a methodology that, in spite of a long tradition of critical approaches, has been little explored in this area: that of iconology. The elements of iconological tradition will serve as tools to approach the construction of Mary Magdalene's character in the film directed by Cecil B. DeMille in 1927: King of Kings. I first justify the possibility of applying iconology to cinematographic media and especially to religious films. I next demonstrate the analysis scheme and the analysis results. In addition, I emphasize the different phases of continuity and variation in Mary Magdalene's character.

En hébreu comme en araméen, le premier mot du Magnificat (Luc 1, 46-55) – Μεγαλύνει en grec, Magnificat en latin – est construit à partir de la racine GDL (גדל) tout comme l’épithète araméenne Megaddela (מגדלא) qui signifie “la Magnifiée” et qui renvoie à la mère de Jésus.

L’argumentation de Thierry Murcia est double. D’abord, il déconstruit la manière dont divers personnages féminins du Nouveau Testament ont été combinés au fil du temps pour donner la Marie-Madeleine légendaire. De la même façon, il déconstruit la lecture faite de l’Évangile de Philippe, en montrant que le baiser sur la bouche a un sens spirituel et renvoie, chez les gnostiques, au statut d’initié. Ensuite, de manière positive, il montre que beaucoup de sources anciennes font de la Magdaléenne la mère de Jésus : le Talmud de Babylone ; une partie non négligeable des Pères grecs et syriaques ; quelques Pères latins (Paulin de Nole, Sedulius, Pierre Chrysologue) ; des textes dits apocryphes ; des textes gnostiques ; des textes manichéens et mandéens. Il insiste à juste titre sur le rôle joué par le Diatessaron de Tatien dans la diffusion de cette tradition.

This article lifts up the Woman with the Alabaster Jar of Luke’s Gospel, chapter 7. The Pharisee saw her as a sinner because according to Pharisaic laws she was. Jesus, the Teacher at the Pharisee’s house agrees. He says the Woman has sinned much and is forgiven much. This paper explores the importance of forgiveness and the importance of showing hospitality, love, and justice to one’s neighbour. Roman Catholic tradition used to conflate this woman with Mary Magdalene claiming that Mary Magdalene was the sinner forgiven for her great love for the Teacher. In recent years, many people have opposed Roman Catholic tradition because too many Christians were exploiting the image of Mary Magdalene in a negative way to gain power over women and people of other races and faiths. [1] Thus this article opposes both the modern and the old exploited views. It maintains that the Woman of Luke 7 is the bitterly treated woman of the Gospel who overcame and rose with the Teacher as the Christ. She earned the title “Mary” because of the way people bitterly treated her for “breaking” God’s ancient Patriarchal law that scholars and priests were using to chastise and exclude women and their Gentile and Samaritan neighbours from the great banquet of life where God’s Love and eco-justice is for all. She earned the title the “Magdalene” because she is a tower of strength and a great light, a burning torch that the Teacher speaks face to face with in the garden.

Keywords Patriarchal Laws, Forgiveness, God’s Love, Eco-justice

When I first began the coursework on Mary Magdalene in the spring of 2020, it occurred to me how central breath was to what was transpiring both in the study of Mary Magdalene, in my own lifelong connections to her and the pandemic that would surround the entire planet. My research sent me on an adventure into finding my own connections to family and generational loss to pandemics that became my history before I drew my own first breath. From the genocides and ignorance of 17 th century forward to the gradual awakening to the mystery of Mary Magdalene and the nature of her relationship with Jesus, the coursework revealed pieces of my own history in a new light. Saint John started his gospel with "In the beginning was the word." The word via breath transfigured cosmic truth to earth. Breath was there to make the word manifest into the world. In this paper I seek to unfold my own pilgrimage to grace set against the backdrop of some of the ways breath is an archetypal energy that not only conveys language but in the case of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, elevated human interaction to manifest Christ energy onto this earthly plane from the cosmos.

A sinner converted into a saint, Mary Magdalene poses a paradox of
representation. Conventionally portrayed as a beautiful and sensual woman with light skin and fair hair, she is most commonly shown in a state of repentance, shying away from the viewer’s gaze. Nonetheless, the penitent Magdalene is depicted with a highly sexualized aura. Marlene Dumas’ portraits of Mary Magdalene, by contrast, do not engage in the seduction of the onlooker. Her figures stand upright and directly confront the viewer with their gaze. Although sexually appealing, these figures’ sexuality is not what is at stake in these works. Starting from this premise, this article’s analysis explores the ways in which Dumas’ representations of Mary Magdalene transgress stereotypical representations of the saint, questioning and transforming canonical depictions of female subjectivity and at the same time deconstructing conventional notions of Western portraiture.

The Tempelhof of Bergheim altarpiece, painted by the Alsatian Gothic master Jost Haller around 1445 in Strasbourg, combines images of two seemingly unrelated stories, that of John the Immerser after the immersion identifying Jesus as the lamb of God, and the Mediaeval legend of Saint George rescuing a princess by slaying a dragon. Scholarly analyses of this work put a lot of effort into explaining how these two disparate scenes came to be in the same painting. This essay from the upcoming new edition of a multi-volume book on the Gospel of John, suggests a new answer, in which the woman in red is Mary Magdalene and the Saint George motif is some protective camouflage. Among the people in this time the idea persisted that Jesus and Mary were a couple, an idea that still persisted (as we know from folk plays, songs, poetry, and art, discussed in the previous volumes of this work) after being nourished by the Cathars and Bogomils who were still remembered despite the genocide.

Marie-Madeleine enceinte de Jésus ? (1er volet) : Marie-Madeleine aurait été la compagne de Jésus et le couple aurait eu des enfants. Voilà une théorie très en vogue depuis 2003, année de la parution du Da Vinci Code. On trouve sur certains sites, à l’appui de cette assertion, diverses illustrations médiévales censées représenter “Marie-Madeleine enceinte de Jésus”. Quid de la magnifique statue de la collégiale Notre-Dame d’Écouis (Haute-Normandie) datée du XIVe siècle et présentée par certains comme une représentation de Marie-Madeleine enceinte ?

Journal of the Alamire Foundation 2 (2010), 233-269.
This paper focuses on the Cistercian historia in honor of the beguine and recluse Mary of Oignies. It provides a context for the office by studying the musical and literary culture at the Cistercian abbey of Villers, where it was composed, and aspects of the liturgical legislation in the Cistercian order. Furthermore, it suggests that the abbey protected the early beguine movement and promoted the cult of local saints in general, and that of Mary of Oignies in particular. The historia's only source, combined with a seventeenth-century reference, suggests that it was not composed for use at Oignies — where a different office, no longer extant, was sung — but for the Cistercian devotion to Mary of Oignies, or perhaps for a specific, not yet identified ceremonial event. The analysis of the office's texts demonstrates that it relies on the vita and its pastoral theme of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, and furthermore reflects the prominence of Bernard of Clairvaux and Mary Magdalene in the order. It cannot be certified if the author of the office is Goswin of Villers, even though it seems probable on account of his authorship of several vitae of local saints and his duties as a cantor at the abbey. Musically, the historia seems to be in accordance with the characteristics of the genre in the thirteenth century, and thus suggests that informed musicians were at work at the abbey.

Maria Magdalena gehört zweifellos zu den bekannteren Figuren des Neuen Testaments. Das liegt gewiss nicht nur daran, dass sie als Person aus dem Umkreis Jesu neben Simon Petrus und anderen Nachfolgerinnen und Nach-folgern Jesu auch historisch zu greifen ist. Vielmehr dürfte ihre Bekanntheit vor allem in der nachneutestamentlichen Rezeption begründet liegen, die sie einerseits als führende und vorbildliche Jüngerin und Apostelin stilisierte, sie andererseits aber auch als femme fatale, Hure, Ehebrecherin, gefallene und bekehrte Sünderin und Büßerin zeichnete und sie-vor allem in literarischen und cineastischen Produktionen des 20. Jahrhunderts-sogar zur Geliebten und Partnerin Jesu machte. Offenbar eignete sich diese Figur in besonderer Weise als Projektionsfläche für verschiedenste Frauenbilder, die in unterschiedlichen Zeiten und Kontexten höchst unterschiedlichen Interessen dienten. Diesen Wandlungen soll im Folgenden nachgegangen werden.

This is a reassessment of the Ghent altarpiece in the context of the upcoming third edition of The Gospel of John Restored and Translated, to be published in seven or eight volumes by Editores Volcán Barú, as providing clues that the figures represent Jesus and the Mary called Magdalene. The analysis includes an analysis of the original version of the work, the underpainting revealed by x-radiography and other means.

Sulla figura leggendaria e misteriosa di Maria Maddalena, molto si è detto, molto si è scritto e molto si è favoleggiato. Annoverata tra le prime donne al seguito di Gesù e dei suoi discepoli, peccatrice da cui fuoriuscirono ben sette demoni, amica del Cristo secondo il Vangelo di Filippo, fu elevata, con il testo gnostico noto come Codex Askewianus o Pistis Sophia, addirittura a principale strumento di trasmissione della «conoscenza», della «gnosis», della «vera scienza». Ed è su questo suo ruolo che, in tempi recenti libri, saggi e romanzi hanno costruito la fortunata teoria di Maria di Magdala quale «sposa» di Gesù 1 e quindi prosecutrice materiale di quella linea di sangue «santo», «sang real» da cui deriverebbe «Santo Graal». Ma chi era, davvero, questa Maria di Magdala o Magdalena, di cui tanto si favoleggia e racconta? Intanto, sembra che per lungo tempo la Chiesa abbia conservato memoria 2 di non una, ma addirittura tre, Maria Maddalena. Le Scritture infatti restituiscono l'immagine di tre diverse nature di questa donna giudea, talmente nette e distanti tra loro, da far credere che appartenessero a tre differenti persone. Così, alla peccatrice perdonata da Cristo si consacravano i monaci dell'ordine dei Penitenti di Maria Magdalena, le Maddaleniane irlandesi o le Sorelle di Betania nel XIII secolo. Alla donna contemplativa, che giaceva ai piedi di Gesù per ascoltarlo e che fu redarguita dalla sorella Marta, si ispirarono probabilmente alle figurazioni della mitica Maria Egiziaca 3 e gli eremiti del deserto nel Medioevo. Infine, alla prima delle donne accorse al Sepolcro (dette «mirofore» perché portavano con loro vasi colmi di unguenti), cui il Cristo Risorto apparve dopo averlo a lungo cercato e chiamato, fu riservata l'adorazione nelle cattedrali di Vezelay e di Saint Maximin nel Medioevo.

4e de COUVERTURE : Marie-Madeleine... La femme la plus importante de l'Evangile après la Vierge Marie. Libérée de sept démons, elle suit le Christ depuis la Galilée jusqu'au pied de la Croix. Au matin de Pâques, c'est à elle que le Christ ressuscité apparaît en premier. Il l'envoie proclamer la bonne nouvelle à ses frères, elle devient alors l'apôtre des Apôtres. Récupérée par la gnose contemporaine comme par les courants féministes, elle jette le trouble et provoque plus que jamais des débats. Mais est-elle seulement priée ? Le propos de cette neuvaine est de redécouvrir Marie-Madeleine à la lumière de l'Ecriture et de la Tradition, pour qu'elle nous enseigne à nous tenir comme elle aux pieds du Christ et le suivre sur le chemin qu'il nous trace jusqu'au ciel. –
SOMMAIRE – Prière introductive – Litanies de sainte Marie-Madeleine – 1. Premier jour : Se jeter aux pieds du Christ en pleurant ses péchés – 2. Deuxième jour : Renoncer à Satan pour marcher avec le Christ – 3. Troisième jour : Demeurer aux pieds du Christ pour écouter la Parole – 4. Quatrième jour : Entendre l’appel du Christ et croire en Lui – 5. Cinquième jour : Offrir sa vie au Christ en sacrifice de bonne odeur – 6. Sixième jour : Souffrir avec le Christ en offrande d’amour à Dieu – 7. Septième jour : Mourir au monde et à soi-même pour demeurer avec le Christ – 8. Huitième jour : Ressusciter avec le Christ pour une vie nouvelle – 9. Neuvième jour : Être envoyé par le Christ comme témoin du Ressuscité – 
CHOIX D'HYMNES : Victimae paschali laudes / O filii et filiae / Marie, cours vers tes frères –
QUESTIONS DISPUTÉES : 1. Trois femmes ou bien une seule ? – 2. Une prostituée ? – 3. L'Épouse du Christ ?

Approximately fifty years after the death of Pope Innocent IU, Humbert of Romans (t 1277), retired master general of the Dominican Order, set about putting together his handbook for preachers, De eruditione prnedicatorum. In Part I, Section 7, Humbert deplores certain preachers who do not possess the competence to craft acceptable sermons, yet resist availing themselves of models of the genre. Instead, they continue to preach only the things that they themselves have devised. In contrast to such arrogance, Humbert relates an e*ng story about the preaching of Innocent IIk "I heard that Pope Innocent, a man of great learning, under whom the Lateran Council was celebrated, when once he was preaching on the feast-day of the Magdalen, kept close by a certain homily of Gregory's about the very same feast, and he was translating word for word into the vernacular what had been written in the Latin, searching the book he held for the proper order when he did not remember it. After the sermon, when asked why he had done so, he replied that he had done it to reprove and instruct those who refuse to speak the words of others"(".

Author: Angela Ravin-Anderson
Publisher: CBE International

A popular question has been posed for a while now in contemporary American society: “What would Jesus do?” The theology behind the question suggests that, perhaps, in the absence of explicit teaching, or as further explanation thereof, if one were to discern how Jesus reacts or handles a situation, because of the utter consistency of Jesus’s character and mission, one might find instruction for how to do likewise in one’s own life. It is based on the simple call and invitation that Jesus gives to his disciples: “Follow me” (e.g., Matt 4:19; Mark 2:14; Luke 9:59; John 1:43). Jesus proclaims good news: the kingdom of God is at hand. And, with that, a new world order is established. Those who follow him are called to demonstrate and embody the values, tenets, and principles of the kingdom. His followers often represent those who, transformed by the healing and restorative ministry of Jesus, then choose to commit their own lives to faithful service of Jesus Christ. These followers are also known as disciples. They not only learn the teachings of Jesus, but also fully embrace his teachings by applying them in their daily walk.

The essay analyses the Louvre Crucifixion by Paolo Veronese (c. 1575–1580) and aims to clarify the presence and significance of the woman cloaked in yellow in the middle of the composition. Alternatively identified with the personification of the Synagogue, Mary Magdalen, or one of the three Marys, the veiled figure recurred frequently in representations of different moments of the Passion of Christ from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, including a number of works by Veronese himself. A study of this visual tradition explains how Veronese arranged the Louvre composition to be observed from a specific viewing angle. When contemplated from the right-hand side, the image reveals how the woman robed in yellow, none other than one of the Marys, has the function of guiding viewers through a spiritual journey from the suffering of the Virgin to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.

Apostle  to the apostles or whore? The “Woman who knew the All”  or  one  who “perfumed her flesh in forbidden acts”? In a world looking for female voices from the past, where are the female voices in the Christian  story?  And  why has the  voice  of Mary Magdalene been silenced? Slandered yet never quite suppressed, what does Mary Magdalene’s resurgence into consciousness signal for us today?  As a female disciple  and a leader central to  the Jesus movement,her rehabilitation at the very  least opens up new pathways for women beyond unattainable ideal (the Virgin Mary) and carrier of sexual guilt (all other women). One of the questions to be addressed in the course of this  article is what does  “the Magdalene” mean? Did she really come from a town called Magdala as  the  longstanding  official version has  it?  Or,  the tantalizing  alternative,  was  it a title given to her by Jesus to cement her status in the early Christian  movement? Much of the traditional interpretation of Mary  Magdalene  stems from readings of the four  gospels and the 33rd Homily of Gregory the Great. Whilst important to many, these are not  the  only  texts that discuss her role.  Many others have become more widely  available in recent years.  By  looking at  these, we  gain a fuller picture  of  the  importance  of  Mary  Magdalene and of her role in the Christian  tradition. This article sets out to explore this role and her changing face  through historical texts and poetry, and open a space for reflection and encounter with the one whom Jesus named the “Watchtower of the Flock.”

Noli me tangere in the Codex Egberti (Reichenau, c. 977-93) and in the Gospel-Book of Otto III (Reichenau, 998-1000): Visual Exegesis in Context, in “Illuminating the Middle Ages: Tributes to Prof. John Lowden from his Students, Friends and Colleagues”, eds. Laura Cleaver, Alixe Bovey, (Library of the Written Word - The Manuscript World, 79), Brill-Leiden, 2020, p. 36-51

Who is the female character represented in this stained glass? Is it Mary or Mary Magdalene? For those who claim that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ mystical and sexual companion, there is no doubt that it is the second. And this is also how it is “announced” on several sites. This hypothesis is attractive but what is it really?

The Criterion of Embarrassment is an oft-used historical tool by those who seek to authenticate and validate the New Testament Gospels insofar as they are understood as historical literature. However, a thoughtful review of this historical tool in light of the Gospel attributed to Luke presents with it a convincing counter-argument to the usefulness and authority of this tool. The role of women in antiquity, especially those in the Graeco-Roman period within Jerusalem and its surrounding area presents with it a complexity that is not always readily understood or consistent. Women are revered and respected in the Hebrew Bible’s narratives, Jerusalem itself has had a woman ruler in the century previous to the time of Jesus the Christ.The presuppositional understanding then that the testimony of the women at the tomb were taken to be less authoritative and thus embarrassing for the Gospel authors to include due to their sex ignores the intra-Gospel narrative framework attributed to Luke and the normative gender standards during the first century of the common era.

The traditional image of the Magdalene as a repentant
prostitute, not to mention contemporary speculations
about her being a priestess or goddess figure or bride of
Christ, are quite mistaken. They fail to do justice to the
biblical and historical woman behind the legend.

En el presente artículo se analiza la evolución de la imagen conceptual de María Magdalena, uno de los personajes bíblicos que más reinterpretaciones y mitología ha generado a lo largo de los siglos. Una imagen conceptual es aquella que se sitúa fuera de referentes temporales y espaciales y la de María Magdalena se ha configurado a partir de su nacimiento en el siglo XIII. Su elaboración responde a una serie de elementos propios de cada tiempo, ya que «las imágenes deben ser tomadas como algo producido en toda época con fines comunicativos y poéticos, habiendo desempeñado, como tal cosa, funciones culturales. Es decir, las imágenes han sido en cualquier tiempo un fenómeno visual vivo que opera en la historia transformando aspectos de la vida del hombre y de la sociedad» 2 . El centro de este discurso lo constituye el análisis de la evolución de la imagen conceptual, para lo cual no podemos prescindir del resto de materiales culturales de cada época ya que han formado parte de dicha creación y transformación. Entre los diferentes tipos iconográficos iremos viendo, de modo diacrónico, los cambios de atributos y funciones de la imagen permitiéndonos conocer las circunstancias, necesidades e intenciones de cada época. En definitiva, el objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar la evolución de la imagen conceptual de María Magdalena desde que hace aparición en los siglos centrales de la Edad Media hasta el siglo XVII. Comenzaremos indagando en los pocos datos que los evangelios aportan de este personaje y veremos cómo la figura inicial se ha convertido en un híbrido desde los inicios del cristianismo, para finalmente ser hoy en día la criatura mitológica que conocemos. La novedad del presente artículo estriba en el modo de analizar la representación de dicho personaje, es decir, hacerlo desde el enfoque de la imagen conceptual.

Mary Magdalene would have been the companion of Jesus and the couple would have had children. This is a very popular theory since the publication of The Da Vinci Code in 2003. Some even go so far as to say that their supposed descendants would have mingled with the Merovingians and that the lineage would have survived to us. Evidence would be found at Rosslyn Chapel, a 15th century Church located about 11 km south of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Relationshop of Gnostic forms of the female Divine to Khokhmah, Isis, Ruha d'Qudsha and other traditions. Sophia, Barbelo, Arche, Eve/Zoë, and the theme of female creators "without a partner." Women in Gnostic scriptures, including Maryam / Mary Magdalene. Anti-woman, anti-natalist,  anti-Judaism, anti-Pagan and anti-astrological discourses. Gnostic pessimism, female "error" or "lack," and the gradual degradation of Sophia in Gnostic Christian writings.

Dr Marc Gafni discusses the verse in Songs of Songs, “It’s Insides are Lined with Love” in volume one of his Radical Kabbalah. (See Gafni, Radical Kabbalah, Vol. 1 pp. 120-123) which talks about what is described there as a Hasidic expression of Acosmic Humanism, or what he also refers to in that writing as Nondual Humanism, grounded in the reality of love between divinity and humanity– and interconnecting all of reality– all participating in the same current of One Love, One Breath and One Eros. 
These ideas are grounded in Gafni’s, The Mystery of Love, Simon and Schuster, 2003, and the thirty pages of primary source footnotes prepared by Gafni and Avraham Leader to that volume. The Mystery of Love is the volume we are sharing here.  It is perhaps worth noting that these readings in The Mystery of Love were recognized and well received in both the world of Kabbalah scholarship and the leading edges of the mainstream and Neo-Hasidic worlds of Hebrew wisdom. This is crucial, because it validates the readings in The Mystery of Love as being original and even brilliant but non eccentric. Rather, in The Mystery of Love Gafni is uncovering and sharing a crucial esoteric lodestone in the Hebrew wisdom lineage.
In this regard, therefore, it is worth noting that Gafni discussed this volume and its general parameters in 2002 with Moshe Idel, one of his thesis advisors and a leading scholar of Kabbalah at the Bar Ilan Library, Oxford University. Idel enthusiastically validated Gafni’s direction and readings in general terms - Eros as the animating force of Cosmos in which we participate, as well as sharing with Gafni that he was working in a parallel direction. Idel published his magisterial expression of this core notion of Its Insides are Lined with Love, under the title Kabbalah and Eros, Yale University Press, 2005.
Another leading Kabbalah scholar, Eliot Wolfson, who Gafni did not know personally, also contacted Gafni after stumbling across a copy of the book, (after the first hardback edition was published before the paperback) expressing appreciation for textual readings, and generously added an approbation to the paperback work calling it “A beautiful book that will undoubtedly inspire many people and perhaps even bring some healing to a desperately ill world”.
Kabbalah scholar Daniel Abrams wrote about the book, “…an important book which unpacks with depth, power and clarity and important strain in Kabbalistic thought. [Gafni’s] original readings engage and provoke both scholar and layman alike.” 
Zalman Shalomi Schachter the founder and Rebbe of the Neo-Hassidic Jewish renewal movement wrote, “Reb Mordechai Gafni’s torah on love and eros is l’eyla u’layla, the highest of the high. Everyone needs to hear it.” 
From the leadership of the educational community, Irwin Kula, president of the Jewish Federation Center for Learning and Leadership, which serves the mainstream leadership of the American Jewish community, called it a “tour de force.”
Peter Pitzele, founder of Bibliodrama, on the faculty of Jewish Theological seminary, called it “an act of ecstatic scholarship. Reb Gafni comes among us a dancing ecstatic sage”.
Leading mainstream author Rabbi Joseph Teluskin called it radical and profound, with similar approbations from Noam Zion of the Shalom Hartman Institute, Rabbi Bradely Shavit Artson of the University of Judaism, Rabbi Roly Matolon of the leading-edge Congregation Kehillat Jeshurun in New York.
All of these approbations appear in the book itself. 
A related set of ideas (which however bypassed the relationship of the Erotic to the sexual, and with a somewhat different set of sources) was written by Arthur Green published as an essay called “Judaism as a Path of Love,” published in Judaism for the World, Reflections on God, Life and Love, Yale University Press, 2020.
Leading Kabbalah Scholar Yehuda Liebes and his student Melila Eshed Helner extending his work, are similarly crucial voices in the Interior Sciences of this tradition, in establishing this set of what Gafni calls, first principles and first values, which sees Eros as the motivational architecture of reality.
The point of this information about the reception of these ideas in Gafni’s work and the other key writers, is that this reading, while striking and original, is not idiosyncratic; but rather an accurate reading of the mystery tradition of one of the great traditions of Interior Science. A more advance version of some of these ideas was published by Gafni and Kincaid in 2016 with a mainstream publisher under the title A Return to Eros that was reviewed extensively in the academic journal, Integral Review by Dr. Zachary Stein in an article entitled, “Love in a Time Between Worlds: On the Metamodern ‘Return’ to a Metaphysics of Eros.” Stein has called Gafni’s work, the kind that comes along “once in a generation”. He saw Gafni and Kincaid’s A Return to Eros as a seminal expression of the kind of new thinking that is so urgently needed in this time between worlds that we all now live in. Dr. Gafni, along with a brilliant circle of close colleagues and students, is now completing a new set of works which are the next stage in unfolding of the new world view of Cosmo-Erotic Humanism.
A public presentation of core ideas in The Mystery of Love, is available on CD; The Erotic and the Holy is available here. https://centerforintegralwisdom.org/media-store/product/the-erotic-and-the-holy-workshop/
This abstract was written by Jamie Long, a student and colleague of Dr. Gafni, who has taken responsibility for on the responsibility for managing his Academia.edu page.

A peculiar feature of some early manuscripts of John has rarely been interpreted. At the climax of Mary Magdalene’s recognition scene, her name changes from Maria to Mariam. The immediate narrative context includes Mary’s double turning—she “turns” to Jesus in 20:16 after having already turned toward him in 20:14—which has been a crux interpretum as far back as fourth-century homilies. How should we understand this pivotal moment? This article first charts the naming conventions of the various Marys, arguing for the significance of the change from Maria to Mariam in John 20:16. Next it evaluates several interpretive options for the name change that relate to ethnic identities, genres of romance, signifiers of authoritative status, and narratives of salvation. Some Christian interpreters from late antiquity use these narrative details to dramatize Mary’s salvation or emphasize her authoritative status. In the end, the ancient evidence for Mary’s name change further sharpens the climactic significance of her double turning, and it does so in ways that resonated with both biblical traditions and early Christian interpreters.

In the final saying of the Gospel of Thomas (logion 114), Jesus speaks of needing to make Mary male so that she can enter the kingdom. Similarly, the male/female dyad is interpreted spiritually as a positive/negative opposition by many of today’s traditional societies. This paper explores maleness with respect to Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary from literary, symbolic and scientific perspectives, and considers recent medical rationalizations of Jesus’s miraculous conception. Unexpected Gnostic and Christian parallels are found in the mythic/ritual structure of the Gimi people of Papua New Guinea, which encompasses the necessity of uniting sexual opposites in male form, as well as virgin birth. We also identify gender concepts relevant to the Coptic Gnostic writings in ancient Egyptian religion. The medieval feminization of Jesus – mainly achieved by interpreting the wound in his side as a vagina or breast – provides a later counterweight to the Gnostic masculinizing of Mary. Ultimately, it seems preferable to interpret the side-wound as a surgical incision through which the rib/Eve can be reinserted back into Adam, a transformation to a “dual-gender male” that restores the primal unity. For women, this unity is probably more constructively imaged as a female with a male core, a “phallic female” form of Eve; the template for this dates back at least to Neolithic times. Refractory paradoxes like these warn that gender-based analogies of spirit are inherently limited and must be transcended.

Mark did not create Christianity but wrote a compelling account about a faith that he already knew. Some modern scholars recognise that in so writing, the author we now know as Mark developed the story’s characters in order to focus on Jesus himself. At least some of these characters were probably created by Mark, who seems to have assigned them names that helped develop hidden insights.

From a book restoring the hypothetical original version of the Gospel of John, in which the centrality of Mary called Magdalene is recovered, comes this discussion of the black madonna artistic tradition of Mediaeval Europe and elsewhere in the world. The contention is that many of these are not of the Virgin Mary but rather the younger Mary, and reasons are given for why it is rare that modern art historians are willing to entertain that possibility. Issues of badly conceived attempts at restoration, especially in Chartres, are also considered.

In Hebrew as in Aramaic, the first word of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) – Μεγαλύνει in Greek, Magnificat in Latin – is constructed from the root GDL (גדל) just like the Aramaic epithet Megaddela (מגדלא) which means “the Magnified” and which refers to the mother of Jesus.