Who Was The Real Mary Magdalene? Art's Scarlet Woman (Waldemar Januszcsak Documentary) | Perspective 

How I'm spending my winter Sunday night 🌙 💕

He is the great teacher of classic art ! Love his teachings! So fortunate to watch all these videos!

@@jenniechen24 Talking of masterpieces I think this documentary is the master piece in itself.

I agree he is the best host.

He’s fantastic 😇♥️🙏

Spot on review !

@@popcult Thank you. He's one of a kind!

Also: "She was a HAR-lot..." ;D

Would be nice if he could pronounce Italian names properly, given the many Italian artists: it's not GEE-oh-vanni or GE-otto. The "i" is only there to turn the "g" into "j." So it's "JOE-vanni "& "Jotto."

I think it's deliberate; part of his brusque & slightly sardonic humour. Typically British.

I disagree. The narration is sarcastic, slightly unprofessional and audibly full of doubt. All religious and spiritual figures should be revered or at least not disrespected.

He's excellent (very British).

@@williamroberts8470 Certainly agree that Waldemar's delivery lacks the lofty academic condescension of some documentarians, but as the kids say, that's a feature not a bug. And I completely agree that religious/spiritual figures should for many reasons be shown respect. But we're talking about art about spiritual figures, not the figures themselves. It's the art itself that is reflecting different attitudes about religious/spiritual figures, not the presenter. Young people and many others are often surprised at how Christian art has been through substantial, amazing changes over the centuries & in the many cultures that came to embrace Jesus Christ. It might even deepen and expand your faith and your mind and your heart to learn about these changes. It did for me. If you don't like enthusiastic, informed, and engaging discussion of Christian art in all its variety, then definitely don't watch Waldemar's documentary covering early Christian art, the first episode of his Dark Ages, an Age of Light series.

@@GildaLee27 Yes but I love the subjects eventhough he distracts from it. I think he just has a bad style of art commentary. At least he doesn't wear socks with his sandals while on camera. Its possible he wears socks with his sandals off camera. I'm sure he's a nice guy.

@@williamroberts8470 , South?

Oh cool! Thanks for this!!!

Thank you so much - I was looking through the Gounod opera and going crazy, and I knew I recognized this piece - I love Carmina Burana - but had no familiarity at all with the Gounod. Thanks!

Thank you for enlightening us by putting us out of our guessing game misery. 'Carmina Burana' is a work that reveals its jewels incrementally and, depending on its setting, can feel/sound familiar and at the same time brand new. Attention given to such details, be they subtle or overt, as in this example, elevate Waldemar J. head and shoulders above the rest. I've studied art for more than 50 years. I love learning new aspects in old, familiar paintings as well as their painters. I haven't been this excited for art exploration since my university days with a professor with whom I am still in contact.

He's like a flippin warehouse full of Art Info...

Though he often presents important detail which dispels popular misconceptions, he ain't no genius overall and too often throws out the baby with the bathwater. In this instance, his handling of 'the Magdeline" is almost pure shyte. If Mary wasn't somewhat important, she wouldn't have been mentioned as often as she was--the Gospel writers focused their rather short histories on our Lord, not incidental characters. Matter of fact, important Biblical figures/events are often given very brief mention and treatment--so, a female mentioned even four times is worthy of some consideration. This guy's treatment of the history is almost a mirror image of the ridiculous Dan Brown book that Waldemar dismisses----a reverse false accounting of sorts. Interesting detail and food for thought, but horrible thematic and almost aggressively counter to the hermeneutic of Church tradition.

@@johncharleson8733 There's always one of you in these comment threads. Someone's always gotta be 'that guy'...

@@andybaldman Hey, I'm not "that guy" in this instance. I'm a serious [enough] Christian an historian to know and be angered by bullsh*t when I hear it. In spite of the above, I guess you didn't appreciate my attempt at throwing him a bone--your problem, not mine. Simply put, the guy sensationalized the information to the point of blasphemy. Next time, to keep dick-weeds like you happy, I'll just call it straight out without detail or prose.

@@johncharleson8733 He might not be your guy then. Most of us don't care about blasphemy. (And one of Waldemar's trademarks is making waves by not tiptoeing around subjects that might be confrontational to some. That's one of the reasons we like him.)

They barley do any research for these. Watch the ones on islam, its a joke how he praises them for work that shouldnt be attributed to islam. Its like they wiki searched then got fed lies from muslims.

@Jonathan. Agreed, but you would never be able to get that sentiment through to any of these lapdogs.

@@jonathansoko1085 Islamic countries used to be the progressive ones ages ago, those days are long gone now, of course, but history is llooonng... If you haven't even read one Wikipedia article on it, maybe don't criticise other people's research😂😂😂

@@mathiasringle6972 You're an expert?! What specific point(s) do you take issue with and what's your counterargument and your source so I can check?

@@annnee6818 Explain what you mean. Do you mean pre-i**lam countries that are now m***lim? (if i type the words yt deletes my comments regardless of what i say). If so that is true, which is a reason why its so sad becuase they really destroyed all that work and activley try to erase that history.

A son of a railroad employee with a Polish surname living in England must have faced xenophobia in his childhood. He is not exactly a young man and back when he was a kid no one would protect him from bullying. He said he was a naughty student that would often be punished by writing lines on a chalkboard. I bet art was a way to escape and enjoy the beauty. With his physique far from athletic, he must have worked hard on developing his brain, charisma, and sense of humor to compensate for what he didn't have in muscle power or height. He really is a self-made man. Maybe that's why he can talk to us so effectively. He's not one of those upper-class pompous professors looking at average people with disgust. I would love to have had him as a professor back in the day to not only teach me about art but about life.

@@mikshinee87 Wow ！I had no idea about his hardship 。I am very grateful for watching his art works 。 Thank you JB, you are so informative and your writing is beautiful.m

​@@mikshinee87 thank you

I'd call it the extra 5 miles!

I love tidbits like this.

There's so many holes in that story and I'm not talking about the whores. Sounds fishy and again, not talking about the.... You know the "Ancient" Romans buried the dead along the Appian Road and I doubt the Prostitutes played their trade there. No Metro then. But Rome lasted quite a while, so anythings possible. People make up more stories than can be counted and most are just stories. When I lived in Rome they worked on the street, were taken on a Lambreta to the Parks and did it there.

Bravo Waldemar !!! x2

I knew a polish woman named Mary who had seven sisters all named Mary. They were all known by their middle names.

@@vudu8ball 🤭🤣👌🙏

In my university course there are 20 students and we have 5 different Mary : Maria Rosaria, Maria Pia, Marie Helene, Maria Elena and Maria Angela. You know,.. Catholic country😂😂 (Italy)

I actually get this. Sons included

IKR :))))

Waldemar, good Catholic that he was born and raised, glosses very neatly over the fact that the first Council of Nicea in 325 AD, conveniently chose only 3apostolic testimonies plus John the baptist's recollections to enshrine in the Roman Catholic bible. Fortunately the discovery of the Gnostic gospels at Nag Hammadi in 1945, shed true light on the importance of Mary Magdalen in the foundation and early progression of the cult of Jesus the Nazarene.

Jesus forgave sins & healed ppl before being crucified. Seems the use of 30 yrs at times is used for symbolic reason with other meanings. Person or ppl have used 30 yrs for Mary Magdalene in France yet another woman made a journey with her & went to France to be with others. Mary Magdalene, Mary (Jesus mother), & others left from France & went to another country. Then crossed to one that has a city with a place referred to as place Jesus mother lived at for 30 yrs. She may have been there awhile yet not that long. Mary, Mary Magdalene, & others returned to area of Jerusalem. Mary Magdalene's father was alive yet when they returned. He lived in a northern town, Sephorus/Sephora & died in 60's AD when Roman's ... in that area.

This might be helpful. It’s a passage from CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity on repentance and why we do it as Christians. Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement.: he is a rebel who needs to lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the right one-that is the only way out of our ‘hole.’ This process of surrender is what Christians call ‘repentance.’ Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves in for thousands of years. It means killing a part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact it needs a good person to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly.” Lewis goes on to present the work of Christ: “He could surrender his will, and suffer and dies, because he was man; and he could do it perfectly because he was God.” Lewis then adds that we surrender, repent, only by sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection, just as we are intelligent or wise only by sharing in God’s intelligence and wisdom.” “We repent only by sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection. We somehow die and rise with him (a central Pauline teaching, as in Col. 2 and 3, Rom. 6, and Gal. 2:19-20), thereby starting a whole new life.” I see this story of her 30 years of penance as a choice to become monastic. I would also say that when we pray the creed we confirm our belief in the forgiveness of sins and the our father prayer also remind us every time to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We need the constant daily reminder.

You've got the wrong Mary, percussion.

Yes, I read somewhere that it was in a way a title. It was not a name. Just like in the Byzantine Empire, and the countries under its influence, Stefanos was not a name but a title. It means "the one wearing a crown".

And I'm delighted! These are produced to the highest level, they will be watched and learned from for as long as the format is accessible. Which as we know could end next mounth, Oi.

Can you answer Adam Gorelick's question about the music at 56:25?

@@jackjones8363 I will try. Thank you for asking

@@jackjones8363 The closes I can get is the chorus’ first number in the opera Mirelle by Charles Gounod. In the program the presenter even shows the album cover. Was able to pull it up on RU-vid.

I keep trying to find an image of it / any idea what collection it is in?

thank u so much for this comment!! I was so confused as to why I had never seen this supposed Gentileschi painting...

@@petrarchsgal I'm glad it was helpful

Yes, thank you for correcting the Artemisia Gentileschi attribution. I know she painted a number of Magdalenes including some of "Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy" that very in levels of emotion and nudity. This wasn't one of them.

I’m publishing a weekly RU-vid video on episodes from the life of Don Bosco, entitled ST JOHN BOSCO by JOE ZAMMIT. In this series I’m narrating events and miracles from the splendid life of Don Bosco. St John Bosco used to perform a miracle almost every day, through the intercession of Mary Help of Christians. From the lives of saints we can learn how to love God more and draw closer to him. Thank you.

Thank you for pointing out Mary of Bethany, absent from the list.

Yes, my favorite comment of the whole video! . . . "it was made up"

Nonsense.

You can say that for the entire bible as well. Nothing was written about Jesus during his lifetime. All that drama, right? Nothing written down.

@@suzylux Missing the point entirely Suzy. Get a history degree.

I don't know, but I'm guessing it would be harder to believe her because she's a woman. There's speculation that that's specifically why Christ revealed himself to her, a woman, rather than any of the apostles--because women are every bit as deserving of believing, and having Christ reveal himself to a woman as to a man. That's why it's included in the Bible, and not just starting with just Peter going to the empty tomb. Pretty progressive for the patriarchal society when the Bible was written and when all this took place. Why would a male driven society include this, unless it's what really happened?

They would have mansplained to her what she saw. Lol

I suspect that her stories were inconvenient for those who wished to use the Church to establish power, both over society and over women. If Jesus's favorite disciple and the one he trusted most was, in fact, a woman, well. That would be all SORTS of inconvenient for the Church now, wouldn't it? Make it much more difficult to shut women out of its ranks and establish power over them.

Systlin I suspect you are completely right. Furthermore, overtime she was presented as a prostitute to degrade her image even more. Despite all of this manipulation the fact is that she was the first to witness the greatest moment of Christianity, the resurrection. And she was alone, even if there were 12 apostles who were “keeping a low profile” in those challenging moments....

Yes. Very much this. In Christ's first moments as, finally, what he was born to be - the fulfillment of his destiny as the Savior of Mankind - the very first human he reveals himself to - was a woman. She is even there as he dies, when everyone else who wrote the Bible and were supposed to be his right hand men were nowhere to be found, Mary is there with His mother, witnessing and helping to remove and prepare him. That to me speaks of true closeness and devotion.

Pope Gregory decreed the prostitute status in the fourth century. One could focus on the misogynistic aspect, and obvious power maneuvers, but it’s also spiritual. An evil force always opposes the kingdom Christ brought to Earth. And it targets women ruthlessly. Woman’s seed was used for Christ’s humanity by the Holy Spirit, and Eve’s heel decreed to crush the spirit that destroyed paradise. A church designed by men demanding celibacy that the Bible made optional needed to neutralize the Magdalene, Priscilla, Lydia and others who were true disciples of Jesus and the establishment of the first century church. Paul and the twelve were the main instruments, but these ladies also .

@@julio5prado Well, many of Jesus' female followers were prostitutes, and the gospels make no bones about this, nor about Jesus' statements to the self-righteous that "the prostitutes and the tax collectors are entering the Kingdom of God ahead of you." It was because these public sinners had more repentance in their hearts, more gratitude for their forgiveness, more love for him than did those people did whose sins were hidden under the guise of respectability. So the conflating of Mary of Magdela with Mary of Bethany (who may or may not have been the same person) and the supposition that she too was a prostitute (which anyway never became Doctrine) was not intended to degrade her but to highlight this aspect of the gospel.

On the contrary, Mary Magdelene is known in the Eastern Orthodox Church by the title "Apostle to the Apostles" because she was the one who brought the good news of Christ's resurrection to the male disciples.