spin

Mk 2:1f tells us that "When he [Jesus] returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them..." Jesus was at home in Capernaum (and that's what the Greek idiom εν οικω indicates). Jesus lived there is the implication of Mark. Matthew, understanding Mark to say that, has a difficult task to juggle indications of other places, so Jesus is born in Bethlehem, moved to Nazareth when he was young, and relocated to Capernaum (Mt 4:13), so all indications are covered: the prophetic Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), the default Nazareth (Jdg 13:5, Nazir) and the Capernaum tradition that Mark has preserved, all little narrative benefit or credibility. Luke, on the other hand deals with the problem differently: instead of embracing Capernaum, Luke rejects the indication that Jesus had his home in Capernaum. The scene in Mk 2:1 of the healing of the paralytic has been delocalized in Lk 5:17ff.

It's clear from the Lucan evidence that the redactor was embarrassed about the Marcan claim that Jesus had his home in Capernaum and has written the notion out of the gospel, in favor of the more popular Nazareth as home for Jesus. Fortunately, we have both Mark and Matthew to tell us the reality omitted by Luke. This is a rather good case for the criterion of embarrassment. Had we not had the other two synoptics we wouldn't have known what Luke has done. Besides, while we can explain both Bethlehem and Nazareth from LXX references treated as "prophecies", there is no literary reason to invent Capernaum, so it is a good candidate for the real home of Jesus.

ApostateAbe

I don't disagree with the historical point that Jesus lived part of his adulthood in Capernaum (it is plausible enough), but I think we need to be careful about over-applying arguments from silence. More typically, authors leave out certain details just because they don't find them relevant or the authors just don't know about them, and we would effectively use an argument from silence only after we have excluded those more common causes of silence. Also, do we have better evidence to indicate that living in Capernaum would be embarrassing?

dog-on

Kinda depends on when the proverbial pen hit the paper. IIRC, Marcion wasn't embarrased having Jesus start there.

DCHindley

Spin,

With all due respect, isn't Luke really just modifying his source to conform to his own theological agenda, much like Matthew did, and not reacting to something embarassing? The author of Matthew is correct that Jesus can move around his home base, just like we all do. What prevents the author of Luke from removing inconvenient facts.

I guess what I am doing is making a distinction between inconvenient facts and embarassing facts. They are not allways the same thing, so inconvenience should not be exaggerated into embarassment, just for the sake of rhetorical effect.

DCH

Sheshbazzar

Yeah, just like 'Robin Hood' was born in Loxley, lived in Wakefield, and carried on his 'ministry' from The Sherwood Forest.
All of which has far more evidence. :Cheeky:

PhilosopherJay

Hi Spin,
Three birthplaces for Jesus? No problem. Zeus was born on a mountain in Crete and a mountain in Arcadia. Aphrodite was born in Kythera and Kypros. Dionysus had seven different birthplaces (from Theoi.com):


At best, we can say that there is a layer of text that seems to indicate that Jesus was from Capernaum. This layer may be earlier than the Bethlehem and Nazareth layers.

It may indicate that the original writer was from Capernaum.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

spin

Yo DCH!

How does one really distinguish between "inconvenient" and "embarrassing" facts? (I mean without any a priori commitments.)

aa5874

In the Gospels Jesus had ONE single birth place. In gMatthew and gLuke, Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Which Canonised Gospel claimed Jesus was born in Nazareth or Capernaum?

There is None.

We are witnessing another case of "Chinese Whispers".

Based on gLuke, Jesus was about 30 years old when it was FIRST mentioned that he was in Capernaum.

I find it real odd that people simply cannot understand that in a story, myth or not, that a person could have been born in Bethlehem, lived in Nazareth and then 30 years later lived in Capernaum.

I can't even remember where I lived when I was born, have LIVED many places since and have lived in a location where I was NOT born for over 20 years.

And it is quite unusual for a person to be Identified by their place of birth throughout their lifetime even as they live in different locations.

People may be generally Identified by their PRESENT address.

It is just NOT logical that the present adress of a person is also likely to be their place of birth whether the Jesus story is MYTH OR NOT.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

Usually if someone is given a name of a place, it is natural to assume that they were born in that place. The Gospel of Mark tells us that he was called Jesus the Nazarene. The Gospel of Matthew, says that the term Nazarene comes from the city of Nazareth.

The Gospel of John tells us that there was a dispute over his birthplace:
Obiously, some people thought he was disqualified from being the messiah because he was born in Galilee, which means that they thought he was born in Nazareth, Galilee or Capernaum, Galilee, not Bethlehem in Judea.

This gospel never mentions where Jesus was born, but the sign at his death suggests Nazareth: 19.19 Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross; it read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." The implication for any reader would be that he was born in Nazareth.

Here are two famous modern people with names apparently coming from the place of their birth:

Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan (1884-1933) was known as Texas Guinan because she was born in Waco,Texas. She was one of the first movie cowgirls and nicknamed "Queen of the West". Mae West based her career on doing an impression of Texas Guinan. She was extraordinarily famous in her day for being a hostess of a speakeasy. In the 1929 musical "Glorifying the American Girl" there is documentary footage of important people entering the theater to attend the Florence Ziegfeld show that the movie is based on, Mayor Jimmy Walker, Paramount Pictures president Adolph Zucker and Texas Guinan are among the celebrities identified.
In the 1939 movie "the Roaring Twenties," Glady George plays a character based on her named "Panama Smith."

In the television series "Star Trek: Next Generation" Whoopee Goldberg played the barroom hostess named "Guinan" which was a reference to her. I think anybody who heard the name Texas Guinan would assume that she was born there.

Rudolf Walter Wanderone, Jr. was a pool player born in New York called New York fats. When the movie "the Hustler" came out in 1961, there was a character based on him called "Minnesota Fats." Wanderone ended up changing his name to Minnesota Fats, so he could cash in on the publicity. I think everybody who heard the name assumed that Minnesota Fats was born in Minnesota.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

aa5874

When a person is given a name of a place, it is ALSO natural to assume that they RESIDE in that place for an extended period of time.

Hardly anybody knew that McCain the Senator from Arizona was born on "US soil" in Panama.

And many even refuse to Believe that Obama of Chicago, the President of the USA, was born in Hawaii.


But there is NO evidence of a CITY called Nazareth. Jesus could NOT have been born in a CITY called Nazareth when NO such CITY has been found.

And it was the Child of a Ghost that lived in Nazareth according to gMatthew so I really don't understand why you are trying to show that a Child of a Ghost was born in Nazareth.

We have stories about a Child of a Ghost why must the stories be changed.

The author of gJohn DISPUTED and virtually ILLIMINATED ALL of the Synoptics type Jesus.


The author of gJohn did NOT claim Jesus was born in Nazareth. We have the stories about Jesus the Child of the Holy Ghost and it clearly stated that Jesus, the Holy Ghost Child ONLY lived in Nazareth for ABOUT 30 years AFTER being born in Bethlehem.

Based on gMatthew, gLuke and gJohn Jesus could NOT even have lived based on their description of Jesus.