Who was Mary Magdalene?

The mammoth success of The Da Vinci Code book and movie has propelled into the spotlight one of the world's most interesting figures, Mary Magdalene. In the gospel story, it is not to any of the apostles that the risen Jesus first appears but to Mary Magdalene, a momentous occasion that surely should have cemented her place as one of the most important people in history. The fact that it did not speaks volumes about the blatant disregard for women within the major monolithic religions, even in the face of the reverence for the Virgin Mary within Catholicism. Obviously, a "virgin mother" must be much more highly regarded than a common prostitute, which is what Mary Magdalene is assumed to have been. The recent fracas surrounding The Da Vinci Code revolves around the tradition that the precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ not only associated with this prostitute but married her and sired children with her.  Nevertheless, despite all this intrigue, is Mary Magdalene really a "historical" character? It appears that the Magdalene is in reality one of the Triple Faces of the Goddess, worshipped within so-called Pagan cultures long before the Christian era.

The following information regarding Mary Magdalene is excerpted from my book The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold.

In the New Testament, the "whore" Mary Magdalene has a pivotal role, as despite her alleged unworthiness Magdalene holds the honor of anointing the new king, Jesus, with oil, an act that makes him the Christ and makes her a priestess. It is also Mary Magdalene, and not his male apostles, to whom Jesus first appears after the miracle of his resurrection. In the early Gnostic-Christian gospels Mary Magdalene is the most beloved disciple of Jesus. Some traditions asserted that Jesus and Mary were lovers who created a bloodline, to which a number of groups have laid claim. Nevertheless, like Jesus and the twelve, Magdalene is not a historical character but an element of the typical solar myth/sacred king drama: the sacred harlot. As such, she was highly revered, which explains why she is given top honors in the gospel story. As Barbara Walker states in The Women's Encyclopedia of Books and Secrets:

"Thus it seems Mary the Whore was only another form of Mary the Virgin, otherwise the Triple Goddess Mari-Anna-Ishtar, the Great Whore of Babylon who was worshipped along with her savior-son in the Jerusalem temple. The Gospel of Mary said all three Marys of the canonical books were one and the same... The seven "devils" exorcised from Mary Magdalene seem to have been the seven Maskim, or Anunnaki, Sumero-Akkadian spirits of the seven nether spheres, born of the Goddess Mari... The Gospels say no men attended Jesus’s tomb, but only Mary Magdalene and her women. Only women announced Jesus's resurrection. This was because men were barred from the central mysteries of the Goddess. Priestesses announced the successful conclusion of the rites, and the Savior's resurrection. The Bible says the male apostles knew nothing of Jesus's resurrection, and had to take the women's word for it (Luke 24:10-11). The apostles were ignorant of the sacred tradition and didn't even realize a resurrection was expected: "They knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead." (John 20:9)"

Walker also relates:

"Mary alone was the first to observe and report the alleged miracle. In just such a manner, pagan priestesses had been announcing the resurrection of saviors gods like Orpheus, Dionysus, Attis, and Osiris every year for centuries.... Mary Magdalene was described as a harlot; but in those times, harlots and priestesses were often one and the same. A sacred harlot in the Gilgamesh epic was connected with a victim-hero in a similar way: "The harlot who anointed you with fragrant ointment laments for you now."... Under Christianity, priests soon took over all the rituals that had been conducted by women, declaring that women had no right to lead any religious ceremony whatever."

Of course, this exclusion and degradation of women is in direct defiance of Jesus's rebuke of Judas, in which he is made to say that the woman who anointed him would be remembered in all the nations. And she should be remembered for good reason, for "the Christian derivate of Mari-Ishtar, is Mary Magdalene, the sacred harlot who said harlots are 'compassionate of all the race of mankind.'"

The legends surrounding Mary Magdalene have led to claims of descent from her womb: For example, she and Jesus were lovers who sired a "royal family" in Europe, per the "Priory of Sion mystery." Walker says of the various Marian legends:

"Much Christian myth-making went into the later history of Mary Magdalene. She was said to have lived for a while with the virgin Mary at Ephesus. This story probably was invented to account for the name Maria associated with the Ephesian Goddess. Afterward, Mary Magdalene went to Marseilles, another town named after the ancient sea-mother Mari. Her cult centered there. Bones were found at Vézelay and declared to be hers. Her dwelling was a cave formerly sacred to the pagans, at St. Baume (Holy Tree)."

It should be noted that the above was written around 1998, long before The Da Vinci Code was released. As we know, the tradition of Mary Magdalene being the progenitor of royal families has been around a while. Despite the fervent wishes of said royal families, who have used these tall tales in order to determine their "divine right to rule," it is apparent that Mary Magdalene is not a historical character who could have mated with anyone but a popular form of the mythical Goddess widely esteemed centuries prior to the Christian era.