Date of Award

6-1-2009

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

First Advisor

Gregory Robbins, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Alison Schofield

Third Advisor

Ann Dobyns

Keywords

Catholic, Magdalene, Mary, Ordination, Tradition, Women

Abstract

The Roman Catholic Church maintains that it cannot ordain women to the priesthood due to a lack of biblical warrant. The Church therefore relies upon the traditional concept of a Bridegroom-Bride relationship (read: Christ and His Church), which they say can only be maintained if a male priest serves as the representative of the invisible Christ for his Bride during the Eucharist. In this essay, we shall explore the role and treatment of Mary Magdalene and women in early texts and show that they actually did have prominent positions within at least some early Christian communities. Texts were altered, and selected for reasons that did not always have to do with doctrine. Therefore, the tradition of the Bridegroom-Bride relationship ought to be reconsidered as the later development it was, and the Church should reconsider not only its presentation of Mary Magdalene but also the possibility of women within the ordained priesthood.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Richard Bishop

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

65 p.

Discipline

Religion, Religious history, Clerical studies

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