Mary Magdalene
Jesus’s female disciples remain women of mystery
Is there a patron saint of conjecture? Perhaps it is a name known only to Bible scholars, who have rich…
The downfall of the French middle class
The chesty Corsican taxi driver was giving me his earnest appraisal of the way things were headed in France politically.…
Celebrating Jesus’s female followers: Names of the Women, by Jeet Thayil, reviewed
The gnostic Gospel of Mary has long been the subject of controversy, even as to which of the several Marys…
The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, but it’s the art that really excites
The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, says Laura Freeman, but it’s her art that really excites
A feast for foot fetishists
It is always interesting to see what art historians get up to when none of the rest of us is…
The codes and codswallop surrounding Leonardo da Vinci
‘If you look at walls soiled with a variety of stains or at stones with variegated patterns,’ Leonardo da Vinci…
The loveliest episode of Holy Week – Christ rises from the potting shed
In Nicolas Poussin’s ‘Noli Me Tangere’ (1653) Christ stands with his heel on a spade. He appears, in his rough…
Vice and virtue
‘Can the ultimate betrayal ever be forgiven?’ screams the publicity for The Judas Passion, transforming a Biblical drama into a…
The GP charged around to my side of the table and roved her hand all over my pubic area
On Friday morning I was peeing razor blades so I rang up the doctor and was given an appointment after…
The dangerous red-headed league
‘Gentlemen prefer blondes,’ Anita Loos pronounced, ‘but gentlemen marry brunettes.’ Quite what they do with redheads she never revealed (and…
No one in the Bible has been as elaborately misrepresented as Mary Magdalene
A bogus history book and a new oratorio turn Mary Magdalene into the wife of Jesus and a human rights activist. Damian Thompson feels sorry for the poor woman
