ApostateAbe

Interesting passage! What should be especially telling is that there was no prophecy, "He will be called a Nazarene," until Matthew said so. So, with Bethlehem, the modern facts were invented to fit the prophecy. With Nazareth, the prophecy was invented to fit the modern facts. In the modern age, with freedom to access comprehensive libraries of Jewish prophecies, the passage has become very much of an apologetic problem.

That may explain why John 1:46 has such a different spin on Nazareth.

And Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

The author of the gospel of John never heard of that prophecy, either.

spamandham

That seems unlikely. 99% of all ancient texts are lost, so the fact that we don't have a text with a prophecy such as that in it in no way indicates Matthew didn't. How could the author realistically expect to get away with quoting a nonexistent prophecy?

Both the old and new testaments make reference by name to numerous scriptural books that are no longer extant.

...or the facts were invented to fit the prophecy. The simpler explanation is that Matthew was aware of such a prophecy that is simply no longer extant.

It's a problem for apologists, because they don't want to admit that the extant scriptures we have are incomplete. To do so would undermine Biblical inerrancy. They don't mind admitting that the Bible makes references to nonBiblical works, but they sure as hell aren't going to admit it depends on such works!

There is no way of knowing whether John had heard of it or not, even if it did exist.

ApostateAbe

When I am steeped into a debate and a disagreement, then it can be a little difficult to properly evaluate probabilities. But, sometimes, I get nailed so badly that I have no choice but to concede, and you have seen me do it. Now, I would like to see you do it. Do you seriously think it is more probable that the Greek Christian author of the gospel of Matthew had access to a Jewish prophecy that said that the messiah would be called a Nazarene, knowledge that is otherwise completely lost today including in all other gospels and Christian and Jewish sources, canonical or not? More probable than the idea that he or his source simply made up the prophecy with a little wishful thinking and a few strokes of the pen? Do you really think that the statement of John, that a key character doubts that anyone good can come out of Nazareth, reflects nothing about whether the author knew about the prophecy? I think that is ridiculous, and the criterion of dissimilarity is central to that judgment. If I abandon it, then maybe I will also come up with such estimations that otherwise seem very bizarre and absurd. I have such a different perspective.

bacht

Matthew seems to have taken the most trouble to make his gospel 'Jewish'. All the gospel writers seem familiar with the Septuagint, and if Matthew's circle were Jewish-Christians then they could also have been reading Hebrew or Aramaic scriptures. There's been a fair amount of discussion here about the noun Nazarene/Nazirite and whether it referred to a place name or not.

John's gospel seems to consciously modify ideas from the earlier ones. This passage might be a dig at the prophecy-obsessed people like Matthew, or an affirmation of the non-Jewish nature of Jesus. Both gJohn and the Johanine epistles seem to be unharmonized mixtures of gnostic and catholic ideas.

spamandham

A Jewish prophecy? Not necessarily, but yes, I do think it is simpler to propose that Matthew was really quoting an actual text. This is a position I've come to long before this discussion, but as a result of similar ones in the past.

I used to think this verse was a transliteration error based on Judges 13:7, but discussions with the Greek experts here have convinced me this is unlikely - though not impossible. Since Matthew phrases the expression in the form of a quote, we have to accept that...

1. He invented the quote whole cloth hoping to get away with it
2. He thought there was such a quote somewhere even though there wasn't
3. There really was such a quote, whether in an actual text that is no longer extant, or just something that was commonly accepted orally.

(Maybe there are other possibilities, but these 3 seem the simplest)

I don't know why you feel (1) is a simpler proposition than (3). (3) is not even slightly complex since we already know most ancient texts have been lost, including many texts that were once considered Jewish scripture. Are there any other cases where Matthew quotes scriptures that don't exist? I don't think so. Maybe he snuck one in, but this seems ad hoc to me.

The other scriptural quotes from Matthew are actually quotes from known scriptures, which strongly implies he expected his audience to be familiar with them, and could not hope to get away with just making crap up. It's possible that Matthew and subsequent redactors were just stupid and didn't think that through, but this doesn't seem a simple proposition.

Implicit in this conclusion, is the assumption that John was just writing what he knew, rather than writing his spin on the story.

Personally, it seems clear to me that the synoptic tradition came out of the Nazarene sect, and if so, it is not surprising they would have a prophecy that the messiah would be a Nazarene. If John was *not* a Nazarene, then his gospel reflects posturing among early Christian churches. Why else would multiple gospels even exist if not for that dynamic?

ApostateAbe

OK, cool, sorry that I didn't know that the issue was previously hashed out. I answered your question, "If you apply this standard consistently, then what would you make of the following?" so maybe we can just leave it there.

darstec

Two major problems with the Micah quote. First is that both Bethlehem and Ephrathah in this passage are masculine denoting persons not towns which are feminine in Hebrew. To substantiate that is the fact that both personages are mentioned elsewhere in the bible in their masculine counterparts.

The second problem is that when taken into context the Micah passage is speaking about a physical leader to rise up and help Israel in its fight against thousands of other clans who opposed it. Why do those seeking prophesy always divest it of context?

And don't forget there was an actual town called Bethlehem in Galilee about 7 miles west of present day Nazareth which of course did not exist in the first century CE but that Bethelem did and was also mentioned in the OT. Archaeologists have found that the Judean town was vacant during the first century BCE through the first century CE.

Again we see evidence of the late writing of the gospels (2nd century CE) by authors who were unfamiliar with the geographical terrain and customs of first century CE Jews.

ApostateAbe

You are absolutely right about that. The early Christians apparently either misunderstood or reinterpreted the prophecy to spin Bethlehem the patriarch into Bethlehem the town. They may have done that because they were Greeks, not Jews, and they either didn't know or didn't care about how to properly interpret the text.
Unfortunately, you were misinformed about Nazareth, and it is not your fault, because the claims come from people who otherwise seem worthy of trust. If it didn't exist in the first century CE, then it would be extremely difficult for archaeologists to show that it was vacant, regardless of whether it was or not. There is an author (not an historian or an archaeologist), Rene Salm, who wrote a book proposing that Nazareth didn't exist in the first century CE, a theory which caught on with some Jesus-mythicists such as Frank Zindler of American Atheists, but you really should take the modern existence of Nazareth in Galilee and the placement of Nazareth in Galilee according to the gospels as evidence enough. Otherwise, you would need to defend the hypothesis that Nazareth was founded in Galilee to attract early Christian tourists of the second century or whatever. Last December, there was actually an archaeological discovery in the city of Nazareth that was dated to the first century CE because of a hideout that followed the archaeological pattern of Jews defending themselves against the Romans in 70 CE. There have been other archaeological artifacts to show the existence of Nazareth that have been dated very shortly after the first century CE. Just check Wikipedia.
Cool. The gospels apparently got some things right and some things wrong about Jews, Israel and Judaism. They were Greeks, and their only knowledge came from myths.

Toto

That sounds gullible in the extreme. That would be the fourth century. There were no Christian pilgrims looking for Nazareth in the second century.

ApostateAbe

Right. You can either believe that Nazareth existed as a small otherwise-unknown hamlet in Galilee in the first century, or you can believe that is was founded in Galilee in the fourth-century--or whenever you like--to attract Christian pilgrims. When the gospels and nothing else attest to the existence of something, then I think it is tempting for someone aiming to undermine Biblicist dogma to claim that it is gullible to believe it. But, since there is nothing unusual or unlikely about the claim that Nazareth existed, and it seems to be far more likely than the alternative, then it is reasonable to believe it. The same argument would apply even if we are talking about an overtly fictional fairytale instead of the Christian gospels. We don't even need the archaeology.