neilgodfrey

We should not forget that the existence of Nazareth was doubted long before relatively recent archaeological works and quite independently of archaeology. There is this reference in Drews from 1910:
But here is the conclusion of Salm's discussion of the so called archaeological evidence for a BCE existence of Nazareth:
The existence of Nazareth in gospel times would add absolutely nothing to the argument for the historical veracity of the gospels (any more than does the existence of Jerusalem or Jordan River), but its nonexistence does hurt a bit.

ApostateAbe

There are some people whom you can quote to prove a point. They are trustworthy people well qualified in studying the topic. Obviously, Rene Salm is not one of them. He is well qualified to compose a duet for the piano and guitar. He is as qualified for evaluating the dates of pottery shards as I am. That doesn't mean he is wrong, and it doesn't mean you are wrong--it only means you can't just quote him to advance a point about archaeology and leave it at that. Go to the primary evidence.

neilgodfrey

You are asking for an argument from authority. I do not accept that. I have read much of the discussion of the primary evidence, in particular exchanges about it between Salm and other academics, and I have read most of his book. Yet you appear to have a strong opinion merely by juggling who says what. (An earlier post of yours was quite prepared to repeat popular news media reporting of an archaeologist's claims without even checking the sponsorship behind her work.)

I would encourage you to look at the evidence in some of the literature. If you start with Salm's book, you can easily check it up in the literature, as I have done in quite a number of cases.

It is not valid to dismiss Salm without even being aware of his critique of the evidence, let alone how academic specialists have responded to his specific discussions of the evidence.

Having read Salm's book, and many other articles and exchanges among scholars on Nazareth, I did feel a little qualified to write a lay review of a "scholarly" (in that it was written by a scholar) review of Salm's book. You can read it here.

It is you who I would advise to go to the primary evidence. At least I have read some of the scholarly discussions about it in the literature, and I have read the author whom you dismiss without bothering to read.

ApostateAbe

Well, my strong opinion is from the evidence. I decided that there is a very strong probability that Nazareth existed in the first century CE merely by the first-century Christian gospel citations of Nazareth in Galilee and the evidence of Nazareth existing in Galilee from the fourth century and onward. With some topics, I take it as a worthy shortcut to depend on the opinions of the experts. You quoted Rene Salm as though he was an expert, and maybe you didn't mean it, but that is how it came off. If you happen to have access to the primary evidence, then that would be better--Salm's book is not stocked in any local library, and I am certainly not going to buy it.

neilgodfrey

I find your statement here most remarkable. I say that because you have been quoting Philosopher Jay (who is qualified in Nazareth archaeology??) in order to dismiss an argument about the archaeology of Nazareth and in the process admitted you did not know the evidence.

(I'm assuming you have more good grace than a certain JG on this forum who denies ever arguing one way or the other but merely "asks innocent questions".)

ApostateAbe

You seem to have misunderstood. I have never quoted Philosopher Jay as an authority on the topic. I am merely temporarily accepting his premises in order to counter the conclusion.

neilgodfrey

Apologies. The tenor of your posts on this has led me to see you as more committed than you suggest.

neilgodfrey

Maybe it is available on interlibrary loan. It is worth the read.

But arguing from the evidence of the gospels does not cut it. It is the gospel evidence that we are questioning -- as has been done quite independently of archaeology.

ApostateAbe

Yes, I wouldn't rely purely on the gospel accounts as evidence that Nazareth existed in the first century. As an aside, we can place some degree of trust in the claim that Nazareth existed in the first century, based on the Christian accounts, following from the principle that Christians did not want Jesus to be from Nazareth--they wanted Jesus to be from Bethlehem in order to seem to fulfill Old Testament prophecy. But, even if the gospels are completely mythical, then we should take as corroboration the fact that there are extra-Christian accounts of Nazareth existing from the fourth century and onward. The gospels would be comparable to fictional stories that integrate real towns and cities, like Pride and Prejudice names and correctly locates the city of Brighton, England. I first made the conclusion that Nazareth existed in the first century just because of the Christian gospels and because of the fact that Nazareth exists today in Galilee.

neilgodfrey

This is a common approach in biblical scholarship but it is nothing more than mind-reading. It is replacing real evidence with "criteria" to assess historicity -- unlike in other (nonbiblical) historical and classical studies. It is once again a case of biblical scholars setting up their own rules to get the results they want. Their models are based on so little evidence that they need "criteria" to build up a core of "evidence" instead of reexamining and revising their models to fit the evidence they do have.

It is not a fact that the gospel authors did not want Nazareth to be the birthplace of Jesus. That is mere opinion, or fanciful or wishful guesswork.

We have as much evidence that these authors wanted a Nazareth or Nazara or whatever to be a hometown of Jesus in order to explain and dismiss a cult term for early Christians or a branch of them.

The whole argument about the authors being compelled to fit Nazareth into the narrative because they could not avoid doing so is just another case of applying the shonky "criterion of embarrassment". This is a bizarre "criterion" that can be used to establish almost anything you want as a "fact". (I have discussed this more fully here.)

The fact that Nazareth is nowhere mentioned in any other literature of the period (see post #111) , and the fact that we read Nazareth in the gospel as a place that was required in order to fulfil a prophecy - these twin facts give us permission to at least seriously raise the question of the historicity of Nazareth. To doubt the historicity of Nazareth is not a loony thing. It is a perfectly reasonable exercise given these two facts.