Mythra

I should think that killing all the babies in Bethlehem or Zombies parading through the streets of Jerusalem could not have occurred without being chronicled by Josephus.

While Philo's writings were more of a philosophical nature, he would also be reasonably expected to have taken note of such events. He gave us details of the Therapeutae at Lake Mareotis. It's quite surprising that he failed to hear of the miraculous happenings in Galilee and Judea.

Mythra

Is it possible that all of the gospel events happened, and Josephus and Philo failed to notice, or failed to see them as significant enough to write about?

Yeah. It's possible.

But does it violate the sensibilities?

Yep.

Mine, at least.

Malachi151

What? Not at all. How would Christians have HEARD of an obscure town called Nazareth if no such place existed?

The claim is that there was no place called Nazareth at all, Christians didn't "hear of it", they invented it.

Secondly, even if the place currently called Nazareth was there and called Nazareth in the 1st century, the archeology telsl us that it was such a small place that it had hardly anything more than a cross roads and small time farming spot. No evidence of synagogue or even moderate population can be found from that time period, so even if it was there, it doesn't fit the description of a city given in the gospels. If is was a city, certianly it would have been listed in the registers that we have and we would see evidence of it having been a city, not a crossroads in the middle of some farms.

jjramsey

Except as I pointed out above, Nazareth was evidently around before Constantine, before Christians would have had the power to invent such a place, or rename an existing one.

Gasp! The synoptic Gospels exaggerate by calling Nazareth a city? There's a surprise.

Huon

The problem of Nazareth is perhaps a mistake in translating the Hebrew "nazir" which means saint, consecrated to God. "nazir" is translated into Greek "nazaraios", and mistakenly understood as "the man from nazara-somewhere", why not Nazareth ?

Malachi151

Well first of all I would have to get more information about this claim. Wikipedia doesn't mention this early reference for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazaret...es_to_Nazareth

How reliable is this claim? Is it disputed? What are possible explanations? Etc.

Well, the whole point of this part of my presentation is discussing descrepancies between the gospels and non-Biblical history.

jeremyp

Three out four gospels in the Bible don't mention the saints-as-zombies incident. If it really happened, Mark, Luke and John should have mentioned it.

That and the fact that dead people don't go walking about suggests very strongly that the incident was an fictional embelishment added by Matthew.

jjramsey

Wikipedia isn't exactly a reliable source on controversial issues, though contrary to what you wrote, it does mention the reference:

At best, the dating of the inscription itself is from Constantine's day, but the event causing the priestly courses to flee dates from 135 C.E. (the Hadrian War). For Nazareth to be invented in time for the inscription to be written, the timing would be pretty tight.

The mere existence of Nazareth, though, is not one of those discrepancies.

Except that Jesus wasn't portrayed as a Hebrew "saint," or nazirite. Good grief, he's shown drinking wine and even accused of being a winebibber!

Really, Nazareth isn't a "problem" for anyone but some of those in the Jeebus-didn't-exist crowd.

FatherMithras

Uh, Josephus would be a good one wouldn't it? The fact he chronicles Herod's atrocities and fails to mention a slaughter of the infants is one particularly telling example. Tacitus also comes to mind, though he is writing quite a bit later.

Malachi151

Ahh see, this is what I am talking about.

The "real quote" isn't from the 2nd century, its from the 3rd or 4th. Its quite easy to see how 200 years or so after the event, this could be referring to a location that didn't go by that name at the time.

You see, another piece of "evidence" that disolves right before your very eyes....

I'm sorry, but I don't consider a quote from 270-340 CE as "evidence for the existance of Nazareth in 5 BCE to 30 CE in the face of 3 or 4 listings from the time that have no mention of Nazareth.