Ben C Smith

I think it would be redundant in the gospel of Matthew as it stands. In 2.23 we already see Jesus living in Nazara (or Nazareth). In 4.13 Jesus is moving away from Nazara. In Mark, by contrast, the notice is our first introduction both to Jesus (besides the semi-titular 1.1) and to his place of origin.

In Luke the story is much the same; we already know about Nazareth (1.26; 2.4, 39, 51), and Luke gets around to Nazara (explicitly equating it with Nazareth; compare 2.51) in 4.16.

Besides, it is just poor methodology to suspect something in Mark based solely on the fact that both Matthew and Luke fail to reproduce it. Look at all the red in the middle column of my synopsis of this pericope. Those red words and phrases are the ones that neither Matthew and Luke copy over. Are they all suspect? Rather, the explanation for the vast majority of them is statistical; sometimes both M and L copy from K; sometimes only M does; sometimes only L does; sometimes neither does.

Ben.

spin

Once again Nazareth is later than Nazara though, isn't it! Nazareth is only in the Lucan birth narrative, which I'm sure you'll agree is an addition, while Nazara is connected to a Marcan passage that is earlier than its current location in Luke (the relocated hometown rejection).

But you know that it's not "solely" (though the Lucan data isn't useful to the discussion). There are more reasons, as you've been informed before, so the slight about poor methodology is empty rhetoric.

That is not an argument. There are different reasons why changes are made, additions, omissions, reorderings, rewritings.

Statistics isn't an explanatory tool.


spin

spin

See the last paragraph here for a few.

What a person can do is not relevant here. You need to read the context. What service that he came to do do you think was being referred to in the context? The defining act of Jesus's involvement in the world was the giving of his life as a ransom for many. If it were simply a list of two items, only the first deals with the context.


You don't argue merely on personal impressions, Ben C. Doesn't it just mean that the harder to identify you haven't identified?

Yup. Kai is very frequent.

I don't have bibleworks.
Various examples of epexegetical kai exist, noun phrase explanation, infinitive explanation, clause explanation. There is no reason to assume that the explanation must be short.

1. To the question "Why do you not understand what I say?", Jn 8:43a, Jesus answers himself, "It is because you cannot give ear to my word: You are from your father the devil kai you choose to do your father's desires." This kai is also epexegetical, as clause that follows explains the significance of the comment "You are from your father the devil", thus providing the answer to the question.
2. When, in Rev 20.4, one reads, "Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge kai the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God." Do you think those beheaded are other than those given authority to judge?

In both cases the epexegetical kai precedes full clauses.


spin

Ben C Smith

None of them follows the kai plus participle plus verb pattern so common in simple narrative, and most of them are quite questionable as epexegetical usages in the first place.

Here is the sort of thing I am talking about:

Genesis 3.6 (LXX): ...she saw that the tree was attractive for wisdom. And having taken of the fruit she ate it and gave it to her husband.

Exodus 12.27-28 (LXX): ...they bowed low and worshipped. And having gone away the sons of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses....

Leviticus 14.24 (LXX): ...he shall bring them... before the Lord. And having taken the lamb of offense and the cup of oil the priest shall offer them....

Numbers 11.26-27 (LXX): ...and they prophesied in the camp. And having run up the young man announced it to Moses and said....

Deuteronomy 1.44-45 (LXX): The Amorites... crushed you from Seir to Hormah. And having sat you wept before the Lord....

Matthew 4.1-2: And Jesus was led up... to be tempted by the devil. And having fasted forty days and forty nights he afterward hungered.

Even better:

Genesis 13.17-18: ...for I will give it to you. And having departed Abram, having gone, housed by the oak of Mamre....

Matthew 4.12-13: [Jesus] withdrew into Galilee. And having left Nazareth he, having gone, housed in Capernaum....

This narrative pattern is so common, as I said, I could produce literally hundreds of examples. In the above examples, selected virtually at random (except for the last two, of course), the pattern always moves the action forward. How often does it explain what went before in the epexegetical way you are seeing in Matthew 4.13?

Ben.

the_cave

I'm preparing a longer reply to all this, but I thought I would get started here:

I tend to agree with this anyway, but still think they could have entered Matthew at the same time. Matthew has the nazwraios prophecy, and is uninterested in calling Jesus nazarhnos. He knows Greek, so he invents Nazara, and uses nazwraios, erasing nazarhnos. What is so implausible about this? Matthew just thinks that calling Jesus both nazwraios and nazarhnos is confusing, and prefers the former.

As an example that it's not impossible for nazarhnos to become nazwraios, look at the textual variants for Mk 10:47. If it can happen in Mk itself, why not Mt?

This seems totally backwards to me--how did the Matthean community "learn" that Nazara was in Galilee, after original Matthew (which I'm going to call deutero-Matthew or dMt) was written?

ynquirer

The problem arises as soon as special assumptions are necessary to uphold a localized reading in order to contradict a broader reading – your parlance. If the goal is to take the text ‘as it is’, there ought to be no room for special assumptions.

An example of a special assumption is this:

By using ‘Zebulun and Naphtali’ as a synonym of Galilee, Isaiah would qualify as ignorant of other passages of the Hebrew Scripture. I can’t prove that Isaiah wasn’t that ignorant, I grant. Thus, it is one assumption against another. Still, the assumption of ignorance in this case is ‘more special’ – i.e. ad hoc of a prejudged reading of Mat 4:12-16 – than the opposite.

In other words, whoever affirms, in order to support a ‘localized reading’ of Mat 4:12-16, that Isaiah was ignorant of other passages of the Hebrew Scriptures, must altogether provide evidence of it. Otherwise, such a reading is suspect of being no less biased than the ‘broader reading’ it purports to contradict.

spamandham

I don't see what Isaiah did or didn't believe as particularly relevant. There is no appearance of any attempt by the authors of Mark to make the Gospel prophecy fulfillment claims exactly match the prophecies they are based on.

When I read "When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee. Leaving Nazara, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali...", it does come across in English at least, as implying Nazara is not in Galilee as long as you recognize that Capernaum is.

Mathew 4 continues from Mathew 3, but Mathew 3 is not a continuation of Matthew 2. Matthew 2 is a later insert. So, the sequence is

Galillee (unspecified location) -> Jordan river -> desert. Then he returns to Galilee *because he had heard John was in prison in Capernaum*.

There are two ways to read "he returned to Galilee. Leaving Nazara, he went and lived in Capernaum..." in this context, and I don't think quibbling over kai is the critical issue:

1) Nazara is in Galilee. This reading means that Jesus left the desert to go visit John in Capernaum and made an unexplained pitstop at Nazara. Why? Did he forget his sandals or something? This seems odd. Nazara is completely out of place in the sequence, and for no particular reason.

2) Nazara is in the desert (or state of mind in the desert?)* rather than a city in Galilee. Moving the punctuation around a bit, a better reading under this interpretation is "he returned to Galilee, leaving Nazara. He went and lived in Capernaum..."

The second interpretation, at least to me, makes more sense. If both Matthew 4 and his audience knew Nazara was in the desert (or a desert experience?), then the second sentence is just claifying detail for the first, and Nazara fits within it.

Although, I imagine we've put much more thought into this than the writer(s) did. He might have just screwed up, since the whole purpose of that passage is to show fulfillment of prophecy, rather than a geography lesson.


*try reading it with "Nirvana" substituted for Nazara. Hmmm...


***EDIT; Ok, the text never says John was in prison in Capernaum. That's my assumption, as I can't see why else Jesus would go to Capernaum inspired by the knowledge John was in prison.

andrewcriddle

I've suggested that in the present fom of the text, in which Nazareth is in Galilee and is where Jesus grew up, we would expect a return of Jesus to Galilee to be a return to Nazareth. But Jesus, (in fulfilment of prophecy), on returning to Galilee, moves his Galilean base from Nazareth to Capernaum
IMO the point is that after John's arrest, Jesus has no longer any reason to remain in Judea, ie in the area where John had been preaching. Hence Jesus goes back to Galilee.

Andrew Criddle

spin

This is far too arbitrary. You've seen that the epexegetical kai is productive with numerous structures. However, the recognition of this use of kai has been hampered by translation with equates kai with "and" rather than getting to what it really indicates. Now in this instance, you just want to say that, because the structure that you can manufacture hasn't been mined, the epexegetical kai can't be used that way.

The fact that Zebulun & Naphtali are an equivalent to Galilee where Jesus withdrew to. This is explained both by the following verse, ie that he left Nazara and moved to Capernaum. Understanding the kai as epexegetical agrees with the context.

How would you like the writer to have made such an explanation if they couldn't use the epexegetical kai because of the dictates of your grammar?


spin

spin

I've asked numerous times in and before this thread, if the Matthean writer knew and accepted nazwraios, why didn't he correct nazarhnos? Instead he omits them.

Do you accept the hypothesis that the Lucan writer used Matthew? If not, how did Luke get Nazara in 4:16? My response is that it arrived in both communities after the arrival of Mark, ie it was part of an evolved tradition.

If the Matthean writer had invented Nazara from nazarhnos, then I would expect nazarhnos to have been well regarded. If instead nazwraios were well regarded, why not *Nazora?

Not through morphological means.

Textual variants of this kind are usually sign of scribal activity. The Byzantine text tradition obviously preferred nazwraios.

Do you imagine the community was totally cut off from the rest of the world? Where did this community get its non-Marcan materials? We see signs of not only another written source but other material. The community got information from without, by hook or by crook.

Mt 4:12-16 indicates that Nazara was not in Galilee/Zebulun&Naphtali, but 2:23 does. 2:23 was the glue that attached the birth narrative.

Again, the process I've outlined in Matthew is:

1. nazarhnos is excised from the Marcan source;
2. Nazara enters the tradition and the conflict with Capernaum is resolved;
3. nazwraios is used to validate Nazara;
4. Nazareth enters the text later.

Do you now have any problems with this?


spin