spin

The developments within a speech community are not the same as those in a literary tradition. The literary tradition doesn't have access to the phonology of the speech community, though a literary tradition can keep evidence of the phonological changes behind particular forms, such as Ramoth whose final form in Greek is the basis of our Arimathaea.

One can assume a history behind a form such as Nazareth if the place had a history in fact, but if you are working from the notion that it didn't have that history, you have to justify the form of the name, when the philology suggests Nazara, which is in fact a form seen in the gospels.


spin

ApostateAbe

Equally valid? The validity of an explanation rests on probability, and the most probable explanation is that the gospel authors knew that Jesus was from Nazareth but they didn't know anything about it. Jesus had the title, "Jesus of Nazareth," or "Ihsou tou Nazwraiou" because that was a standard way men were identified (i.e. Joseph of Arimathea, Saul of Tarsus).

spamandham

The Old Testament, lists many Jewish cities, Nazareth is not among them. The Talmud lists dozens of Jewish cities. No Nazareth. Jewish cities are mentioned in numerous other period texts. All are void of Nazareth.

...in the location presently known as Nazareth. There isn't any evidence of occupation of the region during the first part of the first century. There are a few tombs in the area that date to the bronze age. That's it. I'm not an archaeologist either, but I don't think it's necessary to be an archaeologist to understand what archaeologists say.

Of course, no-one really knows where the Biblical Nazareth was - assuming it existed. It was a lost city until the 4th century when a newly discovered well was declared to have been Mary's well by Empress Helena. Prior to that no-one knew where Nazareth was.

There is an artifact from ~300 CE (the one Carrier alluded to) that describes Jewish priests being relocated to Nazareth in the late 1st century.

Is it really simpler to posit that a tiny hamlet too small to have been noticed nonetheless was described in the Gospels in grander fashion, then immediately lost, only to be rediscovered hundreds of years later when Christianity was the official religion of Rome and the empress was on a mission to locate it?

Is this really simpler than "the gospel authors made it up/made a mistake"?

The location currently called Nazareth is almost certainly not the location of the Biblical Nazareth, assuming it existed. That location is a region of bronze age tombs without a significant water source.

spin

Your use of "probability" has no meaning here. If an explanation doesn't explain all the facts it is meant to it loses validity.

There is nothing "probable" about what you say and your use of knowing is gormless: you are in no position to be able to say what they knew. The best you can say is that it was the tradition they received and thus believed.

This is the logic used to associate both nazarhnos and nazwraios to Nazareth. It is however a post hoc explanation without any good way to validate it. Linguistically, there is no reasonable way to connect either nazarhnos and nazwraios to the town name. A gentilic formed in Hebrew uses the full name of the place. This seems to be the approach taken in the Greek derived gentilics from Hebrew place names as well, so we should expect *nazarethnos or *nazaretaios, not the forms we find.

In fact the only evidence that Jesus came from Nazareth relies on the one reference in Mark 1:9, which says that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized. It isn't given overtly as a place of origin. This statement is in the Matthew parallel 3:13 doesn't mention Nazareth, saying that Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized. It is strange that if Nazareth had been in the original Mark that Matt would prefer Galilee to Nazareth, as the town is the usual choice. Given the Marcan indication 2:1 that Capernaum was where Jesus had his home, the lone presence of Nazareth in Mk 1:9 appears to be the work of a helping hand. We are left with the Marcan Nazarene reference not pointing to a gentilic at all.

When you dig into the matter, you will find that the town name Nazareth is not a part of the synoptic tradition at all. In Luke, beside the one mention of Nazara in 4:16, the only time Nazareth is mentioned in the gospel is in the birth narrative. Nazareth it seems is a later development in the Jesus tradition, so all this crap about Jesus of Nazareth is only ignorant acceptance of later tradition development.


spin

ApostateAbe

Go to SearchGodsWord.org and put "nazareth" in the search box. You will bring up all the Bible passages that contain "Nazareth." You'll see that the place is referenced all over the synoptic gospels. From there, you can look at the original Greek and pronunciations. I know nothing about Greek, so I have no idea if your argument about language holds true, so I have to trust the secular scholarly consensus on the matter, whatever that may be. But I have noticed that Matthew 21:11 uses the form, "Nazareq." If you think that the "Jesus of Nazareth" title is a questionable translation, then I would like to know what you think the correct translation maybe should be, that the early Christians got it wrong when they interpolated.

spin

Do you for some reason think I haven't looked at all the evidence of this matter? I have gone into it ad nauseam in the past here in the forum.

It's better to trust no-one and rely on no consensus until you know enough to do so. Reserve judgment until you can judge.

Relying on translations when it comes to apologetically prone material is a sure fire way to fuck up.

I have no problem with 21:11 as is. It is purely Matthean material and therefore later than the synoptic material. This in fact is the one sure place in Matthew that has Nazareth. 4:13 has Nazara and the earliest tradition [P70, Origen & Eusebius] for 2:23 seems also to be Nazara. The only problem is that translations happily smooth over the evidence and leave the reader ignorant.


spin

Petergdi

How many cities and towns were there is Galilee? I think Josephus says 204.

How many cities and towns are mentioned in the OT, Talmud, and numerous other period texts?
Less than half that number, right?

So if the odds that a place of average significance would be mentioned is less than half, how can a reasonable person argue anything from the fact that these texts do not mention Nazareth?

GakuseiDon

Yes, but is it unexpected? I understand that there were many cities in Galilee that weren't named. How do we know whether we would expect Nazareth to be named in the OT or the Talmud?

But what DO archaeologists say? Here is the Skepticwiki view:
http://www.skepticwiki.org/index.php...ce_of_Nazareth

It has been argued that Nazareth did not exist [10]. This, however, is not consistent with the archaeological evidence. Richard Horsley, in Archaeology, History & Society in Galilee (or via: amazon.co.uk), had pointed out that in Nazareth were found Middle Bronze Age tombs, silos dating from the Iron Age, various olive and wine presses, cisterns, and holes for storage jars. Aside from a possible refounding about the third or second centuries B.C.E., it appears to have been continuously inhabited. An inscription found in a synagogue in Caesarea Maritima indicated that the priestly family of Happizzez moved to Nazareth some time after the Hadrian war in 135 C.E. (pp. 107-112). There are a couple ad hoc hypotheses to work around the implications of the archaeological evidence. One is to argue that the site of Nazareth was merely a necropolis, but the presence of the olive and wine presses and the cisterns is not consistent with this.

The article goes on, but it is clear that the impression is that the archaeolgoical evidence supports the idea that there was a Nazareth at the time of Jesus.

And I'd still like to know: If there couldn't have been a Nazareth there in the first half of the First Century CE because of the tombs, then how could there have been a Nazareth in the first half of the Second Century CE? What happened to the tombs?

ApostateAbe

spin, you know more about this matter than I do for sure. Can you please tell me what you think "Nazara" should be referring to, if not the city of Nazareth?

gdeering

This is getting to be too much. The historical Jesus was an insignificant preacher, no one ever noticed, from an insignificant town that was never recorded (or one that might simply have been a graveyard). It's going to push someone, somewhere, off the fence into mythicism.


Gregg