No other female image has been so strongly influenced by the culture and history of past European centuries as Mary Magdalene. From ancient times to the present, Mary Magdalene has been a summary image of the feminine in each era. Despised as a sinner, revered as a saint, admired as a model disciple, Mary Magdalene became the symbol of al women whose fate she shared throughout history: honored, defamed, pushed to the margins, elevated to unreality, and degraded.

Ingrid Maisch examines Mary Magdalene's life from the perspectives of the biblical witnesses through Christian Gnosticism, the...