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Person · one of several with this name

Mary Magdalene

Also called Magdalene

An imagined, stylized portrait. No one knows what Mary Magdalene looked like. AI-generated

WomanMAG-duh-leen

A follower of Jesus from whom, Luke says, seven demons had gone out; the Gospels place her at the crucifixion and at the empty tomb.

See Luke 8:2, Mark 15:40, John 20:1, John 20:18.

The empty tomb marks Mary Magdalene in the reading view: she came to the tomb early and saw the stone taken away (John 20:1).

Mentioned in 14 verses across 4 books, first in John 19:25. The verses below are the ones linked to this person (the Theographic dataset, with our sourced corrections).

How artists have pictured her

3 works from different centuries and traditions. Each shows how its time and place imagined Mary Magdalene, not how she looked.

Rogier van der Weyden, Mary Magdalene (Braque Triptych, right wing), Oil on panel, Louvre, Paris — **c. 1450–1452** · Rogier van der Weyden, *Mary Magdalene (Braque Triptych, right wing)*. Oil on panel, Louvre, ParisPublic domain · Wikimedia Commons

Frederick Sandys, Mary Magdalene, Oil on panel, Delaware Art Museum — **c. 1859** · Frederick Sandys, *Mary Magdalene*. Oil on panel, Delaware Art MuseumPublic domain · Wikimedia Commons

Viktor Vasnetsov, Mary Magdalene, Design/wall painting for St Volodymyr's Cathedral, Kyiv — **c. 1885–1896** · Viktor Vasnetsov, *Mary Magdalene*. Design/wall painting for St Volodymyr's Cathedral, KyivPublic domain · Wikimedia Commons

In these stories

In the Bible

All 5 verses in John, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.

John

John 19:25
Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother and her sister, as well as Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.
John 20:1
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
John 20:11
But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent down to look into the tomb,
John 20:16
Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
John 20:18
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what He had said to her.

Back to the first 10 Show all 14 verses

Events

Events the dataset lists Mary Magdalene as taking part in. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.

c. AD 28
Jesus' 2nd Tour of GalileeLuke 8:1–3 · at Galilee
no date
Resurrection and AscensionMatthew 28:1 – John 20:31 · at Jerusalem, Mount of Olives, Sea of Galilee
no date
Crucifixion and BurialMatthew 27:35 – John 19:42 · at Golgotha

Dictionary

From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. The entry is for the name and can describe more than one person who bore it. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.

Read Easton’s entry

A surname derived from Magdala, the place of her nativity, given to one of the Marys of the Gospels to distinguish her from the other Marys (Matt. 27:56, 61; 28:1, etc.). A mistaken notion has prevailed that this Mary was a woman of bad character, that she was the woman who is emphatically called “a sinner” (Luke 7:36-50).