ApostateAbe

That could be, but I was accepting the premise of Sarai and Rene Salm. Sarai claimed mid 2nd century.
We can make such judgments based on what normally happens in history. In those cases where a town in a fictional story or myth corresponds to an actual town, then do we have any examples of the town not existing at the time and being founded post hoc?

Sarai

Well said, Toto. You're more precise than I. I guess the most we can say is that some Jews in Nazareth in the late-3rd to early-4th century CE thought that a specific priestly course had settled in Nazareth after Hadrian, circa 135 CE.

I've always been befuddled by the consternation caused by this. What is so reprehensible about the Nazareth/Nazarene issue being either a cover-up or simple misapprehension of the term "Nazirite"? That seems the simplest explanation to me. But then, of course, I've never had a dog in this particular fight.

Regards,
Sarai

hjalti

Abe, a question first: What do you make of Mark 1.24?

That's what made me question the whole Nazareth thing (before I saw the fuller, much more detailed analysis by spin).

Here we have a evil spirit calling Jesu: 1. nazarene 2. holy of god (hagios theou).

And in Judges 13 we have Samson being a "nazir", which is translated in the LXX as either: 1. nazir (or something similar, e.g. naziraios) 2. holy of god (hagios theou).

Is this all just coincidental?

And like spin has pointed out, nazir has zayin, which explains the (otherwise) troublesome zeta. And it doesn't help to say that they just didn't know how to correctly spell the name they heard. The data shows that the tsade-sound sounded more like the sigma-sound to greek ears, so they would have no reason to use zeta.

dockeen

.

In many case like this, the whole "inerrancy" and "god wrote it, he doesn't make mistakes" gets wrapped into the mix, so anything that looks questionable in any way becomes a point of contention and/or sensitivity on many sides.

Toto

I think that Salm has only actually discussed when the archaeology shows that the site currently identified as Nazareth was inhabited.

But in this case, we know that Christians in the fourth century read the gospels and went to Galilee to reconstruct Jesus' homeland. They discovered all sorts of conveniently identified relics (now regarded as fake) and deliberately settled at what they thought was Nazareth.

hjalti

Not important, but I have problem with this (other than John being early! ).

Isn't it more probable to think of this as later hostility to Christianity and their Jesus of Nazareth, rather than some actual hostility towards this small, insignificant village?

ApostateAbe

History is a contentious subject, especially when it concerns religion. If Nazareth didn't exist in the first century, then it would strongly reinforce the assertions of those who believe that the central Christian texts are complete outright falsehoods. Such theories can find their way into politics and influence popular opinions. In the Soviet Union, for example, mythicist positions of Jesus (i.e. Arthur Drews) were promoted as dogma in the public school educational system. History is the academic subject where it is both the easiest to reshape the perceptions of objective reality and the most effective means to reinforce any given ideology. We all have a dog in the fight when it comes to religion. There is nobody who gets involved in the subject who doesn't have feelings about the subject generally.

I expect that there are not many who would think that a drastic misunderstanding of a religious sect would get confused or would evolve into the name of a town in a certain region is an easier explanation than the references to the town really was all about the town.

Toto

I think that you can believe that Jesus existed but that Nazareth didn't and was just part of the mythology that practically every admits arose around him, or you can think that Jesus didn't exist but Nazareth probably did, which seems to be Richard Carrier's position. I don't see it as a critical issue in the debate over that issue in history.

But two of the proponents of the idea that Nazareth didn't exist have stated that they want to show that Jesus did not exist (Frank Zindler and Rene Salm) so this has raised some hackles.

hjalti

That's exactly what I was trying to express in the OP.

I used to think that Jesus was actually from Nazareth. Later I found out that there are serious problems with it, and there is another very plausible explanation. So I thought: "Hmm....so we can't be sure that Jesus was actually from Nazareth, rather than it being from 'nazir'".

But when I see people arguing for the (reasonable) position that Jesus was a historical person pointing to this "fact" get response from mythicists (or "agnostics" like spin) they seem to react to it with hostility and treat it like it's totally absurd and just mythicist axe-grinding. :huh:

Toto

Post from Joe Wallack on this issue on the general use of names in Mark.