It was dark in Magdala, Israel, a tiny town on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee.
Sleepy and heavy laden with mounds of biblical history, a band of curious pilgrims made their way at night to the site of the ancient town from which came Mary Magdalene, follower of Christ.
But on this night, partway through a WND tour of the Holy Land, a light shined in the darkness. The archaeological excavation sites, rather than closed for the evening, were brightly lit. A staff of volunteers was wide awake, a buzz of excitement stirring, as if they had personally discovered something momentous within only the last few minutes.
What was so special about this ancient site of ruins, buried beneath the sands of time?
Back in 2005, Jerusalem’s Pontifical Institute began planning a “Magdala Center” to welcome tourists to a beautiful monument to the faith and work of Mary Magdalene, when a pre-construction search brought at least some of their plans to a screeching halt.
Surveyors had stumbled across a remarkable find they never noticed before, lying only a few inches beneath the topsoil. Their treasure: a beautifully preserved, first century synagogue some believe may have hosted Jesus Christ himself.
Father Juan Maria Solana, director of the Institute, described the site as extraordinary and beautiful with “pieces of art and an altar such has never been found in any other synagogue from that time. Never, ever.”
Even more impressive was the prize they dusted off like a diamond from an old jewel box, the large, elegantly carved “Magdala Stone.” The magnificent object, possibly an altar, is decorated on five sides. Most significant is the well-preserved relief sculpture of the Jerusalem Temple menorah. Archaeologists believe it is the oldest representation of the original menorah yet uncovered and therefore most authentic.
Significantly, historical, scientific and anecdotal evidence throughout the centuries suggest Jesus may have worshipped or even taught at this very site.
The towns surrounding Magdala are central to the life of Jesus in the Bible. The town lies next to Capernaum, cited 16 times in the New Testament as Jesus’ home. For him to avoid Magdala would be like living in Brooklyn, working in the Bronx and never traveling through Manhattan.
“This stone is really unique, we’ve never excavated anything like it,” archaeologist Dina Gorni said, quoted in a 2013 WND article. “That stone had power. You could feel it. … It is a kind of a miracle, I think.”
The location of Magdalene’s home town has been known since biblical times, but centuries of neglect left the entire city under a layer of ancient dust and debris.
Mark Twain wrote of Magdala and its inhabitants quite harshly in “Innocents Abroad,” a personal account of his 1867 world tour. One of his milder descriptions was as a “bramble-infested enclosure and a Roman-looking ruin, which had been the veritable dwelling of St. Mary Magdalene.”
The infamous skeptic still piously declared, “My guide believed it, and so did I.”
Among the more intriguing controversies at the new Magdala excavation is the designation of the ruins as an early “church” by some Franciscans and archaeologists who worked there. No solid proofs have yet been presented, but several experts note the relatively small size of this unearthed synagogue (which seated approximately 120) as compared to the much larger Jewish community in the town. The newly found ruins simply couldn’t have hosted the whole Jewish community.
Archaeologists Gorni and Arfan Najar are respectively a non-religious Jew and a Muslim, yet both hold that the building was likely a church.
“We believe, we suggest, that this was a special community, not large, that put itself at the edge of the main Jewish village,” Gorni said. “They may be connected to Jesus and Mary Magdalene. We know that Jesus was not involved in the main Jewish community and preferred to live aside. Perhaps he was the leader around whom this synagogue was built.”
Father Solana reminds us the first Christian communities gathered in synagogues and were “observant” Jews. To him it is very clear that the “first generation of Christians used to gather there.”
Magadala was a wealthy Jewish town on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee and could afford more than one house of worship. A few scholars suggested that Jews and early Christians worshiped there together and that there was not so clear a distinction between the two groups as we feel now.
Even an Al Jazeera video acknowledged this may be the site of the world’s first church, but archaeologists in general were quite slow to acknowledge the existence of a synagogue here, much less a church.
The Israeli digest “Hadashot Arkheologiyot” claimed that the major building was “misinterpreted as a synagogue.”
The discovery of the menorah piece, however, has led scholars to put the focus of the excavation back on a house of faith. Regardless of their religious beliefs, few archaeologists would assume large, intricate religious objects would be placed in the middle of houses or fish markets.
Efforts to uncover the compound’s secret past and to develop the Center are multinational. Beaming volunteers sojourn from most continents, practically evangelical in their passion to share the site’s secrets and future plans for development.
WND’s tour group of pilgrims was one of the first groups to view a recently finished prayer center near the ruins of “Jesus’ Church.” Magdala’s Prayer Center is a small, domed gem with statues, mosaics and paintings of Mary Magdalene with an almost classical, Byzantine air.
The Magdala Worship Center is dedicated to Christian women in general – those whom, like Mary Magdalene, follow Jesus as their Lord. Large mosaics depict the biblical story of Mary Magdalene delivered from seven demons and other scenes.
A Magdala Guesthouse was slowed due to the excavation, but it hopes to welcome pilgrims soon.
Solana and the Institute feel recent discoveries as well as the honor to women will put Magdala back on the Bible map and attract visitors and pilgrims from the ends of the world.
If Mark Twain were resurrected now in Magdala among the busy archaeologists and teaming pilgrims, he’d find himself a bit speechless.
He’d at least have to revise his terse commentary on the desolation and despair of the place 147 years ago: “As we rode into Magdala, not a soul was visible.”
