DCHindley

I searched for "spin" and read through as much of the back and forth between Spin and Tim ONeill as I could stand (about half of it) before I had to stop. If there was some sort of careful analysis of this Nazareth issue I didn't get to it.

If there is a reason why e-lists and discussion boards have lost so many well-read and serious armature critics to blogs is because of these kind of endless insult fests. Unfortunately, blogs are really just soap boxes to feed the vanity of the blog owner, and a lot of these armature critics have developed swelled heads. Only look at the gloating they express when their blogs enter into or advance in rank on the "Biblioblog 50" list.

This ego-centric sort of one-upmanship in boards, lists and blogs is really getting old ... does anyone else agree? Lurkers? :huh:

DCH

jgoodguy

According to the wiki.

Nazareth:
Was Small-thus possible to escape existing lists prior to 200CE.
Could be either one of two sites.
The traditionally site contains evidence of occupation in the 1st Century CE.
Has unambiguous human presence there from the 2nd century AD onward.

I would suggest that arguing that Nazareth did not exist in the 1st Century is not on solid ground.

dog-on

It's fun to argue about unresolvables, isn't it?

jgoodguy

Yes!:devil1:

ApostateAbe

There are many unresolvables. The existence of 1st-century Nazareth is not one of them.

DCHindley

The issue is actually quite complicated. According to Stephen C. Carlson, the variations to be found just in the canonical gospels are as follows:

Matt.	Mark	Luke
2:23a Nazaret	***	***
2:23b Nazorean	***	***
***	***	1:26 Nazareth
***	***	2:4 Nazareth
***	***	2:39 Nazareth
***	***	2:51 Nazareth
3:13 J from Galilee	1:9 J from Nazaret of Galilee	3:21 **
4:13 Nazara	1:14 **	4:14 **
(13:54) his hometown	(6:1) his hometown	4:16 Nazara
***	1:24 J the Nazarene	4:34 J the Nazarene
20:30 J *	10:47 J the Nazarene	18:37 J the Nazorean
21:11 J from Nazareth of G	11:11 **	19:45 **
26:69 J of Galilee	14:67 the Nazarene, J	(22:56) him
26:71 with J the Nazorean	14:69 of them	(22:58) of them
28:5 J *	16:6 J the Nazarene	24:5 the living
***	***	24:14 J the Nazarene

The table can be translated into Greek as follows: Nazorean for Greek Ναζωραῖος, Nazarene for Ναζαρηνός, Nazaret for Ναζαρέτ, Nazareth for Ναζαρέθ, and Nazara for Ναζαρά

Source: Hypotyposeis webblog page.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 5, ch 19. (23.) THE REMAINING PARTS OF SYRIA (translated by John Bostock, 1855) says:

We must now speak of the interior of Syria. Cœle Syria has the town of Apamea, divided by the river Marsyas from the Tetrarchy of the Nazerini (2)

(2) It is suggested, that these are the Phylarchi Arabes of Strabo, now called the Nosairis, who were situate to the east of Apamea. The river Marsyas here mentioned was a small tributary of the Orontes, into which it falls on the east side, near Apamea.

The exact Latin Phrase is "Nazerinorum tetrarchia" (see here), book 5 section 81). This web version is based on the Teubner edition of 1905, and comes from here.

Then there are the various spellings in early Christian literature (Epiphanius, Jerome, Theodoretus, Haimo of Auxerre, Petrus de Riga, The History of the Passion of the Lord) that refer to various groups that may or may not refer to a geographical designation:

See Ben C. Smith's Text Excavation pages for most of them in the original Greek or Latin, with English translations.

But, it will all be ignored ...

DCH

ApostateAbe

DCH, the way I see it, there is no way to easily and specifically explain all of the complicated variations of the spellings of "Nazareth" and "Nazarene," but you are welcome to try. It is merely a matter of a bunch of different authors hearing it pronounced many different ways as it was transliterated and it mythically evolved by word of mouth, having no common Greek method of either spelling it or pronouncing it. So, it is really about as "complicated" as a bowl of gelatin that has been spilled on the floor and trampled.

Sarai

Not by me, DCH! That's very interesting, I was not aware of the Pliny "Nazerini". From a bit more recent scholarship, The Roman Near East, 31 B.C. - A.D. 337 by Fergus Millar, 1993, it seems that the location of this "tetrarchy" is still uncertain. It would seem to me to be problematic since this would put the location far north of Galilee, even far north of Damascus, nowhere within the purview of any Herodian, at any time.

What I find quite interesting is this notice by Pliny and the DSS repeated fixation on Damascus. I wonder if there could be any connection...

Regards,
Sarai

Doug Shaver

Right. The Bible says it. I believe it. That resolves it.

ApostateAbe

Do you think that represents me?