ApostateAbe

Yes, I was curious about what Rene Salm thinks, so I saw that too. He apparently thinks that the news media are spinning the story to inaccurately place the findings to within the time of Jesus, and he takes the IAA statement as evidence. The IAA statement refers to the "Roman" period, which is a broad range of time including the first century. But the archaeologists themselves (quoted in the news stories) talk about some of the findings to be within the first century. When the scientific study is peer-reviewed and published, that is when Rene Salm will realize he is wrong and rewrite his entire website. Just kidding. He will never admit that he is wrong.

ApostateAbe

OK, so you think that "Nazara" was more like the original word. An author on Wikipedia makes the point that there are five different spellings of what should be the same word, and the argument is that the Greek authors did not know how to spell it. It sort of makes sense, because it was an Aramaic name that didn't have a Greek translation, only informal transliterations that could go many different ways, and they had to rely entirely on mythical spoken pronunciations. What do you think of that argument?

spin

Well, more original than Nazareth. Nazara is derived from Nazarene and has nothing to do with a real place. It was formed the same way that "Ebion" was formed, ie by removing the gentilic ending. Early christians invented Ebion this way; they also apparently invented Nazara. (Parenthetically, I've added a Wiki page for Ebion.)

There is one thing that is very consistent. Although the Hebrew name for the place was נצרת (Nun-Tsade-Resh-Taw) and the tsade is 99% of the time transliterated as a Greek sigma, the gospel name "Nazareth" (as well as "Nazara") is always spelled with a zeta, ie the gospel name isn't derived from the Hebrew or Aramaic of the time (and we have 1: a 3rd century list with the Hebrew name and 2: the Syriac bible).

Be wary of christians trying to understand Nazareth.

As does the blind leading the blind?

There is no argument in this. It is just the sign of the cluelessness of the situation. Instead of dealing with the apparent lectio difficilior, they try to obscure it.

As I have pointed out, there is no agreement whatsoever between the synoptic gospels as to references to Nazareth or Nazara. That should tell you that it is secondary. You get very many passages shared by the synoptics--that's how they got their group name--, but Nazareth is not included. And do stop and think about this issue. If Nazareth were primary, you must expect the synoptics to share the name in parallel passages, but they never do.


spin

neilgodfrey

Don't you get some funny vibes in your bs antenna when you see that the IAA official public statement refers to a dig that finished in 7 December yet one of the archaeologists has gone public just prior to Christmas. That sort of thing prompts me to take a moment when I can to find out a little more about the Israel Antiquities Authority and Yardenna Alexandre.

It takes about a minute to find a Wikipedia article about Mary's Well in Nazareth in which we read the line:

Nazareth Tourism sponsorship wouldn't have anything to do with sensationalist press interviews that don't quite match an official statement found elsewhere, would they now?

Then there is this piece on an Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs website that has a number of interesting oddities in it, but one in particular stands out. It's final paragraph reads:
What is this Association Mary of Nazareth and International Marian Center? They don't sound to me like the neutral innocent bystanders in all of this, do they?

ApostateAbe

Cool, spin, I love having your educated opinion on these things, because I am learning a lot. How would you explain the five different spellings for Naza-whatever?

spin

If we accept the lectio difficilior status of Nazara and derive it from ναζαρηνος, at some stage an ancient reader will have noticed that there was no town called Nazara (ναζαρα). However there was a town called נצרת (which would end up in Greek νασαρετ or νασαρεθ depending on how the particular scribal schools handled the transliteration of the Semitic Taw: Alexandrian manuscripts showed preference for νασαρεθ), so newer material added to the gospels used ναζαρετ/ναζαρεθ. This left even later scribes who now knew about the developed tradition to deal with the existence of ναζαρα. Some merely changed it in line with the newer tradition, others left it and yet others added a final consonant, τ or θ.

So here is a relative chronology:

1	Synoptic original:	ναζαρηνος
2	Town name created:	ναζαρα
3	Some reality sets in:	ναζαρετ/θ
4	Scribal smoothing:	ναζαρατ/θ

This doesn't include the later gentilic ναζωραιος, which entered the tradition some time around #2, given the Matthean use of both in 2:23.


spin

ApostateAbe

Cool, spin, I think I finally understand your theory, but maybe not completely. I am curious about how you would explain the later gentilic ναζωραιος, and I am also curious about why scribes switched from ναζαρηνος to ναζαρα instead of just sticking with ναζαρηνος.

spin

One of the interesting things about this research is that people who even consider it want everything, and I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, explained up front. They don't normally seem to have difficulty accepting the babble that's available for the status quo.

ναζαρηνος is a gentilic, ie which talks about people. ναζαρα is a place. If you understand the gentilic as derived from a place name (and not from a tradition, eg εβιωναιος, one who is "poor"), then the use of the place is a natural development. Given Matthew's context for first use of ναζωραιος in 2:23, the source suggested is Jdg 13:5, in which the birth of Samson is predicted, "he will be a Nazirite" (ναζειραιος in Codex Alexandrinus).


spin

JoeWallack

JW:
"1 |Synoptic original: |ναζαρηνος"

You are primarily interested in linguistic evidence which I think is the best category of evidence. I am primarily interested in structure evidence (because it is more interesting). In general, "Mark" is highly structured (evidence that "Mark" is the original Gospel), and I think the structure here supports your linguistic argument:

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible...6&v=6&i=conc#6

Thus, if you are right that "ναζαρηνος" is original to the beginning of "Mark" it is supported by the exact same word being used at the end of "Mark" by an author known for tieing his story together by structurally placed matching words. "Nazarene" as a reference to nazirite but sounding like a gentilick, reminds me of our conversation/argument regarding Arimathea.

I suspect that the literary technique of deliberating presenting names that sound like a word of interest to the author is something of a lost art to our modern Bible scholar.



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

spin

I argue that Mark 1:9 originally said "from Galilee" as its parallel, Mt 3:13, does.

Why? (We have a good LXX precedent for the place name.)

Fortunately.


spin