Ted Hoffman

Opinions and inputs required.

1. Where does Origen say that Nazareth was mythical?

2. What is the strength and the nature of the arguments put forth by Meyers and Strange in Archaeology, The Rabbis and Early Christianity, 1981 - the one Meier mentions in MJ Vol I, p.300-301 - with respect to the historicity of Nazareth.

3. The Inscription from Caesarea Maritima about the Elkalir making their home in Nazareth - is it conclusive and secure evidence of the existence of Nazareth in the first century?

4. The archaeological findings detailed in Jack Finegan's The Archaeology of the New Testament p.44-46 - about burial graves, pottery etc - do they prove that Nazareth was a necropolis (as Zindler argues) or that it was a city that people lived in in the first century?

Chief594

Ted,
I'm not sure about some of the specifics you mentioned as I am not familiar with some of those books. However, you did ask for input and opinions about the Historicity of Nazareth and I feel like I could definitely do that.

Based on your questions I get the impression that, for the sake of argument, you are discounting the fact that the Bible clearly recognizes the existence of Nazareth (i.e. John 1:46). In light of that I offer the following:

Archaeological excavations taken place in Nazareth in the early 1900's have led to many discoveries about this obscure town. Evidence of winepresses, olive presses, grain storage and cisterns indicate that it was most likely an agricultural town. There have been several pieces of pottery found in Nazareth that date from the 2nd Iron Age (appx. 900-600 BC) to the Byzantine period (appx. 330-640). Additionally, there have been many Roman pottery pieces found that date to the time of Christ. Moving out away from the center of town there have been 23 tombs found in the area. Knowning that during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, tombs were built outside of the town limits, we can get an apporoximate size of Nazareth.

Now there are also some non-Biblical sources that lead to understanding that Nazareth really did exist during Jesus' time. Julius Africanus (200 AD) wrote of relatives of Jesus who came from Nazareth (and nearby Cochaba) who kept the "records of their descent with great care." Eusebius (300 AD) writes of two of Jude's (Jesus' brother) grandsons who were brought before Emperor Domitian in 95 AD and admitted to being from the House of David.

A third fact that isn't scientific but holds weight with me, is the fact of the obscurity of the town of Nazareth. In terms of textual criticism this would be called "double-dissimilarity." This refers to something that is found in the Bible that would have been disadvantageous for the author to write. Picking a large city with lots of people would have been much easier to hide a mythical figure in. But picking a small relativily obscure town ("can anything good come from Nazareth?") to me shows that it probably did happen.

Based on everything mentioned above, I believe that there is enough evidence to believe that the biblical town of Nazareth did exist during Jesus' time.

For more information you can look at Archaeology & the New Testament by John McRay

Toto

Why do you think he does?

Could you summarize those arguments?

That inscription says that priest moved there after 135 CE. The inscription itself dates to a much later date. So as evidence it is inconclusive.

Lugubert

To me, the wish to find a first century Nazareth resembles the efforts to identify "the five cities" including Sodom (or even the search for Mt. Ararat, to look for remnants of Noah's Ark).

"Nazareth" may even be a misunderstanding. Mt 2:23 has "... that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." One theory is, that Mt rather refers to the Nazarites of, for example, Num 6.

rlogan

I think anders is making a more incisive observation here, in light of where you want to go with this Ted. Unless I misunderstand the thrust of the post.


The use to which Christians have put Nazareth is the validation of Jesus as the Messiah by virtue of prophecy fulfillment.

So we have to ask not if there was a Nazareth in the first century, but if there was at the time this Prophecy was purportedly made, and furthermore if the prophecy is instead more likely to be a different meaning altogether, as you have alluded to.

It could refer to Judges 13:5. The nefarious Spin might shed some light on dating that here. But long, long before the first century - and I do not see evidence supporting such an ancient past.

The mix-up in translating "nazo-whatever" has been discussed here previously.

These shysters were not too careful in slapping together the HB junkyard jesus.

Vorkosigan

Relying on turn of the century archaeology, whose methodologies were primitive, is not a good idea. Reed's Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus postdates all of the above cites. Reed himself excavated at the site.

1. Massive church building on the site obscures much of pre-Christian material culture.

2. The area of the site was confined to 4 hectares. Possible population of 400.

3. No paved streets. No synagogue. No mosaics. No large permanent buildings of any kind. No public inscriptions. No evidence of homes (Reed attributes this to destruction by later construction). No luxury items.

4. Only subterranean storage bins, cisterns, and caves found.

5. "Village" outskirts some traces of terracing. vats for pressing and fermenting wine found. Simple locally made pottery.

In other words, there is evidence of human activity, but no evidence of habitation. Further, there is nothing to tell us the name of the village. Conclusion: no evidence establishes a village named Nazareth on the site of the current Nazareth until much later.

One should also look at the gospels. Jesus is always referred to as "the Nazarene" by the writer of Mark, never "from Nazareth" (the reference in 1:9 is most probably a later insertion). The inference is obvious that later writers misunderstood what the writer of Mark meant.

Toto, Zindler claims Origen understood place names in the Gospels to be mythical and sacred in this article at AA.

Vorkosigan

Toto

I think you are referring to this:

I wish Zindler were just a little less polemical and prone to hyperbole. It is significant that Origen lived in Caesarea and never investigated Nazareth, but given that he adopted an allegorical approach to the gospels, it seems a bit of an exaggeration to say that "it seems clear that Origen didn't think there was such a town at all . . . almost certainly . . the geography of the gospels. . . was just as mystical and insubstantial as the events. . ." There are cities and geographical places mentioned in the gospels that were really there - Jerusalem, Capernaum, Tyre, Sidon, Bethlehem. There are other place names that appear to be indeterminate or mythical, or mislocated (Bernard Muller has some examples of geographical confusion here).

I tend to think that Nazareth was not a city in the first century, but I think the evidence needs to be presented a bit more judiciously. I think it is easier to argue that whether or not Nazareth was in existence in the first century, that Jesus of Nazareth was originally Jesus the Nazarene or Nazorite.

Notsri

To add a brief criticism of Zindler's article, though it's a bit off topic: He alleges that the town of Magdala has also been invented by early Christians. But he's apparently unaware that it's known from the rabbinic literature as well. E.g., Midrash Eikah Rabbah 2:4:

Vorkosigan

That midrash was redacted in the fifth century. The issue is really that there is no evidence of that town from the time of the composition of Matthew's gospel, and even that is irrelevant from the fact that the name of her hometown is totally unstable in the text tradition -- Dalmanutha, Magdala, Megadan, etc. Whether Magdala existed is secondary -- the gospelers don't know anything about it.

I totally agree with Toto that Zindler is much too polemical for safe use. It's simply a fact that if you are a Christian scholar you can write whatever polemical nonsense you want -- I was just reading Charleworth's article on the Crucifixion listed on Goodacre's website today, and noticed:

"It is not a confession of faith to affirm that Jesus died on Golgotha that Friday afternoon; it is a probability obtained by the highest canons of scientific historical research. The humanists' and rationalists' facile answer to the question why Jesus died so quickly is no longer acceptable in critical circles"

there is no question that "The humanists' and rationalists' facile answer" is polemic and a nasty one -- but I doubt the editor thought about it for a second. Infidels have no choice but to hold themselves to higher standards since the discourse in the field is controlled by Christians who may speak as they please without fear of rejection (one is reminded of Meier's crack that mythicists write for money). It's a regrettable double standard, but there it is. That said, though, I think Zindler goes much too far. There's just too much triumphalist anti-Christian rhetoric in his work.

Vorkosigan

spin

There are a number of ideas flying about which I have espoused here in earlier threads, so I'd better toss in my two zlotys worth.

I tend slightly towards the possibility that Nazareth existed in the time in question, for whatever that is worth. You see the term nazarenos is not derived from Nazareth/Nazaret (which would yield a gentilic such as nazarethnos) and I can't see how one would invent the name Nazaret -- the final "t" needs to be justified for such an invention. Whereas in both Matt 4:13 and Luke 4:15 one actually finds the form Nazara (in the Alexandrian text), which is a candidate either for the source of the term nazarhnos or as a back formation from it, ie as English invented the verb "edit" from the Latin "editor" minus the ending, so may Nazara have been invented removing the ending from nazarhnos. As the relationship between nazarhnos and Nazareth is only one of appearance, one has to justify where the name Nazareth came from if it were invented, as it is not a good candidate for being derived from nazarhnos.

The real puzzle for me regards nazarhnos vs nazwraios, the former found in Mark while the latter is found in Matt. Where Mark has nazarhnos there are no equivalents in Matt and, where Matt has nazwraios, this is in non-Mark material. Because of this I have proposed that Matt was edited at least twice, once when it took over and reworked the Marcan material (a position I hold as inevitable), and during this reworking a number of obscure ideas were removed, one being nazarhnos, a second time when it became acquainted with nazwraios, by which time the Nazareth notion had been incorporated into the Matthean tradition. This means to me that nazarhnos and nazwraios came from different sources or earlier traditions.

It's worthwhile noting that the forms of Hebrew letters WAW and YOD were often written in such a way that they could be confused by a casual reader. Now it was these letters which were often used as vowels in Hebrew, /u/ and /i/. I hold that the Matthean tradition was aware of the Jgs 13:5 mention of "he will be called a Nazirite", though not directly from the original text as the writer shows no knowledge of the context, so we must have a list of messianic "prophecies". "Nazirite" in Hebrew is NZYR, with a YOD as the third letter. Given the chances of YOD/WAW confusion, we would have NZWR, which transliterated becomes nazwr and adding a gentilic suffix we get nazwraios, the form found in Matt.

Plainly the Matt tradition did not understand nazarhnos, otherwise it wouldn't have removed it from the Marcan source. This also should guarantee that Mark did not as yet have a reference to Nazareth in 1:9. If one compares Mk 1:9 apo nazaret ths galilaias (from Nazareth [of] the Galilee) with Mt 3:13 apo ths galilaias (from the Galilee), the only difference if the name of the town, so one should conclude that it would have been no effort to insert Nazareth in Matt had it been found in Mark, and that it would take no effort for a scribe to simply insert Nazareth in Mark if it weren't there. Obviously it was not in Mark, when the Matt tradition reworked it, especially as all those references to nazarhnos whose similarity to Nazareth should have impressed a reader had both been present.

So we have a relative chronology:

1) use of nazarhnos
2) writing of Mark
3) reworking of Mark in Matthean tradition
4a) Matthean tradition absorbs nazwraios and Nazareth
4b) Nazareth interpolated into Mk 1:9

I haven't talked about the origin or significance of nazarhnos, which is complex and which seems to point to a Jewish tradition based on a Hebrew word, NCR which has two significances, one pointing to people who keep the covenant, the other to Davidic traditions.

It's sad that Luke didn't work directly from Mark for his story of the baptism, so we have no close parallel to Mk 1:9 in Luke. However, Luke does attest to the existence of nazarhnos in Mark, for it maintains one example of it, changes one to nazwraios and substitutes Nazareth in another.


spin