The Jesus Discovery by James D. Tabor

Author:James D. Tabor [Tabor, James D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A WOMAN CALLED MAGDALENE

Mary Magdalene is referred to by name only twelve times in the New Testament gospels and never again in any of the other New Testament writings. As we have seen, she appears at the death scene of Jesus, his burial, and the empty tomb, and then disappears from the record. If the New Testament writings were all we had, we would be hard-pressed to say anything more about her. Before we move to an alternative world of early Christian texts outside the New Testament that present an entirely different picture of her status and relationship to Jesus and the twelve apostles, we want to briefly examine why she might be called Magdalene, distinguishing her from the other Marys in the gospel narratives—including Jesus’ mother and particularly, Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, with whom she has often been identified.

In the Greek texts of the gospels she is known by three slightly differing descriptions: Maria the Magdalene, Miriam the Magdalene, and Maria the one called Magdalene.13 The majority of scholars understand the designation “Magdalene” to refer to the city of Magdala (or Migdal in Hebrew) located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee about seven miles north of Tiberius. The Greeks called the city Taricheia, referring to the pickling of salted fish from the Sea of Galilee, exported throughout the Roman Empire. According to Josephus, the 1st century Jewish historian, Migdal was walled on the west side and had a large aqueduct system, a theater, hippodrome, and a market. Josephus describes it in some detail.14

Josephus fortified the city as his headquarters when he became commander of the Jewish forces in Galilee in the 1st Jewish revolt against Rome (66–73 CE). It was culturally and commercially diverse, opulent, and fully exposed to Greco-Roman culture. Shortly after the first Jewish revolt against Rome broke out in 66 CE, the Roman military commander Vespasian, who was later to become emperor, surrounded the city with three Roman legions and laid siege. He stationed 2,000 archers on the mountain to the west overlooking the city. There was a great naval battle at its port and thousands of Jews, defenseless in small boats, were slaughtered. Josephus, an eyewitness, reports that the Sea of Galilee was red with blood, with stinking corpses filling its shoreline for days to follow. The city finally surrendered and opened its gates while thousands of inhabitants who had fled south toward Tiberius were slaughtered or exiled.15 1,200 older people were executed, 6,000 of the strongest sent as a gift to the emperor Nero, and 34,400 were sent off as slaves.

The city was apparently more Romanized than the nearby Jewish cities of Capernaum or Chorazin with a cosmopolitan Greek atmosphere.16 Ongoing excavations at Migdal, including the 2009 discovery of an ancient 1st century CE synagogue, will likely reveal much more as to what this important city was like.17 If Mary’s designation as “Magdalene” refers to her city of origin, placing her in that context gives us a glimpse into her possible background.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.