Who Exactly Was Mary Magdalene?

Who exactly was Mary Magdalene? If you came here looking for an answer to that question, you’re probably going to be disappointed, because I’m not sure that I have one. The Bible really leaves her as pretty much a mystery. There is at least information about her in the Wikipedia article as what I can provide. Pope Gregory I decided many years ago, that she was the adulterous woman that washed Jesus’ feet in Simon’s house. Quite frankly, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. All four Gospels mention Mary Magdalene by name, none of them indicate that she was ever adulterous; Mark and Luke both say that she had been possessed by seven demons (Mark 16:9, Luke 8:2). Interestingly enough, Luke is the only Gospel that mentions her prior to the crucifixion, and that only in passing (Luke 8:2, referenced above).
Many people over the years have tried to romantically link the Magdalene with Jesus. Of course, the Bible never specifically says that they were not, however, there is no indication that they were, either. We really don’t even know if she was about the same age as Jesus, or that she was single. We generally assume that she was, because she traveled with Jesus, but realistically, in an age of arranged marriages, young single women didn’t usually go traveling around with a group of people that they weren’t related to. It’s possible that her family disowned her and put her out because they didn’t know how to deal with the demons, so after Jesus cast them out, she felt more kinship with Him than with her natural family, and so traveled with Him. It’s possible that she was the sister of one of the Apostles, although I think that would have found it’s way into the narrative if it were the case. It’s also possible that she was a widowed woman with no children to stay with, so she traveled with Jesus; perhaps she had children, but her children were traveling with Jesus… Who knows, she might have been the mother of James and John (Matthew 20:20-28), but I doubt it—I think Matthew would have told us that…
In Biblical times, women tended to be treated as second-class citizens. If Mary Magdalene had not been the first one to see Jesus after the resurrection, it’s entirely possible that she would have been left out of the narrative altogether. I think it’s significant that Jesus chose to appear to her, first; He could have appeared to any of the eleven (or all eleven, simultaneously), but He chose her. It’s also interesting that when she tried to tell the eleven what she had seen, for the most part, they didn’t believe her. Granted, as much as they would have liked to have believed her, it must have seemed utterly fantastic, but, at the same time, they must have known her, and known what kind of person she was. If she had been a man, she might have had more credibility with them, but, then again, a couple of verses later, Jesus appeared to “two others” (two men or two women? it doesn’t say), and the rest of the disciples didn’t believe them at first, either.
Some have theorized that there was a conspiracy in the church to keep her out of the Bible, rather than to admit that a woman had such an important role in the Gospel story; if that’s the case, they weren’t very good at conspiracy—as I said earlier, her role is mentioned in all four gospels (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20). Personally, I think that it’s unfortunate the Bible tells us so little about her. She clearly had an important role, but by leaving out the details of her life, she is left open to interpretation. Essentially, we have this important figure in the gospels that is left as a blank canvas: anyone can depict Mary Magdalene as pretty much anything without fear of contradiction, because so little information is given to us about her.
One thing we know about her, though: she was a remarkable woman. There can be no doubt that the Bible wouldn’t talk about her the way it does (even though it doesn’t say very much) if she were not.