PhilosopherJay

Hi Antipope Inncent II,

I think you make a good point that the town of Nazareth is not derived from any prophecy about Nazareth. It does raise the question of why Matthew or Matthew's source places Jesus' birth there.

Much of the other Gospel text points to Capernaum (Kapharnakos in Josephus) as the home of Jesus. Marcion's gospel, likewise, has him coming from Capernaum. From the Gospel of John, we also get Cana as a possible candidate for hometown. Let us say that we do have earlier texts with either Capernaum or Cana as Jesus' hometown. These stories predates any serious thought of Jesus as a real messiah, they are purely ficitonal. When people start to take the story seriously 40 or 50 or 100 years after its first circulation, Jewish scholars, no doubt, bring forward the objection that the Messiah must come from Bethlehem. Jesus was from Capernaum and not from Bethlehem, ergo, he was not the Messiah.

The first response would be to move Jesus' birth from Capernaum to Bethlehem in Judea. Since Jesus is fully grown in Capernaum, a birth story in Bethlehem creates no contradiction. All we have to do is give Jesus a reason from moving from Bethlehem to Capernaum. Matthew does not do this. Instead we find a reason for his moving from Nazareth to Capernaum:
Matthew is basically telling us that Capernaum is a land of Gentiles. He is explaining why Jesus should be in a land of gentiles - Capernaum. This is perhaps a key to why Matthew is tying Jesus to Jewish prophecy: he is responding to Marcion who has rejected the idea that Jesus was from the Jewish God.

His putting Jesus in Bethlehem also comes in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy:

Notice that in the context of the story, the ruler of Jerusalem is worried that the King of Israel is being born in Bethlehem. This reminds us of the story of Saul and David. We know that King Saul was paranoid and tried to have David killed many times before losing his thrown to him and David was, of course, born in Bethlehem. We may suppose that the writer of Matthew was using an historical actual text from a story about Saul and David and simply replacing the names. The use of the magi would suggest a strong Babylonian influence, so we can conjecture that the original story text comes from the Sixth century B.C.E. and the Babylonian exile, when Babylonian influence was at its strongest.


In any case, Matthew has achieved his objective of explaining that Jesus was born in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy in Bethlehem, and he has explained what Jesus is doing in Capernaum, the land of the gentiles. So he has counteracted Marcion on these two scores.

Why does he put in Nazareth as the place where Jesus went to after being born in Bethlehem and fleeing to Egypt? Let us look at the text where he first mentions Nazareth:

Matthew sends Jesus back to the land of Israel, no doubt to Bethlehem, but suddenly moves him out of Judea to Galilee. But why should he be afraid of Achaelaus? The story does not give a clue. However, in the original text, David did have reason to flee Bethlehem when Saul's son Ish-bosheth ("great man of Baal") became king of Israel.

Now, notice what happens when we take out the reference to Nazareth:


Here is get a perfect seam. Jesus/David leaves Judea and John the Baptist comes into Judea. The writer connect the David text, now transformed into a Jesus text with the John text.

So why does somebody pull apart this perfect seam to insert the reference to Nazareth and the phony prophecy? It seems to me that John the Baptist must have been known as John the Nazarene, someone who makes a sacre vow to the Jewish God. The writer is giving him a new name "John, the Baptist." but he has to explain why he was known as John the Nazarene. He makes Nazarene into the town of Nazareth. Instead of John the Nazarene coming from Capernaum, he has Jesus the Christ going into the fictional town of Nazareth. So when people ask him, aren't you just repeating the story of John the Nazarene from Capernaum, he can say, "No, this is the true story. Jesus/John was from the town of Nazareth, that's why he was known as the Nazarene. He's a totally different guy than the character John/Jesus the Nazarene from Capernaum. You and Marcion got the story wrong.

This hypothesis predicts that we will find a text in which John or Jesus is called a Nazarene.

It or some variation of it explains the existence of Nazareth in the text without it being a reference to an existing place. It fits the known historical facts, as well or better than the hypothesis that it was a reference to an existing place.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

aa5874

] You know history?

FathomFFI

All of the prophecies regarding Jesus had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. The early Christians constantly tried to justify Jesus as being the Christ to the Jews.

The "he was born in Nazareth and will therefore be called a Nazarene" was just an act of desperation of a Christian to qualify Jesus as being the Christ to the Jews.

I ignore most of the personal commentary of the Gospel writers, unless it pertains directly to whatever Jesus is teaching. I long ago recognized the personal commentary as merely the beliefs of his early followers.

aa5874

You are yet to prove there was a city called Nazareth in the 1st century.

You have not shown that there was a real person named Jesus in the 1st century.

You have not shown that a Jesus, whose mother was Mary, was teaching in the 1st century.

You cannot prove that it was an act of dseperation to claim Jesus was from Nazareth.

Tell me the true words of Jesus of the NT when he was in Nazareth.

FathomFFI

And this somehow relates to what I said? Here, let me speak your language for a moment.

It wasn't Shirley's fault when the oven door broke down just because a knock at the door failed to ring the doorbell. I tried to explain that to her a thousand times despite the fact that I never opened my mouth to her at all, nor have I ever spoken to her in my life.

Look, before you start accusing me of having anything to do with Shirley, the one thing you need to understand is that before she started stealing the apples out of my fruit dish, there was some bubblegum stuck to the underside of the coffee table.

I know what you're thinking, but Shirley didn't put it there and despite the fact that the roof on the doghouse has nothing to do with the bubblegum, there's simply no way you can say that they are not connected.

If push came to shove, do you seriously think that shove would get moved out of the way just because push came along? What kind of logic is that? After all, it wasn't me who broke the damn oven door when the doorbell failed to ring! I had nothing to do with it, just like Shirley had nothing to do with the bubblegum, despite the fact that it her who had it in the first place.

Contradiction? Get serious! Am I to think that just because Shirley was chewing the gum and took it out of her mouth and placed her hand under the coffee table that it is somehow connected to the roof on the dog house?

I don't understand you. Seriously.

judge

Ahhh..finally a post which actually makes sense.

spamandham

...a negative that you embraced, and subsequently admitted you can't support. It seems silly not to just retract it and admit you made it up. If it's not made up, what is it based on?

I suspect that what you really meant, was that you are unaware of any archaeologists who deny that the place known as Nazareth today was also known as Nazareth in the 1st century. I'm unaware of any either, but then, I'm also unaware of any who have directly tackled that question in a rigorous way, and am also unaware of any kind of industry surveys that address it either.

It's not baseless. You admitted you can't support it, which means you probably made it up. I can accept a bit of hyperbole here and there...I'm guilty of it on occasion myself.

So, if you are aware of scholarly work done by respected archaeologists that has directly addressed the question of whether or not there was a city known as Nazareth in the first century, and concluded that the place currently known as Nazareth was also known as Nazareth in the first century, that would be an acceptable compromise.

To my knowledge there is no survey of archaeologists' opinions about whether the place known as Nazareth today, was also known as Nazareth in the 1st century, so I certainly can't honor your request. That isn't the same as disinterest. If I knew of such I thing, i would have provided it. But I'm just a layman who's read a bit on the subject. I make no claims of being an expert.

rlogan

*yawn* clearly I have stated it does not matter to the question. And I do not take orders from you.

Ask nicely. I'll tell you what I think.


Well the bold type was a bit over the top. So I drop this nevertheless.


That's silly. Every one is exactly the same. I disagree with you completely on this.

Hogwash. The writer finds no "actual" prophecies anywhere. He makes them up wherever he can by hook or by crook.

Place your prophecies here into evidence. The ones he found. One by one and we'll go over them to show they are taken way out of context - botched in some amateurish "close enuff for Jesus" way.


There is no difference between sloppy "interpretation" and sloppy spelling when you are a fraud peddling superman.

We have other examples (eg like a lion at my hands and feet vs pierce hands and feet; born of a virgin vs young woman, etc.) where there is some technical error like Nazarene/Nazarwos/Nazareth.

Advise conceeding that.



I realize you are trying to pretend this is somehow incredibly unique. All I can say is you must not be remembering the text.

Are you over 40? Sometimes older people have trouble remembering.


Well, "above" has an incorrect assertion. I just listed three examples all alike. I see the geographical errors as the same type too. This is just commonplace throughout.

Both author and adherents remote in place, culture and time. Hellenized Diaspora, not where it says.

Premise wrong. Conclusion wrong.


well then I guess you believe in the easter bunny.


Haw! I LOVE this line.

Why would anyone have voiced doubts about someone they have never heard of?

You presume to enter into evidence only people who are dead and left no record of having heard of Jesus.

The lack of evidence for Jesus is the very reason he must have existed!

I say no-one in ancient times doubted Moroni of the Mormon religion either.

Those claims are exactly the same weight in evidence.

You cannot submit to us anyone who actually saw or heard of him (verifiable like a historian - eg Josephus). So you make this unverifiable claim.


I disagree that you have a point. There are no prophecies of Jesus in the HB at all. There are many classes of lies about "prophecy" fulfillment. Sloppy "midrash" of correctly translated HB passages. Wrong translations, and this can be more than one type - creative license with spelling that changes meaning (intentional, ignorance, or at least once a septuagint (sp) version difference with the ancient HB original...

All of them part of the same con.

Disagree. Every one of them force-fitted. Shoehorned. Sloppy sloppy sloppy. You are trying to make an artificial distinction.

Gotta love that circularity. "known fact about Jesus".

That is both your premise and conclusion.


I do not assume you to be christian.

Just misguided.


Duh either one or the other. I think you play coy.


*Sigh*

Hyperventilating does not make it any more forceful as an argument.

He was from Bethlehem and out of Egypt and Galilee and naza-something. He is from everywhere we can shoehorn him in to prophecy. The geographical placement errors, cultural atrocities etc. The lies that are told are generally humongous whoppers by comparison to this insignificant trifle.

To make your case, you pretend that lying about a King's mass murder of children is merely a trifling thing, whereas fudging a spelling no worshipper is going to understand anyway is "tying themselves into knots".

To get him to "come out of Egypt" the author tells one of the biggest lies in the whole bible - that every single male child between 0 and two years old is murdered, forcing them to flee. He has superhuman powers and comes back from the dead. Sloppy translating is a hallmark, not an exception.

The scale of lying about Egypt is off the charts in order to shoehorn a prophecy into the mix. Soooo many of these sloppy, sophomoric tactics. The one case you pretend is so exceptional is in fact just like everything else, but to a lesser degree than many of them.

Well, repeating circular logic does not make it truer. Your premise is of course useful as a conclusion at the same time. Its bulletproof after a few wild turky shots.


Cheers.

I do agree that if we assume Jesus is from Nazareth then we will find he is from Nazareth.

Huon

Notwithstanding the idea that he could be from Nazareth or Elsewhere...

jjramsey

Yet the supposed prophecy regarding Nazareth stands out as not even being a case of an OT verse being taken out of context. It just flat out isn't there. That goes beyond the usual shoehorning.