noah

I asked a Christian about the abscence of the words Nazarene and Nazareth in the Old Testament. He gave me a response which I am not sure I understand. Can anyone help out with this? Thanks.

My NWT has these notes and cross-references:
"Nazareth"- Or, “Sprout-town.� Gr., Na·za·ret´; J22(Heb.), Na·tse´reth.
"Nazarene� J17,18,22(Heb.), Nots·ri´. Gr., Na·zo·rai´os; probably from Heb. ne´tser, meaning “sprout,� hence, figuratively “offspring.� See Isa 11:1 and ftn, “Sprout.�[/b[

“And there must go forth a twig [or, "rootstock"] out of the stump* of Jes´se; and out of his roots a sprout will be fruitful.� (Isa 11:1)
“And he will come up like a twig before one, and like a root out of waterless land. No stately form does he have, nor any splendor; and when we shall see him, there is not the appearance so that we should desire him.� (Isa 53:2)
““Look! There are days coming,� is the utterance of Jehovah, “and I will raise up to David a righteous sprout. And a king will certainly reign and act with discretion and execute justice and righteousness in the land.� (Jer 23:5)
““‘Hear, please, O Joshua the high priest, you and your companions who are sitting before you, for they are men [serving] as portents; for here I am bringing in my servant Sprout!� (Zec 3:8)

And:
“Philip found Na·than´a·el and said to him: “We have found the one of whom Moses, in the Law, and the Prophets wrote, Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Naz´a·reth.� But Na·than´a·el said to him: “Can anything good come out of Naz´a·reth?�"(Joh 1:45-46)
“Others were saying: “This is the Christ.� But some were saying: “The Christ is not actually coming out of Gal´i·lee, is he? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ is coming from the offspring of David, and from Beth´le·hem the village where David used to be?�" (Joh 7:41-42)

spin

If you check the archives you'll find that we've been all over the subject.

NCR "netser", the Hebrew for "branch", is a linguistic problem for those who want to claim that it is the source for Nazareth, for the Hebrew letter tsade, represented by me as C, is almost always rendered as an sigma, not a zeta, in Greek. It could easily be a part of the musing involved, but not sufficient.

Three of the four Hebrew bible citations given to you don't use the word netser, but synonyms and are therefore even less relevant.

One source word related to the complex is NZYR, Nazirite, found in Judges 13:5,7 and written in Greek, naziraios, which is very similar to Mt 2:23 nazwraios and the latter may be derived from the former through a simple and common scribal error. The passage relates to the birth of Samson, who would save Israel. Jesus comes from Yah shua, "Yah saves".

The Hebrew word for crown is NZR (also just ZR), nezer, may be a serious contender for the main root of nazarhnos, Nazarene, from which Nazara came from and, finally, related to the Galilean town, Nazareth, so that the normal tsade to sigma relationship was not maintained in the transliteration.

There is a complex set of linguistic relationships hidden behind the Greek words found in the gospels, which we render Nazarene, Nazorean, Nazara, and Nazareth.


spin

noah

I'll take a look in the archives. I'm new here. I realize some of my questions may well be redundant. I will search first then ask questions later from now on.

Amaleq13

That is never a bad idea. Here a few to start:

When is Nazareth first mentioned...

Nazarene Nazwaios...

A Few Questions on Nazareth (linguistic stuff starts on page 10)