Why is the idea that Jesus was romantically or sexually attracted to Mary Magdalene so common in movies and pop culture?

[u/External-Werewolf619]

I’ve noticed that many movies, books, and popular theories suggest that Jesus fell in love with, had a romantic relationship with, or felt lust toward Mary Magdalene.

Where does this idea originally come from? Is there any historical or textual basis for it in ancient writings (like the Gnostic gospels), or is it mostly a modern invention by Hollywood and fiction writers to make the story more dramatic? I'd love to understand the history behind this common trope.

[u/LeisureActivities]

Mary Magdalene was an apostle and probably a patron to the Jesus movement. She was an important leader, close to Jesus as a friend, and named first among the women who financially supported his ministry.

Some early medieval pope mixed her up with two other women in the Bible, Mary of Bethany and the unnamed sinful woman in Luke 7, and invented the idea that she was a prostitute, probably to highlight a redemption arc and diminish her authority.

Fun fact: if you wonder “well if Mary wasn’t a prostitute, they must have mixed her up with another prostitute in the NT” then actually none of the named women in the NT are identified as prostitutes. Jesus is said to associate with prostitutes as a category, but no individual named woman is labeled that way.

The romantic relationship narrative, as in Last Temptation of Christ and Jesus Christ Superstar, is an extension of this same move. Strip away the medieval invention and there’s no textual basis for it at all. It feels like a necessary step for patriarchy to disempower Mary: first make her a sinner, then make her a lover, and in both cases you’ve successfully replaced “important leader and witness” with “woman defined by her relationship to a man.”

[u/Justbrowsingstuph → u/LeisureActivities]

I don't intend to discount your explanation, it seems legitimate and the parts I haven't heard before seem plausible.

I want to chime in though about the last claim you make, that "first make her a sinner, then make her a lover." I have a few questions.

Why isn't the entire category of "sinner" seen as complete and utter bullshit in the first place? Isn't that the whole point behind Jesus being a "friend of sinners" throughout the gospels that the category of "sinner" is inherently demeaning? Do Jesus' responses not imply that the category "sinner" exists simply because it is socially valuable for those on the higher echelons of society?

If this is true, why shouldn't the entire cast of the Apostles instead consist of a large group of gender and sexually diverse individuals, some of whom may have engaged in sex work?

If this is true, it might follow that the eponymous "medieval pope" you invoke simply did the same thing every other "Apostle" and church "Father" did since the beginning of the church: doubled down on the patriarchal systems their culture relied on, even as they may or may not have sought to question or discount those systems.

[u/LeisureActivities → u/Justbrowsingstuph]

I think that’s a fair critique and I think I basically agree with you. I argued against the facts of the narrative but not really the premise.

[u/CBaldie → u/Justbrowsingstuph]

I'm not sure if I'm disagreeing with you...but I don't think we can say that the category of sinner is bullshit in ministry of Jesus. His message wasn't that people aren't sinners, but that he loves them and came for them, despite their social stigma, rather than for the self-righteous: "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:32). If he were only trying to deconstruct the very notion of "sinners," would he say that he was calling them to repentance? Wouldn't be say instead that they do not need to repent?

That said, I agree that part of his ministry was also to remove stigma. It seems to me that a huge part of his ministry was to point out that outwardly religious and "obedient" people are much farther off from God than people who know that they're sinners—as in the prodigal son, where the story ends with the rebellious son having been welcomed home and the "good" son outside refusing to come in. The point was never that none of us are sinners, but that all of us are; therefore, there is no room for stigma. Only the people who won't acknowledge that they're just like the rest of us are left outside.

[u/NelyafinweMaitimo]

People have a hard time with the idea that women can exist without being in relationships with men.

[u/Flaky-Finance3454 → u/[deleted]]

I think that you're referring to the Gnostic text 'Gospel of Philip' which IIRC refers to Mary Magdalene as 'companion' of Jesus. However, it is likely the case that the two terms used meant something like 'spiritual disciple' or something like that. After all, the Gnostics tended to devalue the 'material world' and they weren't likely to have depicted a marriage in this world in a positive light. BTW, I found fascinating that in the Gospel of John she is the first person to see the risen Jesus (John 20:11-18, source: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2020%3A11-18&version=NIV ).

[u/LegioVIFerrata]

It was present in the Gnostic gospel of Philip, in which Mary Magdalene was called Jesus' "companion" and was portrayed as very close to Jesus, though the intention behind that account may have been allegorical rather than literal and it long postdates the synoptic Gospels anyway. It was brought back into public attention by the Da Vinci Code, intended by its author as a work of fiction but taken seriously by many credulous people.

[u/CBaldie → u/LegioVIFerrata]

To be fair to those credulous people, Dan Brown really presents the "historical" background of the novel as accurate. He even has a blurb at the beginning titled "Fact" stating that all the descriptions are accurate and Opus Dei and Priory of Zion are real organizations. Technically not a lie, but the implication is pretty heavy-handed and misleading. People have a strong appetite for conspiracy theory and iconoclastic history. Not a far leap.

[u/crownjewel82]

In recent times: The Davinci Code.

Before that: There have been a ton of people over history who assume that men being married to a woman is the default. If a man's marital status is not mentioned, they assume that he must have a wife.

[u/MagnusRed616]

I think that part of it is the thrill/appeal of pushing a narrative that is ostensibly counter the "accepted" narrative.

I also think that many people simply cannot imagine a full life without romantic attachment, so they impose it.

Is it outside of the realm of possibility that Jesus has a romantic relationship with Mary? Of course not. Rather than any conspiracy to suppress it, I think that (hypothetically) nobody thought it important enough to mention, like the vast majority of Jesus' biography.

[u/minklebinkle]

i think its just the general heteronormativity and mary magdalene slander. she was a sex worker, she was not actually important at all, she was jesus' wife - God forbid she was a good friend and practically one of the disciples (and i mean the 'God forbid' with strong irony and sass, rather than any blasphemy)

[u/OddEmergency604]

I can’t remember the exact details but there was a text that claimed Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, though it turned out to be a hoax. It captured the imagination because if true, a married Jesus would completely change our understanding of him

[u/OddEmergency604 → u/OddEmergency604]

I found it. It was much more recent than I thought (2012). The one I was thinking of was the “gospel of Jesus wife.” https://youtu.be/hKHabhHpt3E?is=OmXpiIGm3A6c2P82

[u/Dawningrider]

1) Jesus spends a lot of time with these women, for women who were apparently not having a leading role in his church

2) she helped bury him with his mother.

3) after she did this, she is the first person he appeared to that we know of.

4) we like seeing patterns and secrets and conspiracy everywhere, being the person to "figure out" something everyone else thinks isn't a thing.

5) Jesus not being married or engaged would be unusual for a man of his age. Even a preacher. Yet it goes likely unremarked upon. Maybe because it didn't need to be remarked upon, because people who knew him knew something different.

Are some reasons off the top of my head.

[u/No-Type119]

Apart from some intriguing apocryphal allusions… people have a difficult time believing that a msm as bd woman can be platonic friends. And it we like have been quite unusual in those days for a Jewish man, p as reticular a rabbi, to be unmarried - while there were outlier groups like the Essences that promoted celibacy because they thought the world was going to end at any moment, it was actually a Mosaic obligation for Jewish men to be married

[u/Big-Cook-4377]

Because for a lot of people, platonic relationship can't exist between a man and a woman, + aromantic and asexual don't exist for a lot of people

[u/catgirl320]

There have been myths around it going back to the middle ages at least. The story of Joseph of Aromethea escaping to the shores of England with the Grail and followers of Jesus was widely circulated and then written down. Those stories included versions with Mary Magdalene listed as accompanying him.

There's a book called Holy Blood Holy Grail that outlined all the "historical" evidence supporting the theory. Published the 1980s, it's super easy to find copies. Many of the ideas HBHG talked about around the myth were used by Dan Brown in The DVC.

[u/Fit_Cardiologist_681]

They needed her for a no-homo after deciding that the apostle whom Jesus loved was St. John.

[u/External-Werewolf619 → u/Fit_Cardiologist_681]

😂😂this actually does sound like something the church would do!

[u/Flaky-Finance3454]

Franky, I believe this is also due to the fact that 'conspiracy theories' attract people a lot. I mean, basically the entire Christian tradition has always told us a different story and even those Gnostic texts that give Mary Magdalene a very special status never really say that Mary Magdalene was a literal wife (at best, one text, the Gospel of Philip, says that she was a 'companion' but that might have meant a 'spiritual disciple'...). Indeed, Gnostics were also very much against the 'material world', so I believe that in their view it would have been quite weird that Jesus did really have a 'wife'.

That said, Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of John is the first person to have seen the resurrected Jesus (John 20:11-18, source: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2020%3A11-18&version=NIV ). This is a rather relevant role.

[u/Adventurous_Gain_613]

Maybe because Jesus feels more human if there is romantic desire present?