TedM

I think the reason I see your questions on this as bizarre is that it makes no sense to view the phrase 'Jesus of Nazareth' as a name. His name was Jesus, not Jesus of Nazareth. James' name was James, not James the Justice, or James of Nazareth, or James, the Lord's brother.

'Jesus called Christ' and 'Jesus of Nazareth' are descriptions. People use the descriptions that they prefer to use. It is as simple as that.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

I am not assuming that Jesus existed. I am assuming that Jesus stories existed where he was referred to as a Nazarene or Nazorean.

Matthew's birth narrative ends with with the statement that he was called a Nazarene because he went to live in Nazareth after coming back from Egypt.

Nazarenes are associated with birth stories in Hebrew literature (both Samson and Samuel):

While the birth story of Samuel does not use the word Nazirite. It is clear from Numbers that he is a Nazirite:

Here is Hannah's story of her dedicating her son Samuel to the Lord:

The punchline of both these birthstories is that the child ends up being a Nazirite.

We may assume that the punchline of the material that Matthew was working from was that the child ended up being a Nazirite, a servant of the Lord. Since Matthew is pushing the idea that Jesus is the son of God and not a servant of God, Matthew has to change the punchline of the story.

Luke simply follows Matthew here and when he edits Mark and John, he simply changes the four references to Jesus the Nazirite/Nazorene/Nazorean in each of them to Jesus of Nazareth.



Warmly,

Jay Raskin

aa5874

Once you understand that "Nazarenes" are associated with Hebrew literature then there is NO need to make any assumption that there were stories about Jesus as a Nazarene.

It must be expected that any person familiar with Hebrew literature could INVENT stories about a Nazarene.

After all, it would appear some stories in Hebrew literature was INVENTED.

And, according to gMatthew, all the things Jesus did was to FULFILL Hebrew Sacred LITERATURE.

Matthew 1:22 - Jesus in gMatthew RODE TWO donkeys simultaneously because of Hebrew Sacred Literature. See Matthew 21.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

I think we can either make the assumption that Matthew was the first one to create the birth story from Hebrew literature or we can make the assumption that he was changing a previous birth story based on Hebrew literature.

Given the variation in Jesus stories from the second century, I see no reason to assume Matthew was first. He could have been second, third, or twenty-third. We have at least 15 different versions of Jesus post-resurrection appearance or appearances. We have 3 different versions of a birth narrative when we include "the protoevangelium of Peter.

At the height of his comic book popularity, tales of Superman appeared in seven different comic books monthly - "Superman," "Action Comics" "World's Finest" "Superman's Pal: Jimmy Olsen" "Superman's Girl Friend: Lois Land," and "Justice League of America," "Superboy,"

The publication history of Jesus stories are, unfortunately, more obscure, but we should expect that there were more than the 35 gospels we now know existed.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

spin

Just to nudge you a bit, check out 4QSam^a on the issue. It's explicit. (See for example, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (or via: amazon.co.uk), Abegg et al., p.215.)

While I think your post is generally on the right track, this last sentence is totally incorrect, probably based on an incoherent bible translation. Luke in fact uses Ναζαρηνος twice and Ναζωραιος once. One Ναζαρηνος and the Ναζωραιος reflect the Marcan original. The only place the Lucan writer uses "Nazareth" is in his unique birth narrative.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Spin,

Thanks.

Yes, the dead sea scroll 4QSam^a does say I will [dedicate] him as a nazirite.

Thanks for pointing out also that the synoptics and Acts uses Ναζαρηνος and it is translated most frequently as from of Nazareth, instead of Nazarene.

warmly,

Jay Raskin

aa5874

I made NO claim that gMatthew was first. And further, I do not even accept that any of the Canonised Jesus stories were written in the 1st century when Justin Martyr did NOT account for any known authors of the Jesus stories.

Again, I did NOT claim gMatthew was first. ALL we have are written statements and it is likely that any author could have INVENTED parts of the Jesus story that are NOT found in other gospels.

Just like the author of Jesus was the only author to claim Jesus rode TWO donkeys simultaneously there may be other claims that only gMatthew made.

spin

Just to be clear Ναζαρηνος is only used in Mark and Luke. The other gospels and Acts use Ναζωραιος. (Of course the noun "Nazareth" is found in all gospels and Acts, along with Ναζαρα in Mt and Lk.)

mountainman

Hi Philosopher Jay,

Very interesting data. Was there a "canonical" Superman in the sense that various parties battled out the intellectual property rights to the name and theme of Superman, or did various authorship parties co-exist. How many years, and generations would it take to span the development of the kernel of the Superman industry?

What would such an industry look like after a century or two?


Best wishes


Pete

aa5874

It is just mind-boggling to me that some people here assume gMark contains the history of a man from Nazareth when the author did NOT even claim he was writing history.

It is CLEAR that gMark needed a Non-human character for his Jesus story and made sure he portrayed his Jesus being able to FORGIVE the Sins of Jews, carrying out IMPLAUSIBLE miracles, was WITNESSED walking on water, was SEEN TRANSFIGURED, and was claimed to be RAISED from the dead as his own Jesus PREDICTED.

Any claim that Jesus of Nazareth was an ordinary man in gMark NEEDS EXTERNAL sources.

Any claim that Jesus of Nazareth was an ordinary INSTANTLY Discredits gMark's description of the activities of Jesus.

There MUST be an EXTERNAL source to corroborate any claim that Jesus of Nazareth was an ordinary man.

There is NONE.

Jesus of Nazareth was most likely a Myth fable of antiquity that people BELIEVED.