Last night on ABC, 20/20 made a special report entitled “Jesus, Mary, and da Vinci.” Basically, the show explored the growing speculation that Mary Magdalene was one or all of the following: Jesus’s most loyal and influential apostle, one of the primary early pioneers of Christianity, and Jesus’ wife.

The show presented evidence and arguments on both sides of the debate, centered around Dan Brown’s controversial book The Da Vinci Code and the many other books that have disputed or supported his arguments.

If you’re unfamiliar, one of the most significant arguments in the Da Vinci Code is the notion that Mary Magdalene was never a prostitute as so many of us have been led to believe throughout the years (actually centuries), but instead, had a very close (perhaps even intimate) relationship with Jesus.

However, because she was a woman, starting around 400 A.D., the Catholic Church systematically changed Biblical interpretations (or eliminated ones that they didn’t agree with) and began portraying Mary as nothing more than a prostitute and “groupie” within Jesus’ group of students.

Legend as has it that after Jesus’ crucifixation, she fled to southern France and began a secret “royal” line of Jesus’ descendants who kept her secret through selected intellectuals through the centuries. One of those was Leonardo da Vinci, who became convinced that Mary was indeed Jesus’ wife and the closest and most influential of Jesus’ apostles.

Da Vinci then secretly revealed this knowledge (his “code") in various ways, most notably by painting her as the person immediately to Jesus’ right in “The Last Supper.” The show then presented several prominent Biblical scholars who, in effect, said that although there is no hard proof, there are several credible interpretations and scattered evidence to support the argument that indeed Mary was Jesus’ wife.

It was quite a “revelation” for me -- I, like millions of others I suppose, had always believed that Mary was just some lowly prostitute that Jesus “saved.” Now it looks like that was just another fabrication or at least, distortion put out my the Catholic Church to serve their political purposes way back when.

Very interesting stuff. Let’s hear it for Mary!