Jesus and Prostitutes

[vulcanlogician]

I think it's supposed to have ben St Peter who [falsely] made Mary Magdalene a prostitute. That the early  church believed that and continued believing that for nearly 2000 years clearly demonstrates the basic misogyny of Christianity.

Pope Francis began her 'rehabilitation' from prostitute to beloved disciple in 2106

2106? So, you mean Pope Francis, after having downloaded his consciousness into a computer, thus securing his popehood for eternity, began Magdalene's "rehabilitation." Glad he finally got around to it

[brewer]

I don't know what the Lutherans are teaching now but my mother went to her grave believing that MM was a pro. Not sure if my dad gave a shit one way or the other.

[Belacqua]

I think it's supposed to have ben St Peter who [falsely] made Mary Magdalene a prostitute.

In fact it was Pope Gregory I, in 591. He mistakenly conflated two different Marys in the Bible -- Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany. 

Many Protestants rejected the idea that she was a prostitute. In 1969 Pope Paul VI corrected his predecessor's error. 

In 2016 Pope Francis raised the level of the way they celebrate her, from a memorial to a feast.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I think it's supposed to have ben St Peter who [falsely] made Mary Magdalene a prostitute. That the early  church believed that and continued believing that for nearly 2000 years clearly demonstrates the basic misogyny of Christianity.

Pope Francis began her 'rehabilitation' from prostitute to beloved disciple in 2106

2106? So, you mean Pope Francis, after having downloaded his consciousness into a computer, thus securing his popehood for eternity, began Magdalene's "rehabilitation." Glad he finally got around to it

Just so.

[Ferrocyanide]

One of Jesus's main strategies is to take the Old Testament teachings and increase them to the point that it would seem extreme and absurd to the people of the time. (And to us.) So wanting justice for widows and orphans is easy, but wanting justice for dirty low women who sell themselves is not something we easily feel. It seems extreme. Hey, they did it to themselves, why should I feel sympathy for them? If it doesn't seem extreme now, that largely has to do with Christian influence. 

With the acknowledgment, of course, that too few Christians (or any of us) live up to that.

It’s part of the jewish law (or the jewish god’s law) to dislike whores.

Deutoronomy 22:13 KING JAMES VERSION

If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, {22:14} And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: {22:15} Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: {22:16} And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; {22:17} And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. {22:18} And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him; {22:19} And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days. {22:20} But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: {22:21} Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.

^^^^^This basically says that if the wife is not a virgin, then she shall be executed by stoning. In order to prove that she is a virgin or not, they probably follow that old idea that the first time a woman has sex, she bleeds. “spread the cloth” is perhaps talking about bed sheets, perhaps it is talking about some other cloth.
It has been established in modern times that this does not prove that the girl is not a virgin.
I wonder how many ladies have been stoned to death because of false evidence.
Also, it isn’t hard to procure some blood and put it on some cloth.
If the lady is a virgin, then the husband has to pay 100 shekels of silver to the father. How does this help the lady?
Also, the husband is forced to stay married to the lady.

If it doesn't seem extreme now, that largely has to do with Christian influence.

I would say no.
Prostitution and homosexuality was accepted in Roman and Greek society. At least, it was accepted in Pompei.
They have a lot of phallic symbols there and porno.
Example: Source:
https://travel-junkies.com/wp-content/up...F_4371.jpg
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d16xTogQo3g/Y...ving-4.jpg
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/80e34...26ee32896e

^^^^^Such tings have been preserved bc of the disaster, otherwise, eventually the people would have converted to christianity and would have destroyed the paintings.

The christian influence made it unacceptable, illegal.
Prostitution never went away. Perhaps pornography has been hidden away as nude paintings.

It is thanks to people being more relaxed that eventually, Playboy became a reality. Nudy bars everywhere.
Eventually, there were many magazines and now, the internet.
You could claim that the modern christian decide to relax a bit however, atheist probably had a hand in it as well.

---

"The prostitutes and tax collectors will be the first to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"... "the last shall be first and the first shall be last."

The Bible says this

Matthew 19:30 KING JAMES VERSION
But many [that are] first shall be last; and the last [shall be] first.


Matthew 20:16 KING JAMES VERSION
So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

Ephesians 5:5 KING JAMES VERSION
For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Hebrews 13:4 KING JAMES VERSION
Marriage [is] honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.


So, it looks like prostitutes are rejects.
Which part of the Bible says that they are in?

[Ranjr]

Rome liked hookers and taxes.  They wanted that taxable income.  Jesus knew his audience.

[Belacqua]

I disagree with the notion that Christianity influences compassion toward prostitutes in contemporary times.

You could easily disprove the claim that Christianity has increased compassion to prostitution by finding a pre-Christian claim that prostitutes deserve any compassion at all. Contemporary attitudes have deep roots.

For example, if you could point us to a passage in Aristotle saying that porne and pornos are capable of having as much arete as a man with the leisure to live a contemplative life. Or, more to the point, that a person with no arete at all has as much worth as someone who has it. 

I acknowledge that Christians have always fallen short of having the compassion that Jesus demands for them. But the fact that we have any sympathy at all for such people originates, in the West, in Christianity. 

Again: prove me wrong by finding a non-Christian source urging compassion for such people, before the 20th century. Or demonstrate that compassion for prostitutes and other "low" people would be as great as it is in our time, without the roots of Christianity. In what source, uninfluenced by Christian thought, did it originate?

[Mister Agenda]

You mean like sacred prostitution like that practiced in the ancient Near East?

[T.J.]

On the Mary Magdalene subject. I see nothing in the bible that supports her being a prostitute. It just says she had sex outside of marriage. Simply having sex with a person doesn't make one a prostitute (though I'm sure to the people at the time they would've called her a whore). So that's probably where the belief comes from. I also remember reading in the bible that she had demons taken out of her. So for all we know, "The devil made me do it!"

[Belacqua]

On the Mary Magdalene subject. I see nothing in the bible that supports her being a prostitute. It just says she had sex outside of marriage. Simply having sex with a person doesn't make one a prostitute (though I'm sure to the people at the time they would've called her a whore). So that's probably where the belief comes from. I also remember reading in the bible that she had demons taken out of her. So for all we know, "The devil made me do it!"

You're right. 

The idea that she was a prostitute came about when Gregory I thought that she was the same as Mary of Bethany. In fact even Mary of Bethany is not directly called a prostitute -- only "a sinful woman." 

Many of the details about Bible figures were added on long after the Bible was put into its final form. This is another reason why Bible literalists aren't really literalists.