[Magdalen] Salve Regina.

[Marion Thompson]

This brings to mind an encounter I had back in the 90's with our then
associate priest.  I had been reading Spong's 'Rescuing the Bible from the
Fundamentalists' and asked in all innocence who had decided which books
should be included in the New Testament.  Whoa!  He went up one side of me
and down the other, that I should even think of asking such a question!
 And reading Spong, too!!!!!!!!!! Some years later he had retired to New
England somewhere and had jumped ship and joined the ACNA.  He was a mad
dog with  a really short fuse if one was the least bit critical of any
Republican.  I found out many eyars later than he had opposed the proposal
that

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 1:31 PM Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> The "canonical New Testament" as we know it now was not accepted until 367
> AD, well after the time of Jesus, by which time what you are calling
> "legend" (and what we Orthodox call tradition) was pretty firmly accepted
> by many Christians. Debates over what was and is important continue into
> the present day, in light of comparatively recent discovery of ancient
> texts (Nag Hammadi, etc.) and re-interpretation of gnostic Gospels. So
> there's that.
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 5:52 AM Simon Kershaw <simon at kershaw.org.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > Fine -- but we should recognize that these are just legends, pious
> > legends maybe, but legendary all the same.
> >
> > Mary's role in the story of Jesus is clear -- she was his mother, who
> > gave him birth ad raised him to adulthood. She seems to have not
> > entirely agreed with his preaching and healing ministry, but she was
> > present at his death.
> >
> > And that's about it. Everything else is legend and later invention, or
> > else was considered so unimportant that it was not recorded in the
> > canonical New Testament.
> >
> > simon
> >
> > On 2019-08-19 18:52, ME Michaud wrote:
> > > There is also a tradition that she was one of the children set to weave
> > > the
> > > curtain of the temple (the one that was rent when Jesus died). The
> > > Gnostic
> > > gospels are full of this stuff.
> > >
> > > In a world where women bore and lost children throughout their lives,
> > > the
> > > rending of the woven veil is a powerful image.
> > >
> > > Re: Mary as described in the Book of Revelation, there are probably a
> > > thousand images that portray her in this way, medieval, renaissance and
> > > even pre-raphaelite IIRC.
> > > -M
> >
> >
> > --
> > Simon Kershaw
> > simon at kershaw.org.uk
> > St Ives, Cambridgeshire
> >
>