I'm going to just jump into this thread for exactly long enough to make this one post. Then I will have contributed all I'm even partly qualified to say on this subject.
Frank Zindler is among those who argue that it is clear that no town by the name of Nazareth (or anything like that) existed prior to the First Jewish War. Zindler opinies that the town is settled by refugees from Jerusalem. Perhaps those refugees even are Nazarites themselves, or something like that.
There is an old document called
The Jewish Life of Christ which was translated into English and published over a century ago by a pair of English atheists. Here is what they wrote about that document, along with footnotes contributed by myself:
Quote:
King Jannaeus [ In his chronological chart for the Maccabean Priest Kings of the Jews, Eisenman places the reign of Alexander Jannaeus as 103 BCE through 76 BCE. Foote and Wheeler claim 106 BCE through 79 BCE, or an equivalent range of years, three years earlier. In either case, the reign of this king clearly covers the year of 90 BCE, when the tale told therein is supposed to have begun. ], in whose reign Jeshu is placed, was a Sadducee. He persecuted the rabbis [ Here, Foote and Wheeler use the term "Rabbi" to refer to Jewish priests prior to the First Jewish War when the Second Temple was still in full operation. In my view (and the view of many others), this usage is improper. Modern rabbinical Judaism was invented by a single Jewish priest who defected over to Rome during the siege of Jerusalem during the First Jewish War (about 70 CE). In return for his defection, he was allowed to establish the first rabbinical school in the Roman capital of Caesarea. It was at about this time that he and his followers began to accumulate the writings for what we now call the Talmud. The earliest portions of the Talmud appear to be records of disputations within the Sanhedrim council back into the reigns of the Maccabean Priest Kings. This defector must have obtained those records in some way, either from the Romans after the fall of Jerusalem or by spiriting them away on his own initiative. ], and Joshua ben Perachiah, the president of the Sanhedrim, fled to Egypt, leaving Simon ben Shetach as his deputy. With respect to this persecution, Rabbi Wise writes:- 'The Pharisees being persecuted in the days of Alexander Jannai, the number of Nazarites [ The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) has a lengthy article on the term "Nazarite" spotted at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10727a.htm on August 28, 2003. ] increased. [ The true import of this sentence is particularly unclear to me. In later times, the Pharisees would be liberal accommodationists who most desired to integrate Jewish society into the Roman hierarchy. Some might draw a parallel to the Reformed Jews of today, as the Pharisees were not known for being particularly devout. If this same situation pertained at the time at issue herein, it would thus be easy to understand why a Sadducee priest-king might choose to persecute Pharisees. There is no mention in the quoted material as to just where the Essenes stood in this regard, but many of them were known to have taken the Nazarite vows. Could it be that this quoted text is describing the growth of the Essene sect at the expense of the Pharisees? ] Three hundred of them came at one time to Jerusalem to fulfill their vows. Simon (ben Shetach) was enabled so to construe the law that it was unnecessary for one half of them to make the prescribed sacrifices.'
Can these Nazarites have been the Nazarenes referred to in the Jeshu story? Such a confusion of names is more than possible, for the author of our first gospel [ This reference is clearly to the Gospel of Matthew, which appears first in the New Testament. However, the dating of that gospel story is most likely late, for several reasons. First, the writings of Papias (circa 65 CE through 140 CE) seem to describe how the Gospel of Matthew was composed, and if Papias truly did participate in its composition as he claims, then that would date the Gospel of Matthew to a time during the career of Papias. Second, as is being discussed at this point in the quoted text, the author of this first gospel apparently confused the Jewish Nazarites with the inhabitants of a town called Nazareth. This confusion is made far more plausible if the dating of this gospel is after the founding of just such a town, which even Zindler speculates could have occurred as a side effect of the First Jewish War (66 CE through 70 CE or so; Masada fell about 73 CE). It is also interesting to note that the Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) speculates that the writings of Papias might have been "lost" by Eusebius due to their unorthodox (or even heretical?) content. See the Papias article spotted at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11457c.htm on August 28, 2003. ] has actually perpetrated it. He sends Jesus home to Nazareth to fulfill the prophecy 'He shall be called a Nazarene.' [ Matthew 2:23. ] But the only prophecy of that kind in the Old Testament is the angel's prediction of the birth of Sampson [ Judges Chapter 13. ], who was neither to shave nor to drink strong drink, but to be 'a Nazarite from the womb.' The Nazarite was an ancient teetotaler, and had no connection whatever with Nazareth.
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Hopefully, this will contribute to decyphering this whole Nazarite/Nazareth thing.
== Bill
09-02-2003, 08:10 AM
The Nazirite Vows
The Nazarite Legacy
