(The risen Jesus) appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve (1 Corinthians 15:12)

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. (Mark 16:9)

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb… Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him. (Matthew 28: 1 & 9)

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance… she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. (John 20: 1 & 14)

Whatever happened to Mary Magdalene? I mean, where did she go? She’s everywhere in the gospels: following Jesus and his entourage around the place, funding his layabout lifestyle (Luke 8:1-3) and being first to see him after he returned from the dead. After that, nothing. Luke doesn’t even bring her back for his sequel and no one else in the New Testament so much as mentions her. When, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul lists those who, like him, have had a vision of the risen Christ, she’s conspicuously absent. Mary is the first person to see Jesus resurrected according to three of the four gospels, yet in the far earlier tradition mentioned by Paul, she doesn’t get a look in. Her place is taken by Cephas.

The neglect of Mary Magdalene in early tradition could of course be because she was a woman, and a woman’s testimony, back in those less than enlightened times, was worth far less than a man’s. However, it’s far more likely that whoever created the creed had never heard of her. Why not? Because the gospels didn’t exist when they came up with it. They had no idea that a woman was supposedly the first to see Jesus alive again. As far as they were aware, it was ‘Cephas’ who’d had the first vision of the risen Lord. Yet Peter – assuming he and Cephas are the same person – isn’t the first to see the risen Jesus in any of the gospels.

Mary Magdalene is side-lined like this because when the creed was created, and later still when Paul quotes it in 1 Corinthians 15, the stories about her hadn’t yet been invented. It’s safe to say, she hadn’t been invented.

In fact, Mary Magdalene and most of the rest of the support cast from the (future) gospels aren’t referred to anywhere else in the New Testament. This includes at least eight of the disciples from the slightly differing lists in the gospels, the Virgin Mary, Joseph, the angel Gabriel, the Magi, Nicodemus, Lazarus, Martha & Mary, Judas (apart from Luke’s side-splitting story about him in Acts), Barabbas, Joseph of Arimathea and Doubting Thomas. Likewise, fictionalised versions of historical figures with key roles in the gospel stories aren’t referred to either: Herod, Pilate, Caiaphas and John the Baptist(?) are all absent, even from epistles written and forged after the appearance of the gospels’ ‘cunningly devised fables’ (2 Peter 1:16).

Decades after the early creed of 1 Corinthians 15 and Paul’s letters, Mark invented Mary Magdalene, as well as many other characters who appear in his gospel. His allegory then became the basis for the other three canonical gospels, whose authors added their own imaginary characters.

And just as they invented the earthly Jesus’ companions and adversaries, they created too his miracles, teaching, cryptic parables, bodily resurrection and ascension. Mary Magdalene was but one small aspect of their ingenuity.