Airbrushed? Are you alluding to the supposed face of mary magdalene on the Last Supper? It wasn't her: it was the Apostle John, who was depicted traditionally as a young man, which he undoubtedly was. Firstly, Nicaea did not discuss Mary magdalene. It discussed the Arian heresy. No more, no less. Mary Magdalene, for the Christian church, was never a major issue. She is depicted in the Scriptures, not as a prostitute (that is a medieval jump to conclusion, regarding the 'sinful woman' who poured oil over Jesus feet in Luke 7, and another confusion of Mary of Bethany -Lazarus' sister- with Mary magdalene, which she clearly was not.) Mary is described in Luke 8 as having been delivered from seven demons, not from prostitution. While she was close to him, so were several other women, Mary of Bethany and her sister Martha, Susanna, Joanna, Mary of Clopas, Mary the mother of James (poss the same as of Clopas), Salome and his own mother. These ladies were financial supporters of Jesus. Several of them were at the tomb on Resurrection Day. Mary M stayed behind and had her special meeting with Jesus. then she is not mentioned again, although she was certainly present at other resurrection appearances, and at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given. We know that there is no more to the biblical story of Mary. There never was. TExtual criticism so strict that it far surpasses that applied to other contemporary or near contemporary documents, has established the text of the NT as unchanged from date of composition ( with the exception of a few passages that have been relegated to footnotes in recent translations, due to the discovery of very early copies of the gospels. We also have copious letters from early church leaders such as Clement of Rome, and Polycarp, who knew the apostles personally, and would have said something about the position of MM had there been anything to say. They quoted extensively from the NT docs, so that it can, in fact, be reconstructed with the exception of a few verses, from their letters alone. Since this evidence dates from way before the Gnostic texts of Nag Hammadi (from which the stories of MM come), these Gnostic texts cannot be held as reliable information, simply the beliefs of a group of syncrenistic Egyptian-christians, who were, in fact, isolated from mainstream Christianity geographically and basically undertaught. Some strange ideas were already surfacing by the time of Iraneus of Lyons(c 130-202), and he dismissed them as inaccurate. The fact that the Nag Hammadi docs were reverently buried means that they were disposed of as of no more use...the area did receive its much needed pastors eventually. Hope this answers some of the questions you have. Feel free to ask me more. cheers

probably. From what is in the canon Mary had a huge role in Jesus' life and ministry, and considering that the few rights that women have in society were won less that 100yrs ago it would make sense that scriptures detailing Mary's role would upset some men who did not think women to be equal. The problem is that no one really reads scriptures that were not canonized, they've come to not matter to a lot of people.

Where in the Bible is it stated that Mary Magdelene was a prostitute? She is described as one who Jesus cast many (7 I think) demons out of, but I don't know of anywhere in Scripture where she is described as a prostitute.