S.C.Carlson

Your solution doesn't get rid of the "klutz" either but foists it off on yet another hand. I don't the see the economy in that.

Stephen

spin

The difference of course is that the person who wrote the material took notice of writing it. The person who moved it didn't. That suggests that the writer wasn't involved.

Whatever the case, the move invalidates the Nazara in Q quibbling. It was pretty farcical at best, but realizing it was named before it got there nullifies the idea.


spin

ynquirer

How do you know that Nazorean is a gentilic in Matthew?

And aren’t you dealing with a text in English rather than with the Greek or the subjacent Aramaic/Hebrew? Otherwise, you’d realize that Nazorean may not be a gentilic of either Nazaret or Nazara.

That makes more obvious, still, that Nazarene is an inaccurate gentilic for Jesus, as I said before.

Ben C Smith

I hate it when that happens. My sympathies.

Are you saying that the term Galilean in the denial pericope in Matthew is an interpolation?

I have always said that this is your strongest evidence. (I just found another example in 1 Samuel 14.4, but you are correct; they are quite rare.)

The Greek gentilic is quite usual based on Nazara.

I have answered this several times. Yes, I see Nazara as a Greek form (though not at all an aberration).

You lost the thread. That was not why I introduced Jerusalem. If you recall, you had made the argument that Mark did not know about Nazara because he wrote Nazareth in 1.9. My response was to ask whether he knew the usual LXX form of Jerusalem just because he always uses the other form. My point had nothing to do with whether a town can have two names; you introduced that part after I had already submitted my point about Jerusalem. My point was that, given two variants, Mark can know both but use only one. I was exposing your argument from silence.

I do not contemplate locals using two different forms of the name in this case. I contemplate Nazara being a Greek shortening of Nazareth amongst our tradents.

I agree. It does not affect my case.

I think that is what he is doing in Mark 1.9. He is saying that Jesus came from Nazareth in the same way Ruth 1.1 says that Elimelech journeyed from Bethlehem, that is, he was changing abodes.

Mark assumes several pieces of information on the part of his readers (not just here; he does this quite a bit, such as when he seems to assume that his readers will know who Alexander and Rufus are). On your hypothesis, Mark assumes his readers will know what on earth a Nazarene is, so that the references to Jesus the Nazarene will make sense. On my hypothesis, Mark assumes his readers will know that Jesus originally hailed from Nazareth or Nazara, so that 1.9 will make sense.

You nowhere dealt with my analysis of Mark 6.1-6a. If I am correct that the town in that pericope cannot be Capernaum, then a lot of your argumentation falls to the ground.

Ben.

spin

How else can you interpret 2:23 literally?

Is this your standard response when you have nothing tangible to say, I mean "dealing with the text in English" or similar? You always come out with this stuff and you should know better by now. Humpfff.

This doesn't follow from what you are commenting on.


spin

JoeWallack

JW:
What you really want to do Ben is argue that "Mark" agrees with "Matthew"/"Luke" that Jesus' original home was Nazareth.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_1:9

"And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan. (ASV)"

In order to argue that this supports Nazareth as Jesus' original home you have to create implications that are worse than the ones you ignore:

1) "Jesus came from Nazareth" is not much of an implication that Nazareth was Jesus' original home. A clear purpose is just to show where Jesus departed from. Maybe Nazareth was a cemetary and Jesus came from the dead at the beginning and end.

2) "Jesus came from Nazareth" is a better implication of Jesus' home at the time than Jesus' original home.

3) If Nazareth was Jesus' home before the Baptism than the implication would be that it was Jesus' home after the Baptism.

4) The dissed hometown Prophet theme of "Mark" works proportionately to just how much Capernaum was Jesus' "Hometown".

5) Spin's demonstration here of "Nazareth" spelling and meaning variation is prime facie evidence of a changed tradition.

Regarding "Nazara" I don't think it was in Q. Peter/James were behind Q and we can take Papias (the earliest author evidence) at his word that it was the Sayings of Jesus. Mark translated into Greek. "Matthew"/"Luke" need some form of "Nazareth" after the Baptism to agree with their Infancy Narratives that Jesus was originally from Nazareth. Sure, that "Matthew"/"Luke" both use the unusual "Nazara" is evidence of dependence but I agree with you that the dependence is each other. I disagree though that it was original "Luke" who copied. My guess is it was just Editor harmonizing.

Having Jesus from "Nazareth" was an early Apologetic to help explain why no one had ever heard of a Gospel Jesus in Capernaum or anywhere else. He was from a really small town somewhere in Galilee. It was so small you could cast a stone from one end of the town to the other. Like the Cohenheads from SNL who were from Remulac. A small town in France. Point Doherty!



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

spin

Yup. That's what it seems like to me. The writer had removed the extra material as he often did, rationalising his source, as in the case of Galilean -> accent. Yet, the Galilean stuff comes back.

And I have always said that your approach would be to try and shave off everything else then discount this.

You take the least likely option with Nazareth/Nazara, ie that they are both operational, then you allow Nazara to produce Nazarene in Mark and then you have Matt repudiating it though its significance should be obvious, to which you advocate Matt having an agenda to discard Nazarene in favour of the less likely Nazorean.

The town was called Nazareth.

How did it get into the gospel if it came solely from Greek??

No thread lost. The analogy is false. You are trying to compare different types of things. What is the difference in significance between Nazara and Nazareth? There is a difference with ierousalhm and hierosoluma.

Why did it get shortened??

I'm merely explaining one of your attempts at obfuscation. Another follows...

Rubbish. There is no way you can eke that out of Mark 1:9. Ruth gives you a series of cues to help you get there. There is nothing in Mark. I have tried to get this idea across to many people, ie that you have to have evidence for taking a position that is not the most obvious when dealing with a text. You're taking the uninidcated less obvious approach here.

As I have said a number of times, if Nazareth were meant to be a hometown then the narrative would fall down when it presented Capernaum as Jesus's home without narrative justification. You fail to deal with the narrative.

The only thing I've noticed from you are assumptions about patris. That doesn't deal with the problem about Capernaum. It just shows you wanting patris to be different from the home in Capernaum. Perhaps you mean something else. Besides, there certainly wasn't a synagogue (seen in 6:2) in the Nazareth at the time reputed for Jesus. But there was a synagogue at Capernaum and we get a rather interesting note from John about the reaction of people from Capernaum to Jesus's teaching (7:42): "Is this not Jesus, the sone of Joseph, whose mother and father we know?" Maybe the writer of John has made the same mistake as me.


spin

S.C.Carlson

"Nazara" was in Luke's source, so your difference evaporates on closer inspection. Your proposal keeps the klutziness but adds another cook to the broth. Where's the economy in that?

Stephen

Ben C Smith

Oh, good. More interpolations.

And, in Greek at least, Nazara.

The gospel is in Greek; gospel traditions were transmitted in Greek from a very early date. I do not understand what lies behind this question.

You are still not understanding the point here. You claimed that Mark did not know about Nazara. I am wondering how you know that. It makes no difference why certain names would or would not be used; all that matters is whether we can tell that an author knew another name for the same place simply by what he actually calls it in his text.

Consider the names Bethlehem and Ephrathah for the same town in the OT. Some texts use both forms (Genesis and Ruth, for example), but 1 Samuel uses only Bethlehem. Did that author know about Ephrathah? I think so, since he calls Jesse an Ephrathite in 1 Samuel 17.12. Likewise, and by way of analogy, Mark uses only Nazareth as the place name. Did he know about Nazara? I think so, because he calls Jesus a Nazarene, and you have already argued that Nazarene obviously derives from Nazara.

For the same reason Chinnereth got shortened to Chinara, Gennesaret to Genesara (the Aramaic form clearly came first, despite all your assertions to the contrary), Daberath to Daberi, and Mispereth to Mispar. Names get abbreviated.

You did not notice my argument from Mark 6.4? You did not notice my argument from the miracles and the crowd reactions?

I agree that this line in John 6.42 is very interesting.

It does not change the fact that Mark 6.1-6a cannot be located in Capernaum.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

This is not the basis of my argument.

Right. I think that Jesus lived in Nazareth until he underwent the baptism. I also think he was originally from Nazareth, but not because of Mark 1.9.

Where in Mark does Capernaum reject Jesus?

Another (pair of) interpolation(s).

Ben.