http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/trs ... orzxz.aspxTraditionally, Mary Magdalene is assumed to have come from a place called Magdala, meaning ‘the Tower’. However, there is no such place mentioned in the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament, though there was a small village attested in rabbinic literature as Migdal Nuniya (‘Tower of Fish’), lying just one mile north of Tiberias, and many other villages called ‘Tower of [Something]’ in Galilee and wider Judaea. The place called ‘Magdala’ or ‘Migdal’ in Israel today, 3.5 miles north of Tiberias, continues a Byzantine identification, from the fifth or sixth centuries CE when pilgrim sites were plotted in Palestine, and it is often assumed that the earlier sizeable town now coming to light there was called Tarichaea-Magdala. However, Josephus clearly indicates that Tarichaea lay south of Tiberias, and that this town north of Tiberias was called Homonoia. This lecture will explore Mary’s name ‘the Magdalene’, the actual location of her home village, and the possibility that her epithet may be understood as a double-entendre, meaning ‘the Tower-ess’: a nickname like others Jesus gave to his closest apostles.
http://www.netours.com/index2.php?optio ... f=1&id=292In Mary's case, Jesus might have had in mind the "watchtower of the flock" from Micah 4:8. Micah 4 and 5 must have been important to him, for here the "birthpangs" of redemption were first mentioned, and Jesus refers to these birthpangs (Matthew 24:8). The connection of Mary with Micah's watchtower could be this: After Jesus freed her from demons, she became one of the women who provided support to him and his disciples (Luke 8:2). In this way she was like a watchtower guarding the flock. In fact, she is mentioned in the Gospels more often than any other woman, including Jesus' mother. Of all the disciples, male or female, she alone witnessed his crucifixion, burial, and first appearance after the resurrection (John 20:10-18).
It is not at all convincing. Maria of Magdala is mentioned only one time in Mark (and I am not interested in what Luke says about her).
I would like to search for real towers in Jerusalem not destroyed by Romans...
Have you a list of names of these towers?