2-J

Interesting that the first time Nazareth is mentioned in non-biblical sources is the fourth century.

That was of course the time when Constantine and Saint Helena were going about reifying various Christian legends; St.Helena just happened to come across the true cross; Constantine just happened to have found with certainty the burial place of St.Peter, etc, and Constantine built several churches in the region as well.

A lot of Christian relics and traditions and places suddenly turn up in the 4th century, (or sometimes just a little before).

I know it's not much, but that's what I immediately thought of when I read about the no non-apologetic sources before the 4th century thing.

FathomFFI

Have you read the explanation directly above your post? In other words, if no other source confirms that the place even existed in the 1st century AD, then are there other sources which have not yet been mentioned that are relevant to this discussion that are also silent about Nazareth?

What is/are the other source/sources that does/do not confirm this?

Hence, silence.

FathomFFI

Hello Alex,

Let me show you what we see ...

The statement above has JNE suggesting that the Gospels and Acts have no historical value. He's making a claim that his opinion is a "fact" that the Gospel and Acts records have no historical value.

His statement regarding historical value obviously excludes the Gospels and Acts as being valid historical sources.

We can easy counter with, "However, when we look for historical confirmation from the Gospels and Acts of this hometown of a supposed god- surprise surprise! - two other places confirm that the place existed in the 1st century."

Now please, can you find me one accredited scholar or historian that agrees with him that the Gospels and Acts have no historical value? You will find yourself hard pressed to find even one who is respected among his peers.

Therefore, his supposed "fact" totally relies on his opinion being true.

Since he's failed to prove his opinion to be true, then could you please explain to me how his statement is a fact?

mens_sana

Then you have a citation indicating that either Constantine or Helena is responsible for an inscription in a Jewish synagogue wall?

rlogan

No, it makes perfect sense.

All of our arguments one way or another are parts of our whole "Argument from Best Explanation". The religious nuts pining away for heaven try to get us into ridiculous parsing contests and red herrings that actually require us to buy into a whole set of precepts first.

As with just about everything else important to Jesus as "history", it was mined from the Hebrew Bible, whilst tossing out old enough bogus references to historical/geographical things as an attempt to anchor the story in reality.

But old enough and far enough away from Christianity's origins to where nobody could check out details about thousands of pigs being driven into mis-named geographical positions and so forth. Far enough culturally away so that Hebrew Bible can at the same time be used as a pretence of genesis to the new religion while soundly rejecting everything important to that same religion.

And what was mined regarding "Nazareth" was put into evidence here:

I think Matt 2:23 there.

Matthew is rife with credentialing the mythical Jesus with Hebrew Bible foretelling. And Isaiah is the most heavily plagiarized.

And here we have Isaiah 11:1. And the beauty of it is that once again we have a "close enough for Jesus" sloppy quote mine purportedly proving Jesus was a real character in history.

Except that the Prophecy actually pertains to a religious sect. These keystone kops of midrashic style commandeering the Judaic texts are not even all that good at it. People talk about how perfect the bible is. Sheesh. They can't get anything right.

Thus, it isn't important to me at all whether "Nazareth" existed or not per se. Sure, it might have been a place the latter-century frauds behind Matthew glommed on to to get one more sloppy link to "reality".

I realize the thinking of the superstitious. Matthew says prophecy says Nazareth. But it doesn't. No prophecy says that. So we have to once again think up an excuse for Matthew here like all of the other things in the Bible.

But if you are working from an Argument from Best Explanation of the whole, this is just one more example of sloppy quote mining in a context of delivering Christianity first to places remote in time and place from the alleged events.

The motivation of the author is crystal clear and in harmony with all of the other cut-and-paste liftings from the Hebrew Bible.

patcleaver

Well of course they were biased and unreliable - they were Bible Scholars (generally insane fanatical crackpots). I agree completely. However, I think their 120 CE date (in 1966) for the handwriting style was confirmed by the 160 CE date (in 1995). The problem was the original Bible Scholars were wrong that the date of the handwriting style indicated the date of the document.

These guys who owned it (Norman Yonan & Dan MacDougald) spent their lives looking for the best Aramaic bible because they wanted to find the original words of Jesus, that he used to drive out demons, so they could revolutionize the treatment of mental disorders.

Thanks Andrew

First: the original handwriting analysis dating in 1966 was 120 CE, and the handwriting analysis of 1995 was after 160 CE (possibly 300 CE). That is well within the margin of error for text styles (Brent Nongbri, The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel, in: Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005), 23-48).

Second: the later 1250 CE paleographic dating was not based on handwriting analysis, but on the forensic examination of the sheepskin pages. A museum that was interested in purchasing the manuscript had a team including some real scientists examine it and redate the textual style and date the sheepskin. The date of the handwriting style was revised to ca. (circa-after) 160 CE, but the forensic examination of the sheepskin determined the manuscript to be ca. 1250 CE.

Third: Wikipedia is wrong - the dates are not the same - the forensic dating of the sheepskin was 1250 CE, but the more accurate carbon dating is 1040-1090 CE which is 185 year difference. I am amazed that earlier date from the forensic examination of the sheepskin was within 185 years of the far more accurate carbon dating.

see:http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/ArtGallery/P...escription.asp
http://www.betterlight.com/khabouris.html
http://www.whyagain.com/khabouris.php

I am not 100% sure about who did the original handwriting analysis, and who did the later handwriting and sheepskin analysis, and the various dates of the ancient notes written in the margins. I read a journal article about the Khaburis Codex several years ago, but I do not have a copy of it or know which journal it was published in or the date. If anyone knows, the citation then please post it or email me at patcleaver@yahoo.com.

Antipope Innocent II

The idea that the non-existent prophecy in Matt 2:23 somehow refers to the "branch" in Isaiah 11 is one of several contrived ways that fundies try to use to get Matthew off the hook, since there is no OT prophecy or passage that says the Messaih would be "called a Nazorean/Nazarene".

The fact is that this prophecy doesn't exist, which brings us to the question of why the writer of Matthew felt the need to bolster the fact that he has Jesus' family settle in Nazareth with a bogus (though safely vague) prophecy.

Matthew backs up everything else in his story by reference to prophecies so it's interesting that he feels the need to support this element as well, even if he has to contrive a prophecy out of nothing much.

This supports the idea that Nazareth did exist, and needed to be brought into the web of fulfilled prophecies because Jesus was known to be from Nazareth.

It does not support the idea that the town was created out of the prophecy. Why? Because no such prophecy exists. The town wasn't created for the prophecy, it was the prophecy that was created for the town.

FathomFFI

Well said. Rationality makes a comeback.

But the claims of JNE are quite extravagant. They blatantly state that Nazareth did not exist based totally on silence. Those guys are intellectually dishonest in my view.

aa5874

NO, not at all. You are the one who have been mis-leading.

You have failed to say that JNE could be RIGHT about the city called Nazareth.

FathomFFI

Failed? Oh no, I have not failed to do that.

I'm simply not at all convinced that they could be right.