spin

I believe Tobin (and thus his source) is wrong with the claim that nazarhnos ("h" = eta) could "simply mean someone from the town of Nazareth". The town of Nazareth is written ncrt in Hebrew, where the letter indicated by "c" is the Hebrew tsade. This letter, when transliterated into Greek is almost invariably written as a sigma, not a zeta which is invariably used for Nazareth. This makes the relationship between Nazareth and the Hebrew name problematical from the beginning.

Next, the word nazarhnos doesn't come from Nazareth, for the gentilic from Nazareth would be of the form nazarethnos, or nazaretaios, or similar, with the full name of the town.

Nazara

Strangely however, there is another form used for the name of Jesus hometown, Nazara, which is found in the Alexandrian tradition at Mt 4:13 and Lk 4:16, though there is also some manuscript evidence for this form at Mt 2:23. Such a town name would be able to produce the gentilic, nazarhnos, but then, one could also produce such a town name, by assuming that nazarhnos was a gentilic and working backwards to derive Nazara.

Lk only uses the name Nazareth in the birth narrative, a strictly Lucan addition to the gospel tradition. Beyond that the writer uses Nazara once, already cited at 4:16.

Mt uses Nazareth at 21:11, and most sources indicate Nazareth also at 2:23, though there are a few sources which have Nazara here as well as 4:13, making Nazara possibly better attested to in Mt.

Capernaum

Mk mentions Nazareth once at 1:9 and, though most scholars think that Mk was the source for both Mt and Lk, neither supports Mk here. Lk uses different material, while Mt has "Jesus came from Galilee" compared with Mk "Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee". The presence of Nazareth in Mk is questionable, for though it is supported in all the earliest manuscripts, it is not supported in Mt, nor is the writer of Mk aware that any town than Capernaum is Jesus' hometown, 2:1.

Nazareth is clearly not part of the earliest layers of the gospel story, yet Mt needs to accommodate Capernaum when he is aware of the Nazara tradition, as the Matthean gospel moves Jesus from Nazara to Capernaum.

(Some analyses which don't accept Mk as the principal source argue that the use of Nazara in Mt 4:13 and Lk 4:16 are an agreement of an earlier gospel tradition shared between the two, however, the Lucan text is merely the hometown rejection tradition found in the other synoptics and developed by the writer to include a later reference to Capernaum, which is all moved to the earlier location in Lk and placing the passage before the first mention of Capernaum 4:31. This means that Nazara is neither part of an earlier tradition nor an indicator of an alternative solution to the synoptic problem.)

In earlier write-ups on this subject I note that for some reason Mt removes all references to nazarhnos that were found in Mk. The most common reason that Mt removes material from the Marcan source is because of obscurity -- Mt also removes references to Herodians found in Mk. This removal shows that the Mt writer didn't find any use for nazarhnos, though had Mk had a reference to Nazareth at 1:9, it would be hard for the Mt writer not to make a connection. However, no connection was made; nazarhnos was removed from thesource and it is extremely unlikely that the Mk 1:9 reference to Nazareth was there. If this is correct, then the Mt writer hadn't been acquainted with Nazara as yet.

Mt 2:23 shows a relationship between nazwraios, a reference to Jesus not seen in this post so far, and Nazareth, or more probably Nazara, which is found in Codex Bezae as well as Origen and Eusebius. This means that there have been at least two editions of Mt: one which removed the references to nazarhnos and one which later added both Nazara and the nazwraios traditions.

One thing common to all the references mentioned so far, nazarhnos, nazwraios, Nazara and Nazareth, is that they invariably use a zeta as the second consonant. Some of the hypothesized etymologies for these terms are the Hebrew verb ncr which means "to keep or watch", and found in terms such as "notzri ha-brit", the keepers of the covenant, and the Hebrew noun of the same form ncr which means branch or shoot, see Isa 11:1 with it's reference to David as the branch of Jesse. However, neither of these are of primary importance as they both have a tsade as the second consonant, which transliterated into Greek is usually a sigma, yet sigma is never used in the Greek words we are dealing with. This means that Tobin is again probably wrong with his etymological suggestions.

Nazirite/nezer

I am now required to posit some etymology of my own for the terms under discussion. Fortunately this isn't difficult. Mt 2:23 refers us to an unnamed prophet in the use of nazwraios and we need not go further than the LXX of Jgs 13:5, referring to Samson, "the child will be a Nazirite nazeiraios to god from birth and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines." With a slight change of nazeiraios we get nazwraios, and it's not difficult to see that a Nazirite was a holy one (and it is often translated thus into Greek).

However, one cannot derive nazarhnos from nzyr, which should have a long second vowel, but never fear, there is a related source, nzr meaning crown, especially the crown of the high priest (in Exo & Lev), a symbol which ties spiritual power to royal power (2 Kgs 11:12). This second form did not prove to be popular enough and functionally died with its use in Mk (though Lk preserves it once at 4:34).

Nazara/Nazareth

The last thing that needs explaining is what happened to Nazara? It seems to have been the earliest form of the name, albeit only theoretically, having probably been formed by a back-formation from nazarhnos. Eventually one would have to look for this home town and be disappointed with not finding a Nazara anywhere, though there was a Hebrew town ncrt, which one could conceive as a Hebrew source for the name known in Greek as Nazara. This discovery would lead to changing the name from Nazara to Nazareth, which is close enough to the Hebrew, yet maintain enough of the earlier form in Greek.

(Some people have argued that the town of Nazareth didn't exist in the first century. While this may possibly be true, such a town certainly existed before the 4th century as an epigraph from the floor of a synagogue in Caesarea mentions ncrt. I tend therefore to see that there probably was a town earlier. Whatever the case, it has no impact on the analysis given here.)

We can see in the early synoptic tradition no support for the oft used reference "Jesus of Nazareth". It seems to be a rather late form, found once at Mt 21:11 in an expansion of an earlier Marcan passage, though this apparently doesn't reflect the work of the Mt tradition which knew the form Nazara. It therefore should be seen as a scribal intervention, just as must be seen the change from Nazara to Nazareth in various synoptic manuscripts.

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Harsh criticisms of this material are earnestly sought. As I feel relatively close to being able to write a fully fledged paper on the subject for a peer-review journal, I would like any surprises to come now rather than then.


spin

Toto

I've split this off to give it the attention it deserves.

S.C.Carlson

I'm a little confused by this. Nazara in Matt 4:13 and Luke 4:16 has been used as an indicator of an alternative solution to the synoptic problem--the Farrer theory--which does accept Mark priority. The (non)existence of Q is their target.

Speaking of Q, the International Q Project has included "Nazara" at Q 4:16 with a "{B}" level of certainty defined as "'a convincing probability": there may be good arguments on both sides of the question, but the arguments on one side clearly outweigh the other side."

For a wealth of material about Nazara, please see: Shawn Carruth and James M. Robinson, Q 4:1-13, 16: The Temptations of Jesus, Nazara (Documenta Q; ed., Christoph Heil; Leuven: Peeters, 1996).

Stephen

spin

Yes, you are right. It was merely the minor agreement which supported the Farrar theory that I had in mind when I wrote this up.

The issue I specifically dealt with in the parenthesis is that the original location of the Lk passage mentioning Nazara was elsewhere and reflects a late redactional move. Much of the logic that wants this to be a minor agreement falls apart due to the fact of this movement.

Thank you for the reference, which I'll have to look into.


spin

Aspirin99

This is good stuff. I'm bookmarking it for future study. Thanks.