"MARY MAGDALA" AS A TITLE
The original form of the name in all the Gospels was Mariam. The form Maria is an adaptation within Greek later on. The ms. evidence on this is overwhelming. Mariam is a straight phonetic transcription of the Hebrew form. (The commonest pronunciation in Hebrew at the time was Maryam, with Miryam being fairly rare). A sequence of two M’s, one at the end of the name and one at the start of the epithet, is certain. Remember I said that word division was not always shown in Greek. Neither was it always shown in Hebrew or Aramaic. The use of special final forms for some letters, including MEM, was unsystematic. One M could thus become two, or two could become one, in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. As said before, there are three formulas in the Greek. (a) The commonest is mariam magdlEnE (using capitals to show long vowels). This means Mariam from Magdala. (b) Once there is hE magdalEnE maryam, meaning the Magdalene Maryam, distinguishing her from other Maryams. (c) Once there is mariam hE kaloumenE magdalEnE, meaning Mariam known as the magdalEnE. Second, some possible routes. I said that there was a difficulty with the assumption of a phonetic transcription of a title or epithet rather than a translation. Form (c) is actually natural Greek. A phonetic transcription of a title can be used with this phrasing. The difficulty remains that the title is Greek in form. Too much would have to be assumed for this to have been the route. Also, I think the loss of knowledge (deliberate or not) of what the title meant must have been before the formulation in Greek. Here is the route I favour. An Aramaic name and title Maryam Magdalta meaning Maryam who has been made great (perhaps an initiatory technical term) has become IN ARAMAIC by a misunderstanding that might well have been deliberate Maryam Magdelayta, meaning Maryam from Magdela, with the addition of one letter, a YOD. Then this has been translated into Greek. I can’t see any way of going from any Hebrew form to Maryam of Magdela. Too much would have had to be changed. A form Maryam Hammagdalit MRYM HMGDLYT meaning Maryam from Magdela is too from Maryam Haggedola MRYM HGDWLH As far as I can see, the only route that works is the one that assumes the existence of a title “made great”. The only alternative would be to start with Maryam Hammeguddelet MRYM HMGDLT meaning Maryam brought up in the household.
The change from Magdalta to Magdelayta happened in the Aramaic original of the original single long gospel, by DELIBERATE change, not accident. If you think the assumption of a single original long Gospel in Aramaic is unnecessary, then I would still say the change was DELIBERATE, and was from the Greek megalE, great, to magdalEnE. I still insist that in Greek style, and Hebrew and Aramaic style as well, a phrase of the form “Maryam hE kaloumenE magdalta” meaning Maryam known as the Magdalene implies that magdalEnE was a TITLE, but this would only make sense if it had originally been Greek megalE or Aramaic Magdalta.
The change from Magdalta to Magdelayta happened in the Aramaic original of the original single long gospel, by DELIBERATE change, not accident. If you think the assumption of a single original long Gospel in Aramaic is unnecessary, then I would still say the change was DELIBERATE, and was from the Greek megalE, great, to magdalEnE. I still insist that in Greek style, and Hebrew and Aramaic style as well, a phrase of the form “Maryam hE kaloumenE magdalta” meaning Maryam known as the Magdalene implies that magdalEnE was a TITLE, but this would only make sense if it had originally been Greek megalE or Aramaic Magdalta.
# © 2006 by World Star International Inc. Marcus Julius Agrippa Jr. 
