Lucifer's True History of Everything
Oct 30, 06 05:41 PM
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True Life of Jesus, cont.
I must digress here, briefly, because Mr. Simon's remark about Magdalene and her seven devils had in it an element of truth (Mark 16:9). I must tell you Mary Magdalene's story.
Jesus first heard of Mary Magdalene in 28 CE, near the Lebanese border. She was then just seventeen years old. Her mother, a Greek from Syrophoenicia, having come home unexpectedly, discovered her daughter under the kitchen table in what you might call a compromising position (but that would not be wholly accurate, for it had been a year or two already since Mary Magdalene last had any body parts left to compromise).
The scene that greeted Mrs. Magdalene's eyes that day might have shocked any virtuous mother, Jew or Greek; while the most lecherous matron in all of pagan antiquity, if we knew for sure who that was – Cleopatra, perhaps, or Sappho – would more probably have dropped her jaws and her smock and said, "Now there's something I have never tried!" Mrs. Magdalene, though she was not yet a Christian, nor even a Jew, nor even someone who knew the Bible, felt it could not be normal, what she saw.
Mrs. Magdalene's God-fearing Jewish neighbours agreed. The Jews said that the Magdalene girl had an evil spirit (Mark 7:25); but the sending of evil spirits is Yahveh's department, not mine (Judges 9:23, 1 Sam. 16:14-23, 19:9; Rom. 11:8-10). I would not have called it an "evil spirit," I would have called it "raging teenage hormones."
(FYI: I'm no psychiatrist, but I don't personally believe in "demoniacs" or "evil spirits." I think those are just biblical metaphors. In my opinion, the various lunatics in the Bible who are said to be "demon-possessed" or full of "evil spirits" were probably just "mentally ill" – which would explain a lot, because that is a social sector with whom the Lord has always had excellent success.)
I cannot give you additional details of what happened in the kitchen that day to 17-year-old Mary Magdalene. I would not want my editor, Bob, to be charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors who might haphazardly log onto his Website. Suffice it to say that what Mary did, and what Mary's mother caught her doing, was quite unseemly; and suffice it to say that Mary had a good enough time doing it, that she was unrepentant – and suffice it to say that Mary was even a little annoyed with her mother for having interrupted the festivities (Mark 7:24-26).
So Mrs. Magdalene sent all of those boys home.
Mrs. Magdalene was just about to punish young Mary, and to whip her bare bottom with a rod (which was the Syrophoenician practice, as opposed to stoning, which was the more orthodox biblical punishment), when in comes still another teen devil, fresh as bull-calf, a young Roman whose name was Asinus, so-named not for his stubbornness, nor for his ears, but for another reason.
Mary, who was not yet dressed, burst into giggles. Mrs. Magdalene, however, burst instead into tears—and she ran from the house to find Jesus of Nazareth (who was preaching that day at the local tabernacle), to request his help in restraining the girl, who was now completely out of hand, or at least, out of Mrs. Magdalene's.
When she found Jesus, Mrs. Magdalene said to him, in her broken Aramaic, "Please Mr. god, good Mr. god, kick the devil out of my bad girl."
Mary Magdalene at that time was already well on her way to becoming a local legend. At 17, she was not just sexually active, she was more like a sexual volcano. But Jesus had no desire to help her. He said unto Mrs. Magdalene, "Let the children of Israel first be filled! Why would I want to throw the children's bread to such Dogs as you and your daughter?" (Mark 7:24-27).
(The phrase Jesus actually used was "such bitches," but the Aramaic word for female dog did not carry the modern pejorative sense of "irritable." Dog, male or female, was just a popular Jewish racial epithet for the Syrophoenicians.)
Jesus did not ordinarily socialize with the Dogs, but Mrs. M. had a lovely personality compared to other Syrophoenician bitches. After some clever repartee, Jesus told Mrs. Magdalene to go home in peace – promising that, when she returned home, the [young] devil [Asinus] would be gone.
And when she returned to the house, she found that the devil had indeed come out of the girl, and her daughter was laid upon the bed. (Mark 7:28-31, KJV)
Unfortunately, Mary Magdalene was one of those girls whom Jesus had warned his disciples about: a woman whose demon, when exorcised, will leave for a time, only to return with seven other devils more wicked than himself. In fact, Mary Magdalene is probably the very woman whom Jesus had in mind when he said that: for three days had not passed before Magdalene had another seven Jewish devils in her, not counting the first one, who also came back, and all of whom seemed to have quite a good time (Matt.17:21; 2 Peter 2:22).
Mary Magdalene was no dummy. She loved classical poetry. She was a talented musician and a graceful dancer. She was good at math. And she could talk with anyone: she was fluent in Syrophoenician, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic – six different languages – it's just that she could not say "no" in any one of them.
– L.
(Tomorrow: the adventures of Mary Magdalene, continued!)
Posted by Lucifer at 05:41 PM
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