The Gospel of Mary of Magdala

Chapter 13
1 - “The modern concept of the person did not exist in antiquity.” Comments?
2 – When you read ancient church literature, what is your primary (most frequent) perspective? What other perspectives do you use?
3 – How do you think Christianity would be different today if women had not been suppressed?
4 – What do you think of comparing Jesus (Christ?) and Mary to Adam and Eve?
5 – Is our author gloating in the last paragraph?
Chapter 14
6 – How do you like to define Gnostic(ism)?
7 – How has your knowledge of the history of early Christianity affected your faith?
8 – What new idea did you discover in the first (History) part of this chapter?
9 – Where would you date the Gospel of Mary? Why?
10 – Which conclusion about the Gospel of Mary do you like best? Why?

Chapter 11
1 – What do you find to be the most interesting element of comparison between Paul and the Gospel of Mary?
2 – How did Peter ever get to be the first pope with such an undeveloped spirituality?
3 – Explain how the Gospel of Mary is more Gnostic than Paul.
4 - “It matters greatly what kind of stories we live with.” Comments?
5 – Why are today's martyrs Muslim rather than Christian?
6 – What is the sin of the world?
Chapter 12
7 – How did “prepared” become “unified”?
8 – Why are we locked in a room “for fear of the Jews” when we know it was the Romans who dispatched Jesus?
9 – As you study the Gospel of Mary, do you get a better understanding of why the particular four gospels were canonized?
10 – What modern day figure would correspond to “the apostle to the apostles”?

Chapter 9
1 – Speculate on Mary's relationship with Jesus.
2 – So many question marks in the text... Pick one to elaborate.
3 – How do you judge spiritual maturity? Who has it (or NOT)?
4 – Are people without spiritual maturity adversaries?
Chapter 10
5 – For what reasons would you open a letter with “Peace.....”?
6 – How would you reconcile GThom 3 with GThom 113b?
7 – Are we moderns so enculturated that it is (almost) impossible to find “true Humanity within.”?
8 – Which of the comparisons between the Gospel of Mary and other (possibly canonical) writing did you find most interesting? Why?
9 – Who do yo think should preach the gospel?
10 – What new understanding of biblical study did you see here?
11 – Does our author convince you on the issue of literary dependence?

Chapter 7
1 – How do you understand the mind existing between the soul and the spirit?
2 – What is the “spiritual comprehension of the soul”?
3 – Do you like the Gospel of Mary model or the Tertullian model of the human better? Why?
4 – What do you think causes visionary experiences?
Chapter 8
5 – What type of modern writing corresponds to what we see in the soul ascending?
6 – How much are you looking forward to “rest in silence”, or are you concerned about boredom?
7 – Why is ther so much speculation about what happens after death?
8 – Why do you think Paul made it to the tenth heaven?
9 – Is the soul's journey pas the guardians simply a life metaphor?
10 – How much is modern law “set up to work on the side of those who wish to enslave”?
11 – Is our author revealing herself wit the phrase “fantastic terms of religious imagination”?
12 – To what extent do you think the Gospel of Mary is a political tract?
13 – What would a plan to save the soul while the body is still alive look like?

Chapter 5
1 – Where/How did the heavy Greek philosophy enter the Gospel of Mary, since we started with a Jewish carpenter's son?
2 – Do you agree with the definition of sin as estrangement from God (the good)?
3 – If sin is caused by mixing spiritual and material natures, what do you get if you don't mix them?
4 – What do you have left to think about if your thought “is free of all physical contact and associations.”?
5 – I have a hard time with pronouns. To what does each “it” refer in: “It will set it within its root.”?
6 – If passion “has no image”, does that mean emotions are not real or are bad?
7 – Does spiritual advancement come only by transformation within a person, and not by external regulation?
8 – What's wrong with the legal system in this country?
9 – Should leadership be based on spiritual achievement?
10 – Do you think the Gospel of Mary was written to counteract pseudonymous Pauline letters?
Chapter 6
11 – This is the first place that the idea of a model is introduce directly. How does your (modern) model of humanity differ from that discussed here?
12 – How do you like to use “Son of Man”?
13 – What were you before you became Human?
14 – Sex is good! Why did early Christians work so hard to suppress it?

Chapter 3
Rather than ask specific questions this week, I'll just list main ideas that
I think are worth some discussion (until the last question).
Post resurrection appearances
Dialogue and departure
Dialogical teaching
Layers
Independence
Commissioning
Comprehension and imitation
Translation
Chapter 4
Three Bears story of Christian origins
GMary as gnostic heresy
Early history reflecting on modern Christianity
Plato's ideas
Stoic ideas
Body and world (material) have no spiritual value
10 – What do you think of the image(s) of reality portrayed in Gmary?

Preface
1 – What is the number of names that you recognize in the preface? How many of them have you read?
Chapter 1
2 – What do you find most unusual about the short synopsis of the gospel? Any other unusual ideas?
3 – Will you embrace the Gospel of Mary?
4 – Describe any other discoveries of old documents you have read about.
Chapter 2
5 – Explain the nature of matter in a way that actually means something.
6 – How do you understand the difference(s) between soul, spirit and mind?
7 – After looking at the pictures of the early codex, how do you imagine the reading to have proceeded at an early meeting of followers?
8 – Do you see any differences between the synopsis of chapter 1 and how you understand your first reading of the text?