DALMANUTHA. – A locality where, according to Mc. 8:10, Jesus landed with the disciples after the second multiplication of the loaves (Mt. 15:32–35; Mc. 8:1–9), of which no trace has remained in tradition. In the parallel text of Mt. 15:39, instead of D. stands the name Magadan or Magedan, which critics regard as a Hellenistic transcription of the Hebrew Mighdal (cf. Ios. 15:17 in the Septuagint: cod. A Magdal, B Magada), Magdala (v.), the birthplace of Mary Magdalene, today el-Megdal, 5 km south of Tiberias, on the western shore of the lake, at the beginning of the Plain of Gennesar (el-Guwèr). The site of D. must have been in the vicinity or territory of Magdala, perhaps at Tell el-Hunàd or Tell en-Nasàrah.
Sickenberger (Zeitschr. des deutschen Palästina-Vereins, 57 [1934], pp. 281–85) has advanced the hypothesis that the primitive reading of Mc. too was Mays82a, but that a marginal gloss intended to correct the ending (82, 03 82 = not from, but from the), having entered the text, combined with the beginning of the word read or transcribed as man to form the name D.
The ancient opinion of Eusebius and St. Jerome that Magadan was near Gerasa (Onom., 134), as well as that of certain recent critics who recognize its survival in Transjordan, far from the lake, in the present-day villages of Ma'ad (= Magadan) and el-Delhemijjeh (= D.), is difficult to reconcile with the text and context of the Gospel narrative, which requires the place where Jesus landed to have been on the western shore of the lake, at Magdala or in its vicinity.