Most scholars (e.g., Meyer, 2004; Schaberg, 2002) believe Mary was called Magdalene because she came from the city of Magdala that lay on an important trade route, about 10 miles southwest of Capernaum and two miles north of Tiberius, along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The city was famous for its boat building [1] and fishing industries, especially for processing fish for which large amounts of salt were needed. At the time of the first Jewish revolt, Josephus (Antiquities 14:120) claimed it housed nearly 40,000 people and recounts that the city was enclosed by a wall which he himself helped build (Jewish Wars 2:298-299)
Accounts of the city indicate that there was a large tower where fish were stored. Excavations of the area show a mini-synagogue or public building during the First Century as well as a tower and an aqueduct (Schaberg, 2002).
But while there was a thriving city there, it was never named Magdala (Schaberg, 2002; Spong, 1992), but rather went by a series of names. Matthew (15:39) called it Magadan (Matthew 15:39), and according to the Babylonian Talmud (b. Pesah 46b) it was named Migdal Nunaiya, which meant “tower of fish”. The Jerusalem Talmud (y. Ta’an 4.8) referred to the city as Migdal Seb’iya (“tower of dyers”) and Josephus (Jewish Wars 1:180) referred to it as Taricheae. For the sake of clarity, we’ll call it Migdal, but the bottom line is that it was never called Magdala.
Regardless of what you call it, Migdal was not only well known for its fishing and boat building industries, but also for its immoral ways. The Jerusalem Talmud (y. Ta’anit 4.69c) claimed it “was destroyed because of prostitution”, but more accurately it was the legions of Varius who defeated Josephus and his rebel forces, burned the city, and sacked the town,
In any event, the myth that Mary Magdalene was from the city of Magdala hits harshly against the fact that there never was a city named Magdala. What, then, is the connection? Can Magdalene somehow be derived from Migdal or from Magadan? Migdal perhaps, but not Magadan. So if it can be derived from Migdal, is the meaning that Mary Magdalene = Mary from Migdal?
Being "Called" is a Nickname
While the other gospel writers called her Mary Magdalene, Luke (8:1-3) referred to her as “…Mary (that was called Magdalene) …” and we can note that this peculiar usage was characteristic when referring to nicknames. Here are all the examples in the gospels where this naming technique is used:
- and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. (Matthew 1:16)
- And walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brethren, Simon who is called Peter (Matthew 4:18)
- The first, Simon, who is called Peter… (Matthew 10:2)
- and Matthew and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, (Luke 6:15)
- And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot (Luke 22:3)
- He brought him unto Jesus. Jesus looked upon him, and said, Thou art Simon the son of John: thou shalt be called Cephas (which is by interpretation, Peter). (John 1:42)
- Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. (John 11:16)
That’s it. Search the gospels and you will find this naming convention used only seven times. Twice by John and Matthew and three times by Luke. In each and every case, the convention is used to denote a nickname or a status name. Simon is called “Rocky”. Judas is called “the Dagger man”. The other Simon is called “the Zealot” Thomas is called “the Twin” and Jesus is called “the anointed one”. It should be clear that this naming convention is not meant to indicate a place, but a nickname.
Place Names are Men's Names
Let’s look at the other side of the equation. When the gospel writers wanted to indicate that a person came from a place, how did they refer to the person? Here are some examples:
- And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name… (Matthew 27:32)
- And when they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon of Cyrene (Luke 23:26)
- And after these things Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus (John 19:38)
- Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (John 11:1)
When you look at this list, it's clear that the only people with names denoting place are men. Not a single one of the 31 women mentioned in the gospels are identified by place names. Occasionally we may learn where they are from (e.g., Martha and Mary are from Bethany, the woman at the well is from Samaria), but the place names themselves are exclusively male (e.g., Lazarus of Bethany).
Disciples Have Nicknames
There’s another perspective we can examine. Let’s look at the names of Jesus’ disciples. How many of Jesus’ disciples had place names vs. nicknames or status names? Let’s see.
- Simon is “Rocky” or “The Rock” (Mark 3:16)
- The other Simon is called “The Zealot” (Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15)
- Judas is called “The Dagger man” (Luke 22:3)
- John and James are the “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17)
- Thomas is called the “Twin” (John 11:16)
- Matthew is called “the publican” (Matthew 10:3)
- The other James is called “James the less” (Mark 15:40)
The other seven disciples had no alternate names. The seven disciples who had alternate names were all nicknames or status names, not a single place name.
So it’s clear that from the naming convention, that gospel writers when they wanted to indicate that a person came from a certain part of the country used the term “of” and when they used the term “called” they were referring to as nickname or status name. Moreover, Jesus’ disciples only had nicknames or status names, none had place names.
Mary the Great?
So if Mary called Magdalene is not a place name, but a nick name, what does it mean? Mary the Migdal? Mary the Tower? Was she tall? Was she tall and broad? Did she smell like pickled fish?
Some scholars (e.g., Spong, 1992; Starbird, 2005) have speculated that Mary was such an important disciple of Jesus that she was referred to as “The Tower”, using the same kind of affectionate but pertinent nicknames that Jesus was famous for (e.g., Simon “The Rock”, John and James “the Sons of Thunder”, etc.) Baigent (2006) even says that her nickname was actually “Mary the Great”, reasoning that calling her “The Tower” was the same as saying she was “Great”.
Gematria
Margaret Starbird (2003) has explored the uses of the Greek/Hebrew system of gematria in which letters have number values, and these values related to astronomical meanings going back as far as Pythagoras. This system underlies many of the numbers we find in the gospels repeated over and over (7, 12, 14, 40, etc.). Using this system and applying it to the name "the Magdalene" she comes up with a number of 153. 153 was the number of fishes that the resurrected Jesus catches (John 21) and it is also known as "the measure of the fish" or the vesica piscis, a sacred number to the Greek mathematicians. She believes that this word "the Magdalene" was specifically chosen to reflect the sacred number and simultaneously express the association of Mary with the Migdal/tower.
Conspiracy?
Is the translation of Mary Magdalene = Mary of Magdala instead of Mary the Great (or Mary the Tower) an accident of history or is there something more purposeful at play here? In our discussion of the role of Jesus' family in his ministry, we pointed out the evidence that gospel writers purposefully distorted the text to make it appear that Jesus' family was opposed to his ministry. One reason for this was that the writers represented competing sects, and they wanted to avoid anything that gave precedence to the Jesus dynastic family sect in Jerusalem. Can the mistranslation of Mary's name come from a similar motivation? Is it an attempt by gospel writers to de-value women in general and Mary in particular? Was Mary a threat to the authority of the male disciples, as we read in the Gnostic gospels, and are her role and her name a reaction to that threat? Obviously we can't know the answers, but they are intriguing.
All things considered, it’s more likely that Magdalene was her nickname rather than her place of origin, especially given Jesus’ proclivity to use nicknames rather than geographic identifiers.
Updated 12/03/06
[1] In 1986, a fishing boat dating back to 40 B.C. was discovered in the muddy lake bottom near Migdal's harbor. The boat is 26 1/2 feet long, 7 1/2 feet wide and 4 1/2 feet high and was meant to hold 15 people. Some scholars speculate that it was on such a boat that Jesus and his disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee.
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