Kosh

You're right, it's not scientific, and it's a pathetic line of reasoning.

Of course, you're arguing that the fact that he wrote it indicates that it was true. In which case, it clearly WAS advantageous to have written it. Reverse psychology?

Chew on that for awhile....

andrewcriddle

This may be a bit peripheral but I tried to look-up Origen on Nazareth.

There are passages

such as a statement by Origen in Book X of the Commentary on Matthew online at
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-10/...#P7275_1473138
which seems to mean that if the Gospel had said Bethlehem or Nazareth it would have been talking about a literal place but because it says 'His Country' it means something mystical.

and a statement in the Philocalia online at
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/or...ia_02_text.htm
Both passages seem to regard Nazareth as a place as real as Bethlehem where Jesus spent his childhood.

On the other hand according to RM Grant 'The Earliest Lives of Jesus' p85. Origen in the Homilies on Luke (not AFAIK online) claims that in Luke chapter 4 the references to Nazareth and Capernaum should not be taken literally but instead Nazareth means here the Jews and Capernaum the Gentiles.

What seems to be true is that Origen thought that there was a real village called Nazareth and that Jesus grew up there. However he also held that the only explicit reference in the Gospels to the adult Jesus visiting Nazareth did not really happen.

Andrew Criddle

Notsri

This is apparently what Grant is referring to: Origen says in Homily 33.1 (commenting on Luke 4:23-27):

spin

If I'm right about Capernaum being seen by the Marcan tradition as Jesus's home (see Mk 2:1) and Matt almost guarantees it (because although Matt is forced by tradition to have Jesus live at Nazareth he very quickly has him move to Capernaum (Mt 4:13) to keep in pace with Mark), Luke's approach to Capernaum is to deny it completely, for his story of the healing of the paralytic doesn't mention Capernaum or the home town at all. But if we look at 4:23b, "Do in your home town what we heard you did in Capernaum." This tells the reader that Capernaum is not the home town, yet it alludes to events in Capernaum we are not told about before then. Then we have Capernaum formally introduced in 4:31, "Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee...", plainly not the home town of Mk 2:1, but he does do notable things in Capernaum, though one would expect these events to occur before 4:23. Luke has made a mess with Capernaum in his efforts to follow his sources but deny Jesus's connection to the town.


spin

spin

I've just been trawling the net and have come across Vork slumming with a mailing list called Jesus Mysteries, which has been dealing with the subject of Nazareth, mainly a load of inconsequential natter, but I did find one datum which was immensely interesting to me. Someone cites Crossan regarding an inscription mentioning Nazareth, and Crossan spells it Nasareth, transcribing a tsade as the second consonant in the Semitic original instead of a zayin which one would think behind the Greek Nazareth. With the tsade we have a stronger link with the Hebrew tradition of NCR (C =tsade). The full importance of this is still missing for me, but it should mean that Matt was certainly not working from a Semitic original (either Hebrew or Aramaic): there are just too many differences between NZYR/NZWR and NCRT the Semitic form of Nazareth to believe that the writer could see an etymological link between the two forms, whereas, dealing with foreign forms in Greek, one can happily, not knowing enough about it, associate whatever they liked.

Edited to add: I now note that the Peshitta doesn't distinguish between the zayin of NZYR/NZWR and the tsade of NCRT, using a tsade in both, allowing the easier coalescence between Nazarene NCRY' and Nazareth NCRT. Plainly the Greek nazwraios didn't come from the Aramaic NCRY', why use a zeta in transliteration for a tsade which usually is sigma? and where did the long vowel (omega) come from, as there is nothing in the Aramaic to stimulate it. Yet another nail in the coffin of Aramaic primacy.


spin

Vorkosigan

Yes, well, I just got an avalanche of dreck from one of the respondents, an inerrantist posting to the JM group. I haven't posted there in a long time; don't know what imp of hell prompted me to do it today. There's plenty of quality talk here to keep me occupied.

I think the explanation for the T attaching itself to the end of "Nazara" is probably prosaic. You can see some of the more mysterious place names in Mark, the beta version, got adjusted in the commercial versions of Matt and Luke. Like the way Mary of Dalmanutha become Mary of Magdala, Magadan, etc. Probably something like that happened. "Nazareth" may not have been a village, but it was probably a place name, certainly in the 2C when they were editing these writings. Somebody was casting about trying to find out what Mark meant by Nazarhnos -- Nazara? Nazarene? -- and recalled some place out in Galilee called Nazareth.

But we'll probably never know.

Vorkosigan

Lugubert

That reminds me of the instructions I have seen on how to write a convincing Gospel episode. I can't find it right now, but am sure that at least spin and Vorkosigan will know what I mean. It was something like "Pick a dramatic OT passage, twist it, and make it a prophesy of what has already happened." A prime example is making the suffering servant of Isa. 53 point to Jesus.

spin

I gather that was private, as it doesn't appear on the website for the group.

This is an unpaid testimonial, folks. There is no substance behind the rumour that Vork is paid to slum here.

I don't know why you call her "Mary of Dalmanutha", when the gospels refer to her as "Mary the Magdalene". I gather this is wishful thinking based on the fact that Mk 8:10 has Dalmanutha where its Matt equivalent 15:39 has Magadan, which was thought by some scribes as a variant of Magdala.

Nazara makes fine sense for an invention in the sense of assuming that nazarhnos implied a derivation from a location, just by removing the gentilic suffix, but that's not the version that is most widespread, suggesting that there is more to Nazareth than a simple back-formation etymology with the accidental addition of a final -et. That becomes higly tenuous.

You may note that I tend to see them written in the second century.

Something like that must have happened, I guess.


spin

Ted Hoffman

Price, via email, has 'yielded' to what he calls 'Spin's superior expertise' and would like to thank spin for pointing out the error.

[tangent: IMO, this is very praiseworthy for IIDB (we can take pride in a giant like Price tipping his hat for us and making a mea culpa) - thanks to spin et al - at this rate, we may have more giants coming here to exchange ideas]

Zindler is yet to respond to accusations of being gratuitously polemical and deploying (to borrow Vork's pet-phrase) too much hyperbole in his arguments. Oh, btw, I had asked about where Origen said Nazareth is mythical.

Vork posted Zindlers article that says Origen regarded Nazareth a mystical. We now know he regarded it as mythical (- his allegorical interpretation notwithstanding). from Homily 33:1 where he says "Capernaum, a type of the Gentiles, takes precedence over Nazareth, a type of the Jews".

It also appears that Mark didn't have Jesus come from Capernaum either. When will it stop? :banghead:

Price had written: 'The Nazarene' would imply a place but 'the Nazorean' appears to be a sect name...'

And spin had reponded: 'He's just wrong: there is no "appears" about it. The endings -hnos and -aios are both gentilics, a Jew is a ioudaios and a Hittite is a xettaios.'

My question to spin is this - wouldn't the -hnos and -aois bring about an -ean when transliterated? If not, what would they yield?
Or perhaps you could give us a brief primer on Greek/Aramaic gentilics?

Another question: From Hebrew Shomerim (which you wrote is the source of "Samaritan"), do we get Aramaic Natsarraya? and is Aramaic Natsarraya transliterated to Greek Nazoraioi? - which quickly brings Nazoreans - as Sid Green argues?

:banghead:

Vorkosigan

But in 2:1 Jesus has a home in Capernaum....