Thor Q. Mada

Maybe, but as I said, utter waste of time.

rlogan

Can I come to the party? how about Judges 13:

"5": For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no rasor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

From the Catholic encyclopedia: Hebrew, "consecrated to God").

The name given by the Hebrews to a person set apart and especially consecrated to the Lord.


Nazarites appear in New Testament times, and reference is made to them for that period not only in the Gospel and Acts, but also in the works of Josephus (cf. "Ant. Jud.", XX, vi, 1, and "Bell. Jud.", II, . xv, 1) and in the Talmud (cf. "Mishna", Nazir, iii, 6). Foremost among them is generally reckoned John the Baptist, of whom the angel announced that he should "drink no wine nor strong drink". He is not explicitly called a Nazarite, nor is there any mention of the unshaven hair, but the severe austerity of his life agrees with the supposed asceticism of the Nazarites. From Acts (xxi, 23 sqq.) we learn that the early Jewish Christians occasionally took the temporary Nazarite vow....blah de blah

So I wondered if Jesus is supposed to be a Nazarite.


As far as being born, according to scripture he was born in a crossfire hurricane. and he howled at his ma in the driving rain. schooled with a strap right across his back

But he's all right now.

spin

You must have very different criteria for what is a waste of time.

You might notice that:

1) Nazareth is not part of the original story
2) Nazareth has nothing directly to do with the terms nazarhnos and nazwraios
3) Nazareth is unknown to the earliest church fathers
4) you never find the gentilic form "nazarethnos", or similar, which would mean "of Nazareth"
5) nazarhnos and nazwraios have nothing to do linguistically with Nazareth
6) the Marcan writer seemed to believe that Jesus came from Capernaum, and
7) Jesus "of Nazareth" is a late construction


spin

spin

Though some older versions use the form "nazarite" it is incorrect and should be "nazirite". I think "nazarite" was a xian translator's way of relating Jesus of Nazareth with nazirites via the erroneous form nazarite.

And yeah, all the nazirite stuff gets tied in with the "branch" stuff and the "watcher" stuff.


spin

Amaleq13

Not really since it was primarily directed at your clearly overly certain assertion about the birthplace of Jesus. While there is apparently evidence that a small village may have existed in the 1st century, I didn't see anything that confirmed it was called "Nazareth". That, alone, suggests your assertion overstates the evidence but I think we've seen enough linguistic evidence from spin to conclude you overstated the certainty of your conclusion.

A stronger case can be made for Galilee, in general, as the birthplace of an HJ than for Nazareth as the specific village. There would appear to be good reason to question whether the latter is the result of an early mistranslation rather than such a specific identifier.

On the other hand, my understanding is that Galilee was known for producing rebels/seditionists so it would be the obvious choice if an author, lacking any reliable information, felt compelled to create a home base for a messianic claimant.

Amaleq13

So your understanding of the origin of the term is that it was originally likely a reference to the apocalyptic preaching of Jesus?

spin

Sorry, I don't have any facts about Jesus. (And I don't think anyone else has either.)


spin

Amaleq13

I meant in the context of Mark's depiction.

spin

I can't really say. Mark assumes a group of ideas around the notion of "nazarhnos", but Jesus never given anything specific to say about it, so one can't say that there is any inauguration of the idea. It may simply have been absorbed by the complex, like John the baptizer. The mention of "watching" in the text may refer back to the enochic tradition of watchers of circa 200 BCE, which in the Greek fragments is again related to the verb grhgorew.


spin

Vorkosigan

hey spin! thanks for a very interesting thread. I've enjoyed your remarks here, and learned a lot.

Vorkosigan