GakuseiDon

I'm willing to go wherever the data takes me. I'm afraid I have no skills in ancient languages. I was actually asking spin, not making any sort of claim.

What is the answer to your question? Is Nazorean equal to Nazarite or to Nasi? And what is the significance of that?

GakuseiDon

My knowledge on this is basically nil, since I have about zero language skills (unless ancient Hebrews wrote in Japanese). I have seen Origen use Nazareth and Nazara as (seemingly) interchangeable terms. There is also this article at textexcavation:
http://www.textexcavation.com/rejnaz.html

That Nazara was a variant of Nazareth seems clear enough from Matthew 4.13a and Luke 4.16 alone, but it becomes all the more plausible when we notice that certain other Hebrew place names ending in -t(h) can lose the ending, especially in Greek or Latin transcription.

I've seen you debate with Ben C Smith on this topic, so I guess you disagree, though I don't have the knowledge to evaluate this myself.

But why would such a thing happen? I'm not arguing here, I'm interested in your opinion. If Judges referred to a Nazarene, would it make sense to see it as a prophecy about someone from Nazara, or as someone who was a Nazarene? I'm guessing that Mark himself didn't see the 'prophecy' as referring to the Messiah as being from Nazara/Nazareth. Or would he?

Here is what Zindler wrote:

Turning to Judges Chapter 13, what do we find? Do we find anything about Nazareth? Do we find anything about a Messiah? Do we find anything at all referring to the time of Jesus? You guessed it! The answer is "no"! We do, however, find a prophecy addressed to the barren wife of a guy named Manoah, telling her that despite her sterility, she is going to become the mother of Samson. The passage reads, "You will conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall touch his head, for the boy is to be a nazirite consecrated to God from the day of his birth."

Our evangelist either did not know that the Hebrew word nazir was unrelated to the Aramaic-Greek place-name Nazara or Nazareth, or he was dishonestly trying to fool his readers. A nazirite is merely a hippy-type ascetic -- devoted to god and the avoidance of alcohol and personal hygiene. A nazirite is not the same thing as a Nazarene.

Forgetting about HJ/MJ debates for the moment: Is Zindler correct? Is the Hebrew word nazir unrelated to the Aramaic-Greek place-name Nazara or Nazareth?

GakuseiDon

I can help here. I've summarized Doherty's position as part of my still-unfinished review. This is still in draft:

Earl Doherty’s new book, ‘Jesus: Neither God nor Man’ (Age of reason Publications, Ottawa, Canada, 2009) is a follow up to his earlier ‘Jesus Puzzle: Challenging the existence of an historical Jesus’ (1999), and he expands on his theory that the earliest Christians viewed Jesus as a heavenly figure who was crucified in a heavenly realm. According to Doherty, Paul and other Christians didn’t see Jesus as a historical figure at all.

Doherty has divided his new book into four sections:

The first section examines “the Jerusalem Tradition” (Doherty borrows this term from scholarship, which sees the Gospel picture as one created on the belief that the death and resurrection of the Christ which Paul preached was an earthly one, located in Jerusalem). Doherty lays out his view that there was a “Son of God” movement that believed in a heavenly Son and emanation of God who was both an intermediary between God and the world, and a Savior figure. Doherty believes that Paul and many of the New Testament epistle writers were part of this movement. These early writers didn’t believe that the Son was an earthly being.

The second section looks at “the Galilean Tradition”. The itinerant prophets of this new ‘counter-culture’ expression announced the coming of the kingdom of God and anticipated the arrival of a heavenly figure called the Son of Man, who would judge the world. This kingdom of God movement operating in Galilee and beyond produced most of the traditions which ended up in the Gospels as part of the ministry of their fictional Jesus (page 5). Doherty sees “Q” and the Gospel of Thomas as arising from this tradition.

The third section, entitled “A Composite Christianity”, examines how the Gospel of Mark was constructed, its allegorical character, how it was followed and enlarged upon by other Gospels, and how the new ideas they contained gradually spread until Mark’s central character of Jesus of Nazareth came to be regarded as the historical originator of the entire movement.

The fourth and final section of the book looks at the non-Christian witness to Jesus, as found—or not found—in the pagan and Jewish writings of the period, with detailed looks at the Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, and other historians and writers in the First and Second Centuries.

Doherty notes that the mythicist case has regularly been accused of dependence on the argument from silence (page 9), but that this would be a misrepresentation. Doherty’s case lays an equal, if not paramount, emphasis on what is to be found in the epistles, on the actual information presented by Paul and other early writers in describing their faith movement and the object of its worship.

Doherty believes that modern scholarship in general is so in thrall to the Gospel scenario and the distortion of early Christianity it created that it is unable to envision an alternative. It fails to recognize the much broader and more complex picture revealed by the non-Gospel record which can explain how the movement developed without the “Big Bang” requirement (i.e. that “something must have happened to start it all!”) governed by the Gospels and Acts. Doherty sees this faulty and circular reasoning process has been operating since the time of the church historical Eusebius in the early 4th century.

Juststeve is asking questions about your position on the Christ Myth. Either you can tell him to "read the book!" as the Acharya acolytes do, or you can respond. I'm more than happy to discuss Doherty's book with you, if you like.

spin

Ben C is reacting to me in this forum and has no textual support for his conclusion. He is inaccurate regarding the distribution of Nazara, not considering the fact that Mt 2:23 includes Nazara in its earliest form.

By the time Origen wrote Nazareth had already become the dominant form of the name for Jesus's home town. However, the fact that Nazara has been preserved not only in Tertullian and Eusebius, but also Origen and Julius Africanus, shows that the Nazara form had not completely been phased out.

You'll note that I provide a process that explains the various forms, rather than depending on the claim that they are just variations. I explain what we see in the gospels, why Mark features "Nazarene" but each of the Marcan references has been removed in Matt. I explain the relationship between Nazarene and Nazara in a straightforward transparent manner and then explain how we can get Nazareth in a chronology that seems to fit well with the gospel evidence.

It's the sort of thing that frequently happens. You had no problem with my saying that "Magdala" is related to "Magdalene" in the same manner, but the gospels don't actually say this. Perhaps I should have used "Gerasa" and "Gerasene".

We have no evidence that the Marcan writer knew anything about Jdg 13:5/7. Someone after this writer, attempting to understand what "Nazarene" meant related it by appearances with "he shall be a Nazirite".

I'm not a great favorite of appeals to dishonesty. All you need do is look at the sorts of explanations given here by more fundamentalist apologists to explain away difficulties and you'll see convinced people who believe what they say. It might be totally unconvincing to anyone else, but you can't accuse them of dishonesty. An argument by appearance is not strange: they look similar so they are related. It doesn't have to be right, but the proponent simply needs to believe it.

I don't think Zindler would know. I pointed to the fact that both Tertullian and Eusebius relate "Nazara" to "Nazirite". That should be sufficient to show that the trajectory is valid enough to be proposed. I think they are related, though not directly. "Nazir" is a noun formed from the verb נזר (NZR) which is the source. he verb means "separate"/"dedicate" and "crown". A Nazirite is someone who has separated from others, made a vow or dedication to god. The following is from Eusebius (Dem. Ev. 7.2.41-50):

But He is said to have been brought up at Nazara, and also to have been called a Nazarene. We know that the Hebrew word "Naziraion" occurs in Leviticus [21:12] in connection with the ointment which they used for unction. And the ruler there was a kind of image of the great and true High Priest, the Christ of God, being a shadowy type of Christ. So there it is said about the High Priest according to the Septuagint:

"And he shall not defile him that is sanctified to his God, because the holy oil of his God hath anointed him":

where the Hebrew has nazer for oil. And Aquila reads:

"Because the separation, the oil of God's unction, is on him";

and Symmachus:

"Because the pure oil of his God's anointing is on him ":

and Theodotion:

"Because the oil nazer anointed by his God is upon him."

So that nazer according to the Septuagint is "holy," according to Aquila "separation," according to Symmachus "pure," and the name Nazarene will therefore mean either holy, or separate, or pure. But the ancient priests, who were anointed with prepared oil, which Moses called Nazer, were called for that reason Nazarenes; while our Lord and Saviour having naturally holiness, purity, and separation from sin, needed no human unguent, yet received the name of Nazarene among men, not because He was a Nazarene in the sense of being anointed with the oil called Nazer, but because He naturally had the qualities it symbolized, and also because He was called Nazarene from Nazara, where He was brought up by His parents according to the flesh and passed His childhood. And so it is said in Matthew:

"Being warned of God in a dream he [ie Joseph] departed into the regions of Galilee, and came and lived in a city called Nazara, that the saying of the prophets might be fulfilled, He shall be called a Nazarene."

For it was altogether necessary that He Who was a Nazarene naturally and truly, that is holy, and pure and separate from men, should be called by the name. But since, needing no human unction, He did not receive the name from the oil nazer, He acquired it from the place named Nazara.

spin

GakuseiDon

Thanks for your response, spin.

Doug Shaver

Mistaken.

I don't. I don't believe anybody has to be either stupid or ill motivated to make a mistake.

Doug Shaver

I know you're not claiming anyone did see him alive, but according to the earliest Christian writings, lots of people thought they saw him alive. What do you think made them think so?

bacht

Yes and no. I acknowledge that you don't take this position, which puts you in the majority opinion between the true believers and the skeptics.

The "quest for the historical Jesus" has assumed the historicity of some person as the kernel for the gospel stories. The general conclusion has been what you said: that Jesus was more important in death than in life. But why? Doesn't this fall back on supernatural explanations?

If his teachings or actions were not memorable enough to be noticed by contemporary historians, why should Jesus become famous after his execution? We all know about posthumous celebrity, like a writer or artist whose work becomes more well known and valuable after they're gone. But if the sum of Jesus' career is what we see recorded in the NT there's really not much to look at. A dead miracle-worker doesn't help anyone.

To me it's just as plausible to consider the sociology of a new religion, built on the ashes of Judea. Romans were looking for new mysteries, and the recently exterminated Israel was the pyre for the phoenix of a new salvation cult.

Juststeve

Spin:

I'm trying to follow your thinking here. Is it your contention that Nazara was the name of a place separate and apart from Nazareth? Eusebius seems to think that Nazara was a place where Jesus was brought up. Can you document the existence of a place called Nazara in a way that renders improbable the hypothesis that Nazara is just a variant spelling for Nazareth?

Steve

Doug Shaver

I mean whatever other posters have said about it. I don't remember the specifics, but if you actually have no idea what I'm talking about, then you haven't been paying attention. This is not a new topic for this forum, and you've been around it a long time.

I don't know, and I don't care. Anyone who thinks that it actually proves anything significant is grasping at straws, no matter what it is that they think it proves.