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Miriam was from the shore of the Sea of Galilee, taking part in transforming the western world

Mary Magdalene had an unfortunate name.  It continues in “religious” memory to be too popular.  There were so many Marys that Pope “Gregory the Great” bunched several of Christ’s female followers together and turned Mary of Magdala into a whore.  (Magdala: a well-known city 120 miles north of Jerusalem on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.)  

And Mary of Magdala, Christians were eventually to learn, was also known as Miriam, a modestly well-to-do woman whom Jesus cured of a series of illnesses.  These were early on “assumed” (Gregory for instance) to be “seven demons.”  Thus all the Marys among Christ’s group of more or less constant followers were clumsily codified by Papal order into the “true” Mary of Magdalene.  Gregory also readily came up with an anonymous sinner in Luke’s gospel, and this “Mary” was falsely identified as being a “whore” who was possessed by seven “devils.”

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