spin

Oh, Matt's been worked on clearly. What happened to the references to nazarhnos which came with the Marcan source? When was nazwraios inserted? At the same time that nazarhnos was removed?? Obviously the relationship between nazarhnos and nazaret is more transparent than nazwraios, isn't it?


spin

CX

I don't think there's any question that AMt heavily redacted the Markan source, but that wasn't the claim. The claim was that GMt itself was the product of multiple authors and multiple redactions. I'm not necessarily disputing but I'd like to know the basis for the argument.

spin

I'd hoped that the questions I'd posed were sufficiently conducive to lead you to my argument. Sorry. Let me answer my own questions:

1. What happened to the references to nazarhnos which came with the Marcan source?
   They were edited out.
   .
2. When was nazwraios inserted?
   Some time after the removal of nazarhnos
   .
3. [b]At the same time that nazarhnos was removed?? Obviously the relationship between nazarhnos and nazaret is more transparent than nazwraios, isn't it?
   I can't have been the same time, as the similarity between the term to be removed and the term to be inserted would have been recognized. nazarhnos was removed by an early Matthean writer who knew neither of nazwraios or nazaret.

This means we have at least two redactors for Matthew.


spin

CX

Nope, I'm afraid I still don't follow. It would help considerably if you gave passage citations. Anyway there's no need to be cryptic. I'm trying to understand the argument.

spin

Try this section of a table I made ages ago (Luke, Mark, Matt):


If this doesn't come out as a table, sorry. It's the best I can do for the mo'. You'll see that Luke supports Mark for the use of nazarhnos. Matt doesn't support Mark for nazaret in Mk1:9.


spin

CX

Okay, comprehension is beginning to dawn but could you connect the dots for me? Also what of the MSS differences listed in NA27. Is there any way to know for certain what the original texts said in these instances?

spin

I haven't had the time or resources to look at it from the text traditions too much. I have cited specifically from W&H; there is one difference with the Byzantine in that the use of nazarhnos in Mk 10:47 is nazwraios in the Byzantine, which would seem to be a scribal error through influence of copying other synoptic texts in which nazwraios is found.
For me the data almost explain themselves.

Where the term nazarhnos appears in Mk, it has been removed from the Mt parallels (with the only possible question being Mk 14:67 and Mt 26:71, for both occur during Peter's denial scene, though not in the same part, again to me easiest explained through scribal intervention). The removal of the term nazarhnos is simplest explained as being obscure and the Matthean editor tended to remove Marcan obscurity. Hopefully my chart demonstrates that Luke supports two of Mark's four uses of nazarhnos.

Some time later, when the Matthean community came into knowledge of the term nazwraios, it was used twice in that gospel.

These two actions couldn't have happened at the same time without the writer seeing a possible relationship between the two forms, especially when they seem to have been used in similar ways. Lk was obviously written after Mt as the connection was made between the two words, one of Mk's 4 uses of nazarhnos is preserved intact, while another has been transformed into nazwraios.

The data regarding nazaret/nazareq are more complex, though still rather interesting for there is a third version, nazara which is a logical candidate for a source of the apparent gentilic, nazarhnos, so it may artificially been formed from nazarhnos, as the name "Ebion" was formed from "Ebionite".

What else might you want?


spin

The Evil One

Speaking for the ignorant masses, could you spell out the translations of the various Greek naz- words?

spin

That's just as problematic as the forms of the words. With the various words considered involved there are difficulties because of their spelling. This is because for each word there is though to be a Hebrew one behind it and each one needs a story in order to get to the Greek form.

Hebrew is a language in which short vowels are not too important, so if you see an "e" in the writing of a Hebrew word it may end up an "a" or an "i" when it is put into Greek. However, if you know the way the Hebrew word is spelt -- it is only a consonantal writing sytem --, you'll know that it uses copnsonants to i ndicate long vowels, so that "e" I just mentioned doesn't actually get written in Hebrew. When you come to the word "Nazirite" this has come to us from the Hebrew NZYR and the "Y" (YOD) is a consonant like it is in "yacht", but can function as a vowel, as in "lyre" or "very". Yet in Mt 2:23, we find nazwraios, with an omega ("w" as I transliterate it here), which is always from a WAW in Hebrew. This can be explained by the fact that the two letters WAW and YOD are very similar, one a long downstroke and the other a short one, and that in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the scribes seem to write them at times indifferently, confusing the hell out of the modern scholars working on them. But we can put a reasonable argument for NZYR -> "nazwraios", for Mt 2:23 even hints at a "prophecy" about Samson's birth in Jdg 13:7.

It only gets more complicated, for the other words two central words involved have a different consonant in them from the proposed Hebrew words, both of which have the form NCR, in which the "C", called a "TSADE" is often transliterated as "tz". In Talmudic writings we find scant mention of the name "Yeshu ha-Notzri", which looks somewhat like Jesus of Nazareth. This epithet ha-Notzri is from NCR meaning "to keep, preserve, watch over" and it often has as an object "the law" ha-torah. However, the change from TSADE to zeta in Greek is unaccounted for. It apparently has happened though. If that can, then we need to think of the other important word with the same form, NCR, meaning "branch" from Isa 11:1 (". . . from the stump of Jesse"), which is directly related in the Hebrew bible to David and has loud messianic overtones. It is nazarhnos which is thought to be originally related to both "to keep" and "branch" significances.

The name of the town, Nazareth, is also unaccounted for. I can give no explanation for the theta at the end of it. In fact in Mt 4:13 the name is given as Nazara (in the Westcott and Hort version, which for most scholars is thought to be the earliest version), and this name is a much better source for the term nazarhnos, though there is o trace in antiquity for such a place and may be best seen as a scribal construct, which assumes that nazarhnos comes from a reference to provenance and creates a source by removing the ending, hence the assumption nazarhnos < nazara. Later tradition shifts from Nazara to Nazaret/Nazareth.


spin

spin

I have just come across an abstract for an article by Michael Goulder, which says: Three of our oldest witnesses, Origen and P70 from the third century, and Eusebius from the fourth, read Nazara at Mat. 2:23, and this should be accepted as the original, as at 4:13.. I got it from here some time ago and forgot about it.

The presence of Nazara in Mt 4:13 is found in the Westcott and Hort edition of the text and not in the Byzantine, so it's the Alexandrian version of the text, which does have slightly more acceptance. Presumably Origen, from Alexandria would have been using the Alexandrian text. One has to guess that P70 generally reflects the Alexandrian along with Eusebius. If this is true then Goulder will be correct that Nazara should be accepted as original also in 2:23. The upshot of this is that two out of the three references to the town in Mt has the name Nazara and the third, being special Matthew material, could have been added at any time.

Add to this that there is also a mention of Nazara in Lk 4:15 (again W&H), and that Nazareth is only mentioned in the birth narrative, which again is a late addition to that text, we have good evidence that there was a period before the use of Nazareth that Nazara was accepted as Jesus's home.

You may ask about Mk 1:9 which tells us that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, hlqen ihsous apo nazaret ths galilaias, to be baptized, but the version in Mt, ihsous apo ths galilaias, doesn't support Mk, especially when we have Nazara being the underlying form in Mt. We have to assume that nazaret is a late addition into Mk to bring it into line with the other gospels and this scribal act has caused people to read Mark's nazarhnos as related to this town, when it is not derived from it at all -- how can a gentilic nazarhnos come from nazaret? You should expect nazarethnos.

So, CX, could you do me a favour and look at Nestle-Aland, if you have a copy -- and I got the impression you do --, could you tell me about the variants for nazara in Mt 2:23? Is P70 Alexandrian in nature? It will make the puzzle that one degree clearer.


spin