IMAGINATIVE LEAPS OF FAITH
The Magdalene Moment
By Joanna Manning
Raincoast Books, 2006. 230 pp. $29.95
by Kathy Perry
Mary Magdalene was the first. She was recognized by all authors of the New Testament to have been the first to encounter the resurrected Jesus. Whether the scriptural accounts are regarded as story or report, or some integration of the two, this is a significant honour. She is called "saint" in the tradition, as well as "the apostle to the apostles." According to extra-canonical texts that are currently popular reading material, she was an attractive figure in the early Church –a disciple with a flair for, as Joanna Manning writes in her new book The Magdalene Moment, "integration of the sexual, the sacred and spiritual leadership."
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