DALMANUTHA

(Dal·ma·nuʹtha).

An area to which Jesus retired by boat with his disciples after the miraculous feeding of 4,000 men near the Sea of Galilee. (Mark 8:1-10) Though various sites have been suggested for Dalmanutha, the name is not referred to in other Biblical or non-Biblical sources, so its exact location remains unknown. Some scholars feel Dalmanutha may be a scribal alteration, since the parallel narrative at Matthew 15:29-39 has “Magadan” and certain ancient manuscripts of Mark’s account also use “Magadan” or “Magdala” instead of Dalmanutha. However, since the best Greek manuscripts do have Dalmanutha, rather than consider the term to be a textual error, it seems best, as F. F. Bruce (of the University of Manchester) has observed, “to keep the attested reading and await further light.” Possibly Dalmanutha was simply another name for Magadan, or, it may have been a nearby area the name of which, though little used or not widely known, has, nevertheless, been preserved for us in Mark’s Gospel.