Many people claim that the Bible supports their views, when they are simply selecting verses and reading them out of context to bolster their prejudices. This book imagines Mary Magdalene telling her life story. It is by a published author who has made a lifelong study of the text of the Bible, and of the way people lived in the time of Jesus; it should encourage readers to use their own imagination to enter into the minds of Jesus and his disciples. It is fiction, in that all these events are unlikely to have happened to one person. But each event is closely based on the Bible account of something which certainly happened to somebody, and the fictional structure should help people to imagine what the experiences felt like, and what the words meant to the hearers at a particular point in history. At this time there are many debates about the role that women should play in the home, society, the church and its ministry. 'She was the First Apostle' may make you think again about what answers the Bible gives to these questions.