MARY MAGDALENE: A “SINNER,” a “QUEEN,” OR BOTH?
By Gott
Allegory 202
Luke Chapter Two
This study of allegory will look at Luke Chapter Two. It may sometimes seem as if the trail is going off in too many directions and becoming too difficult to follow. Luke points to several Old Testament stories, the works of Josephus, and a biography written by a man known as Damis of Nineveh. Several important clues are found in Acts of the Apostles. There are a multitude of pieces that must be gathered, then assembled to reveal the story Luke set out to tell. Philo’s Rules for Allegory didn’t promise simplicity, only great rewards. It is well worth the effort to persist in this exercise. (Philo's "Rules" are listed at the end of this article.)
Luke 11:30-31
Jesus said:
“For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of man be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and judge them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the Wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!”
The “Queen of the South,” first associated with King Solomon, was the Queen of Sheba, introduced at 1 Kings 10:1. It is almost universally agreed that the Queen of Sheba was the unnamed woman professing her love for Solomon in Song of Solomon. Luke re-worked portions of Song of Solomon and inserted them into his Gospel:
Luke 7:36: “One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table.
Luke 7:37: “And a woman in the city, who was a Sinner…brought an alabaster jar of ointment.
Luke 7:38: She stood behind him at his feet…she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.”
Jesus would have been reclining, the custom when “eating at table” in ancient times. Anyone familiar with the Torah would have immediately recalled a similar scene in Song of Solomon, also known as Song of Songs and “The Wedding Song”:
Song of Solomon 1:3: “…your anointing oils are fragrant…”
Song of Solomon 1:12: “While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.”
Song of Solomon 2:4: “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention toward me was love.”
In his telling of events that followed the crucifixion, Luke described another scene that can also be associated with the Song of Solomon:
Luke 23:55-56: “The women…saw the tomb…Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.”
Luke 24:1-2: “…they came to the tomb, taking spices…They found the stone rolled away…they did not find the body.”
Song of Solomon 6:1-2: “Where has your beloved gone…? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the garden and to gather lilies.”
Solomon’s love song was sung to the Queen of Sheba. Luke identified the woman with the spices who could “…not find the body…” in the garden tomb:
Luke 24:10: “Now it was Mary Magdalene, Jo Anna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them…”
Luke applied several of Philo’s “Rules for Allegory” to be used to interpret the allegorical message:
Rule #1 "the doubling of a phrase;"
Rule #2 "...apparently superfluous expressions (or stories) in the text."
Rule #6 “the synonyms must be carefully studied…”
Rule #9: “(Allegory can be gathered from) the part(s) of a word (or name).”
Rule # 10 "Every word must be explained in all its meanings, in order that different interpretations may be found;"
Rule #19: "noteworthy omissions."
Re: Rule # 6: The “synonyms” in this case are the similarities between Solomon’s “Queen” and Luke’s “Woman with Spices.”
Re: Rules # 9 & # 10: For two thousand years it has been assumed that Luke identified a new, never before mentioned disciple at Luke 8:3 and 24:10: He called her Jo Anna. The “parts” of the name, Jo Anna reveal the following:
Anna means goddess in both the Sumerian and Syrian languages.
In Greek, Jo is written, Io. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna.) Io was a mythological Greek goddess loved by Jupiter. According to legend she settled in Egypt and became the first Queen of Egypt. Io was also known as a moon goddess and a water goddess and was associated with the other “great mother goddess-queens,” Isis, Inanna, Astarte, Artemis, Aphrodite, etc. With Zeus she had a son, Epaphos. (See: http://members.fortunecity.com/volcanopele/Iomyth.htm)
Epaphos had a daughter, Libya. Libya became the first Goddess-Queen of Libya. The Ionian Sea was named for Io, who was believed to have swum through the sea as she searched for her kidnapped son.
“Jo Anna” (Greek: Io Anna) was not the name of a disciple but a descriptive term. Allegorically, Luke wrote: “Now it was Mary Magdalene, Io (Goddess-Queen) Anna (Great Mother-Goddess)…” (Additional support will follow.)
Re: Rule # 19: “Noteworthy Omissions.” Luke’s “Sinner” with the ointment was synonymous with Solomon’s “Black and Beautiful Queen.” But Luke did not describe her as “Black,” nor did he refer to her as a “Queen.” But he did leave clues that those descriptive terms were "omitted" from his description of Mary Magdalene.
Luke identified the Anointing Woman as a Sinner (Luke 7:37). If Luke employed the same “allegorical method” he used in Chapter One, "Sinner" should lead to a character or story in the Old Testament - an important character associated with “Sin” or a “Sinner.” (See article titled, Allegory 101 @ www.thenazareneway.com):
Numbers 20:1: “The Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Sin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and was buried there.”
Numbers 12:1: “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman…” (Cushites were also known as Ethiopians.)
Exodus 2:15-16: “...Moses…stayed in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters.”
Exodus 2:21-22: “…[the priest of Midian] gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She bore a son and he called his name Gershom…”
Exagoge 60-65 by Ezekiel the Tragedian (fragments reproduced in Eusebius) has Moses’ Cushite wife, Zipporah, describe the inhabitants of her ancestral lands in Africa: "…this land is called Libya {an ancient name for the African continent}. It is inhabited by tribes of various peoples, Ethiopians, dark men. One man is the ruler of the land: he is both king and general. He rules the state, judges the people, and is priest. This man is my father {Jethro} and theirs." (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Cush
Moses’ wife Zipporah came from Libya, a land of Ethiopians – dark skinned people. Zipporah was a black woman.
Song of Solomon provides a physical description of the Queen of Sheba:
Song of Solomon 1:5: “I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of
Solomon.”
Song of Solomon 1:6: “Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has scorched me.”
This Old Testament book leaves no doubt that Solomon’s love partner in this Song has dark skin, just as Moses’ wife Zipporah had dark skin.
Kadesh in the wilderness of Sin near Mt. Sin-ai (the Arabic feminine form of Sin) is where Moses, Miriam, Aaron and the Nazarites spent thirty-eight of the forty years “wandering.”
The Sumerian god in Mesopotamian mythology was called Sin, which means “God of Wisdom.” (He was also called Nanna-Sin; Nanna is Sumerian for Illuminator.”) Anyone who lived in "The Wilderness of Sin" near Mount Sinia would have been called “a Sinner.”
From: http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/origsin.htm#anchor3546103:
“[The god Sin] was known as the father, or source, of the Goddess. Sin…as father of both the Sun (Utu or Shamash) and of Inanna (Ishtar) the Queen of Heaven was the central astral deity.”
“The name Sin is the Semitic form of Sumerian Enzu meaning lord of knowledge. The Mesopotamians ascribed very great importance to him. It was he who governed the passing of the months through his waxing and waning. ... The unvarying lunar cycle gave Sin a special connection with order and wisdom and with immortality.”
The land of Cush was the ancient country of Nubia. The people were called Ethiopians. In Moses’ time Nubia was under Egyptian control. In the 8th century BCE, Nubian King Piye invaded and conquered Egypt. Nubia was ruled during the 6th century BCE by Piye's brother, Shabaka, who established the 25th Dynasty. Shabaka = Shaba and Sheba. Shabaka was the King of Sheba.
In the mid 7th century BCE the Cushite/Ethiopian capital was transferred from Memphis to Saba. Saba, according to Josephus, was renamed under Cambyses’ rule, dating this name change to c. 529-520 BCE. At that time Saba became Meroe.
The following quote introduces an article titled, “Makeda’s Education” published in The Horizon History of Africa, edited by Philip Curtin, New York, 1971:
“Ethiopian Christians tell this story about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Their version holds that the Queen of Sheba was an Ethiopian sovereign named Makeda (Magda)…” (See: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Queen_of_Sheba
and http://www.bethel.edu/~letnie/EthiopiaMakeda.html)
By the time Luke was crafting his allegorical History of Christianity, the “Queen of Sheba” would have been renamed. Before Saba became Meroe, she was called, Saba Magda (or Makeda); when Saba became Meroe, she would have been called, Meroe Magda.
(See: http://wysinger.homestead.com/sheba.html)
The “Southern Countries” were known collectively as “Ethiopia,” a Greek word that means “burnt faces.” Ethiopia during biblical times referred to all areas where dark-skinned people lived. Therefore, any biblical reference to a “Queen from the South” identified a dark-skinned Queen regardless of exactly where “from the South” she might have originated.
Interpreted allegorically, Luke’s “Sinner,” the Anointing Woman with the spices, was a Meroe Magda – a Queen of the South – just as Sheba was Saba Magda – a Queen of the South.
Luke’s allegorical “Sinner” has thus far led to:
1) the Wilderness of Sin, near Mt. Sin-ai;
2) Moses, Kadesh, Miriam;
3) Zipporah, Moses’ wife, daughter of Jethro, a dark-skinned King of Libya;
4) The origin of the Goddess, daughter of the moon god, Sin, whose name was Inanna (similar to Ioanna).
5) Meroe Magda (similar to Mary Magdalene).
Luke’s allegorical method suggests Meroe Magda (Mary Magdalene) was dark skinned, as was the Queen of Sheba. His clues suggest that she was the daughter of a dark-skinned King of Libya.
***
Allegorically, Luke left a number of clues about the woman the gospel writers called Mary Magdalene. These clues suggest that she had dark skin and was the daughter of the King of Libya. Luke left other clues that will soon lead to her identity:
Luke 1:27: “…to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph…and the virgin’s name was Mary.”
Luke 2:1: “…a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius (aka Cyrenus) was governor of Syria.”
Luke 2:7: “…[the Virgin Mary] gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger…”
In order to date the birth of Jesus, scholars have had to turn to the historian Josephus. Josephus, Antiquities Book 18 chapter 2 verse 1, dates “the time of the census”:
“When Cyrenius [or Quirinius] had disposed of [Herod] Archelaus’ money, and when the taxings were come to a conclusion, which were made in the thirty-seventh year of Caesar's victory over Antony at Actium…”
Caesar defeated Antony at Actium on September 2, 31 BCE (this dating is based on astronomy and adjusted to our present system of reckoning.) Therefore, Josephus dated the census under Quirinius, when Archelaus [Herod's son] was disposed of his money, as taking place in the year 6 ACE.
To find this date, however, requires knowledge of Josephus’ Antiquities and the approximate timeframe in which to search. It almost certainly requires reading the Book and chapters that lead up to Book 18:
Antiquities Book 17 chapter 13 verse 4: (available at: www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/index.htm)
http://www.thenazareneway.com/MaryMagdaleneSinnerorQueen.htm
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