The Gospel of Mary

The Gospel of Mary presents a gospel account from the perspective of Mary Magdalene, the first apostle according to John 20:11. The narrative is remarkably feminist and describes Mary as having a unique and spiritually significant relationship with Jesus. Most of the text takes place after the crucifixion when the frightened disciples fear for their lives. Hoping to embolden her friends, Mary courageously delivers a sermon revealed to her by the risen Christ, in which the two discuss topics like reincarnation, overcoming the powers, and other Neoplatonic ideas.

The text repeatedly evokes the Genesis story of Joseph to illustrate the challenges Mary faces in advocating for these revelations. Like Joseph, she is at first rejected by the disciples for her unique relationship with Jesus and the novelty of her message. In the end, however, the disciples reconcile with her teachings and embrace her vision before setting out to spread the good news.

Though archeologists have discovered multiple manuscripts, we’ve yet to find the complete text. You can check this box to compare the individual sources and their overlap. Note that scholars have only recently argued that P. Oxy. 5577 is from the same gospel, which is our position.

The following translation by Toto Tay takes an approach inspired by The Message translation of the Bible. To reduce our preconceptions of Jesus and his disciples, the characters are instead referred to by nickname.


Other Gospels proudly presents as part of our Nag Hammadi Initiative. The Coptic text was translated by Samuel Zinner with our financial support.

How to cite:

Zinner, Samuel. . Translated by Samuel Zinner, technical editing by Rachel Bousfield. Other Gospels. (accessed ).

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The rendering of the above gospel was made possible by David Curtis, author of the original CC BY-NC 4.0 version you can read here. The chapter and verse numberings are mine, and were inspired by Mark Mattison's public domain rendering here. I've made minor stylistic changes to synthesize the two versions.

Original transcription by Toto Tay, who has graciously provided exclusive permission to reproduce it here.

For Toto's commentary regarding translation decisions, consider buying his annotated version on Amazon.