Mary Magdalene Revealed

A verse-by-verse reading of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene — a text suppressed by the early church and rediscovered in the Egyptian desert — by a Harvard-trained feminist theologian who argues this gospel offers a different Christianity from the one that became canonical.

Watterson moves between scholarly close reading and personal memoir, structured around the seven "powers" Mary's gospel describes — Darkness, Craving, Ignorance, Craving for Death, Enslavement to the physical body, the False Peace of the Flesh, and Rage. Her central claim: Mary's gospel rejects the doctrines of original sin and shame, and instead frames the human task as becoming a "true human being" — a person who has remembered they are both ego and soul, and turns inward to a love already present within. Watterson also addresses how Mary came to be portrayed as a penitent prostitute in church tradition and what a more historically accurate picture suggests about her role in the early Christ movement.

Details

• Author: Meggan Watterson
• Publisher: Hay House
• Published: 2019 (paperback 2021)
• Pages: 272

About the Author

Meggan Watterson

Wall Street Journal bestselling author and feminist theologian. Watterson holds a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University. She is the founder of the House of Mary Magdalene, a global spiritual community that studies sacred texts left out of the traditional canon and practices what she calls soul-voice meditation. Her other works include The Mary Magdalene Oracle, Reveal, and The Girl Who Baptized Herself.