The Quest for Mary Magdalene

by Michael Haag

  Yet among those mosaics today archaeologists are uncovering a vast city that flourished at the time of Jesus on this northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, a large freshwater lake fed by the River Jordan. Excavations show that Magdala was a Hellenistic city founded in the second century BC by the Hasmoneans, an independent Jewish dynasty that owed its origins to the Maccabean Revolt of the 160s BC against Seleucid Greek rule, though a dynasty nevertheless deeply imbued with Greek culture. Comparable in plan and size to some of the more important cities in Greece and Asia Minor, Magdala served to bring the Mediterranean world into the heart of Galilee. Large portions of its main avenues, the decumanus maximus, running from north to south, and the cardo maximus, running from east to west, have been uncovered – and beneath them water channels which fed the city’s wells, fountains and a large public baths complex. Still more impressive were the harbour installations, including a quay and mooring stones, an L-shaped inner basin protected by a breakwater, and the massive foundations of a tower.

  For many centuries Mejdal was an impoverished and barely inhabited settlement where the chickens scratched up the ancient mosaics.

  Magdala c.1900. Collection Michael Haag.

  Construction on this scale could only have been undertaken with the support of the Hasmonean rulers with the intention of making Magdala the largest port on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and a major centre for the fishing industry, catching and preserving fish for wide distribution and export.

  The city was further embellished and enlarged after the Hasmoneans were overturned in 37 BC by the Romans who established a client state under the rule of Herod the Great and his successors. Excavations have revealed a synagogue decorated with a floor mosaic and painted walls; a coin found within the synagogue dates it to AD 29, about the year that Jesus was announcing the imminent kingdom of God throughout the towns and villages of Galilee.

  Magdala from the north showing the recent synagogue excavations. A coin found within the synagogue dates it to AD 29, about the year that Jesus was announcing the imminent kingdom of God throughout the towns and villages of Galilee.

  Magdala from the north, recent synagogue excavations. Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land.

  Near the remains of the ancient synagogue a modern pilgrimage centre has been built, reviving an old tradition, welcoming those who come hoping to find Mary Magdalene. Perhaps in this synagogue Mary Magdalene came to pray and Jesus came to speak. Certainly on 26 May 2014, during his visit to Jerusalem, Pope Francis gave his blessing to the tabernacle that will stand in the new church being built at Magdala.

  Altering the Gospel to Put Mary Magdalene on the Map

  But despite the modern excavations at Magdala and the claims that it is associated with Mary Magdalene – and despite the blessing of Pope Francis in 2014 – there is no place called Magdala in the Bible except in one corrupted phrase in the gospel of Matthew 15:39 where after feeding the multitude with the loaves and fishes Jesus ‘took ship, and came into the coasts of Magdala’, which is how the King James Version has it. The Greek source that was followed in this instance, however, dates only from the fifth century; but older and more reliable Greek sources such as the early fourth-century manuscripts known as the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus make no mention of ‘Magdala’ at all. The Codex Vaticanus, for example, says that Jesus ‘took ship, and came into the coasts of Magadan’ – exactly what appears in modern scholarly editions such as The Revised English Bible as well as in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. This is supported by the evidence of the Church Fathers Eusebius and Jerome, the first writing in the early fourth century, the second in the late fourth century, who make no mention of any place called Migdal or Magdala; they wrote only of Magadan.

  In what was apparently an act of creative editing, a Byzantine copyist turned Magadan into Magdala. As similar as the names are, Magadan and Magdala mean two different things. Magadan derives from the Aramaic word magad meaning precious ware, while Magdala derives from the Aramaic magdal and the Hebrew migdal meaning tower.

  But the identification of Magdala with Magadan began working its effect. Before the Byzantine alteration of the text in the gospel of Matthew, pilgrims who travelled in the Holy Land were silent about any place called Magdala. In the early sixth century, however, a pilgrim called Theodosius came upon Magadan on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and, influenced by the invented text, declared that he had come to Magdala; ‘Magdale, ubi domna Maria nata est’, he wrote in Latin: Magdala, where the lady Mary was born.

  Pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land thrived on associations with the gospels and those following in the wake of Theodosius were happy to agree that Magadan was the birthplace of Mary Magdalene. By the ninth century pilgrims were reporting a church at ‘Magdala’ which supposedly enclosed the very house of Mary Magdalene where the seven devils were driven out, and which they could go inside. The church, they were told, had been built by the redoubtable empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, who in 326-328 at about the age of eighty visited the Holy Land and had churches built on the site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem and his ascension atop the Mount of Olives. Her son, the emperor Constantine, built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the spot in Jerusalem where Helena was said to have discovered the tomb of Jesus. But though Helena’s visit to Bethlehem and Jerusalem were recorded at the time, there is no contemporary record of her having visited Galilee; and had she built a church which claimed to enclose the house of Mary Magdalene it certainly would have been a famous feature on the pilgrimage route already in the fourth century – instead not a single pilgrim is known to have mentioned the name Magdala at all. The church seen by the ninth-century pilgrims may have been old – Christianity had been winning converts in Palestine since the first century – but its association with the house of Mary Magdalene was a pious invention in keeping with the substitution of Magdala for Magadan.

  The alteration of Matthew’s gospel by a fifth-century Byzantine copyist was turning Mary Magdalene’s name into a place on a map. She was now Mary from Magdala. Any thought that her name might have some other and profound meaning was lost.

  The Watch-Tower

  Magdala derives from magdal which means tower in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and his disciples and others in Palestine and Syria at the time. The Hebrew word for tower in the Old Testament is migdal. But Migdal never appears on its own as a place name anywhere in Palestine; it always occurs as Migdal-Something, so for example there is Migdal Eder (Genesis 35:21, Micah 4:8), Migdal Gad (Joshua 15:37), and Migdal El (Joshua 19:38).

  Had Mary been named Magdalene for a place she would have had a double-barreled name. Instead Mary Magdalene’s name says what it means; Mary the Tower, or Mary who is like a Tower.

  But in what sense was she like a tower? Migdal Gad and Migdal El were fortified places, but Migdal Eder was something altogether different. Eder (or edar) is the Hebrew for flock; in large pastures shepherds would erect a high wooden tower in order to oversee their flock.

  Migdal means tower, including towers built by farmers to safeguard their fields. This tower, photographed in 1890, watched over sheep near Bethlehem.

  Watchtower, Palestine, c.1900. Library of Congress.

  According to Genesis 35:19-21, Migdal Eder or the Tower of the Flock was near Bethlehem, five miles southeast of Jerusalem.

  The prophetic Old Testament book of Micah is part of a Jewish tradition which expected the messiah to come from Bethlehem, from the line of David, who was a shepherd before he was a king. Micah 5:2 reads, ‘But from you, Bethlehem in Ephrathah, small as you are among Judah’s clans, from you will come a king for me over Israel, one whose origins are far back in the past, in ancient time.’

  A bit earlier Micah 4:6-8 talks of the Last Days which are marked by the appearance of the Lord who like a shepherd gathers in the lost, the dispersed and the afflicted of his flock.

  In that day, saith the Lord, will I assemble her that halteth, and I wi
ll gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the Lord shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever.

  Micah’s comparison of Lord and shepherd concludes with this verse about the tower of the flock.

  And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.

  As the shepherd watches over his flock, so David established Jerusalem as the capital of his kingdom and watched over his people from his citadel on Mount Ophel, a rocky outcrop opposite Jerusalem’s Temple Mount – and likewise this tower, this migdal, this magdala, will become a watchtower for looking after the Lord’s flock, those people the messiah has come to save. So Mary Magdalene’s name alludes to this biblical prophecy of watching over the flock and carries a sense of salvation to come.

  But this image of the watchtower and the flock applied also to the Sea of Galilee where fishing was the mainstay of towns and villages round its shores. For example, Magadan, the place subsequently known as Magdala thanks to the Byzantine scribe, was a big port for catching and processing and exporting fish, and excavations there today reveal the foundations of a massive tower that once rose above the harbour. The purpose of the tower was likely a lighthouse, a beacon for fishermen out on the lake – for as we are told by John 21:3, they fished by night. Other ports would have had lighthouses or beacons too. And so the tower was very much like the Tower of the Flock near Bethlehem, a means for looking after the flock who in this case were fishermen. Several of Jesus’ own disciples were fishermen before they became, in his words, fishers of men.

  Jesus was fond of giving his disciples nicknames, as we are told in Mark 3.16-17: ‘And Simon he surnamed Peter; And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder’. Peter comes from the Greek Petros which in turn comes from Jesus’ use of the original Aramaic which was Cephas, both Cephas and Petros meaning rock. Mary Magdalene would have received her name in the same way, Mary the migdal, the watchtower, the lighthouse, the beacon; a powerful name, the woman who helped the Good Shepherd protect his flock; and also a beacon at night, an illuminator, a visionary – contrasted with the rock of Peter; rock versus light.

  Debauchery, Salted Fish and Biblical Scholars

  Rabbinical writings dating from the fourth to fifth centuries AD mention a place called Migdal Tsebaya, meaning Tower of the Dyers, and another called Migdal Nunya, meaning Tower of the Fishes. How long they had been in existence is not known; certainly they appear nowhere in the Old or New Testaments. Likewise the location of both is uncertain; but the latter is thought to be about a mile north of Tiberias, not far enough north to be anywhere near the place now called Magdala. The place might correspond to Tel Rakat (or Tel Raqqat); a tel is an ancient mound of debris that grows up over abandoned villages or other structures, and though Tel Rakat is set back from the lake, that might not always have been so; perhaps there was a lighthouse here, or maybe this was a place for processing fish. Without excavating the site we will not know more.

  An old field tower built by a farmer to watch over his crops and flocks and to warn of approaching danger. Such watchtowers were especially common during the first century AD.

  Tower Samaria. Photograph by Konstantin Hoshana.

  As Migdal Tsebaya means Tower of the Dyers and dyeing is usually done near water, so possibly this was also on the shores of the Sea of Galilee but the rabbinical literature does not say. Instead it makes one comment, that Migdal Tsebaya was destroyed for its prostitution, but it does not explain when or how or by whom – no context is provided whatsoever.

  That has not stopped Migdal Tsebaya being identified with Tarichaea (Taricheae is a variant spelling), its name, which is Greek, meaning place of salted fish. The identification was made in the 1920s by the American biblical archaeologist William F. Albright, pretty much because he thought so. Albright also identified Tarichaea with the place now called Magdala in spite of the evidence to the contrary.

  The evidence points to Tarichaea being three and a half miles south of Tiberias on the west bank of the river Jordan where it emerges from the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, not three and a half miles north, the site of present-day Magdala. The first century AD Roman historian Pliny, for example, described the Sea of Galilee in his Natural History as ‘surrounded by the pleasant towns of Julias and Hippos in the east, Tarichaea in the south . . . and in the west Tiberias’ – which places Tarichaea south of Tiberias while Magadan, known since Byzantine times as Magdala, is to the north of Tiberias.

  Moreover Tarichaea was the site of a famous battle in AD 67 during the Jewish Revolt; the historian Flavius Josephus, who was a commander of Jewish forces during the early part of the uprising in Galilee, described the Roman siege and occupation of the city and the fierce naval battle that ensued that left 6700 Jewish fighters dead and turned the lake water red. Yet excavations at present-day Magdala reveal no signs whatsoever of fighting or damage from the time of the revolt, while Josephus’ account of Roman movements makes it clear that Tarichaea was south of Tiberias. Quite simply, Magdala and Tarichaea were two different places.

  Nevertheless Albright’s connection between Migdal Tsebaya, Tarichaea and Magdala has made a lasting impression so that you will see the names of these places used interchangeably or in combination, with Migdal Nunya thrown in for good measure; and you will often read of the Roman destruction of Mary Magdalene’s supposed home town because of its debauched reputation, which fits in nicely with the later image created of Mary Magdalene by the Church.

  Religion has played havoc with identifying the site and the significance of Magdala and its association, if there is any, with Mary Magdalene. The problem began in the early Christian centuries and has been perpetuated and further confused by biblical archaeologists and New Testament scholars in modern days. Tying Mary Magdalene to some spot is like finding some bone, some rib or skull, and saying it is hers; places become relics for people who need that sort of thing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Kingdom of God

  THOUGH LUKE TELLS US nothing about the nature of the women’s afflictions nor about Mary Magdalene’s seven devils, he is very specific that Mary Magdalene’s travelling companion is Joanna, the wife of Chuza, who was a steward of Herod’s estates. To know something about Mary Magdalene’s devils and the women’s evil spirits and infirmities we need to look at the world of Herod, that world from which Joanna, Mary Magdalene and Jesus himself were struggling to escape – that world that had just cut off the head of John the Baptist.

  Herod and Hellenism

  Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great, infamous in the Bible for the massacre of the innocents after the birth of Jesus. According to the gospel of Matthew 2:1-16, the magi tell Herod of the birth of a child who would become king of the Jews, and fearing for his throne Herod orders the death of all the newborn children at Bethlehem.

  Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. . . .

  Then Herod . . . slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under.

  The story allows Matthew to have the Holy Family flee into Egypt from where they will eventually return after the death of Herod, so fulfilling the prophesy of Hosea 11:1, ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son’. But Matthew’s Flight into Egypt is directly contradicted by Luke 2:22 and 2:39 who has the Holy Family, forty days after Mary’s purification following the birth of Jesus, peacefully returning home from Bethlehem to Nazareth via Jerusalem. For that reason and because there is no evidence that any such massacre ever occurred, most scholars doubt the historical reality
of the event.

  But the story does contain a truth, that Herod, a Jew who owed his throne to the Romans and promoted Graeco-Roman culture over strict Jewish tradition, was suspicious of Jewish threats to his rule.

  Herod the Great was a product of a new cosmopolitan civilisation that arose in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 330s BC. Hellenistic culture – that compound of Greek culture with local elements – was a brilliant and liberating civilisation that permeated western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean, offering new discoveries and opportunities in philosophy, education, theatre, religion, technology, trade, government and law, and above all it provided a shared language, koine Greek, a simplified version of Greek that became the lingua franca.

  Aramaic, the old common language of the Middle East, continued to be spoken for everyday needs, and for Jews Hebrew was the language of ritual and prayer. But in Palestine, as elsewhere, Greek became the written language for every educated person and anyone of rank, while if anything Hellenisation was reinforced by the Romans who succeeded the Greeks as masters in the East in the first century BC; the Roman governing class spoke Greek and they supported practices and trends in religion, philosophy, drama and architecture that owed their origins to the Greeks. The gospels themselves and the whole of the New Testament were first written in Greek.