Doug Shaver

I agree that the early-first-century nonexistence of Nazareth is not the demonstrable fact that so many skeptics seem to think it is. However . . . .
Where does the Bible do that?

Diogenes the Cynic

[Guessing] Maybe it's implied by Luke's claim that Nazareth had a synagogue? That's the only thing I can think of that would suggest any size.

Chris Weimer

I must regress. I must have been confusing Nazareth with something else when I made this note... I cannot find what I thought I had found earlier. If I happen to stumble upon it again, I'll let you know. And no, the synagogues in Luke is not what I had in mind - how large would a "town" be to have such a synagogue anyway? I wouldn't think it would take much at all.

Amaleq13

I don't know if it helps but Ted Hoffman started a thread last year about the size of Nazareth:

Nazareth was a small Village of No Importance

mikem

I have read your commentary. You have clearly gone to a lot of effort. However you have not really said anything that hasn't been said by scholars before. No one is denying the dependence of the gospel authors upon the Old Testament. They are deliverately drawing attention to Old Testament motifs to proclaim Jesus as the fulfilment of OT hopes. I have already noted this in a previous post. I do not accept however the conclusion that because there are clear echoes of the OT here, that it is therefore unhistorical. Apply that logic and you could say that nothing described in the gospels happened at all, unless of course that is the position you are taking.

You overlook the possibility that Jesus action is deliberately intended to evoke it's Old Testament parallels in the minds of those present, and that he was carring out a symbolic action to indicate that the old era was ending, and a new one would soon begin. Mark picks up on the den of robbers quotation, other gospel writers pick up on other things, like the saying about destroying and rebuilding the temple. The two references do not contradict each other.

And wherever do you get the notion that Jesus was quoting scripture at the same time that he was overturning money changers tables? That is really desperate! Mark is giving us in a snapshot a story of Jesus carried out a demonstration, and delivered a verbal challenge. Your treatment of this scene is eisegesis not exegesis.

Here's interesting - Amaleq says that Jesus would have been immediately arrested by the Romans, you say that his demo would have neen barely noticed - which is it to be?

Xtian fundamentalists have tied their flag firmly to the mast of inerrancy, so every incident in the Bible has to conform to modern standards of historical scholarship. Their opponents therefore think that they have to attempt to discredit the bible on the grounds of it's non accuracy by our own standards It locks what could be a very interesting debate about the Bible into this argument about accurate/inaccurate. It would be a far more fruitful approach to try and understand the Bible in it's own terms, and not impose our own cultural values and ideological interests on it.

mikem

Some scholars think that Jesus demo. would have hardly been noticed. Jesus demo occurred inside the temple area which was under the jurisdiction of Caiaphas, who had his own non Roman Temple guard. They would have probably noticed any disruption, and dealt with it, not Romans.

It is highly unlikely that had he demonstrated outside and Roman soldiers had intervened, he would have been killed where he stood. They were there to maintain order. To have killed a Jew just for causing a rumpus is more likely to have caused a riot than prevented one don't you think?

How does John moving the scene to the beginning of his gospel make it less likely to be historical? I would say that it would make it more likely. Gospel authors moved events around to suit their purposes - that doesn't make them less likely.

Demonstrating in the temple was hardly a damning charge. As I said above, blaspemy was a damning charge, upseting the local money changers was just a disruption of the peace. And what makes you think the charges were false? The gospels tell us that Jesus did predict the destruction of the temple - this is what got under Caiaphas' collar, and persuaded him that Jesus message was dangerous, and a threat to his own position supported as it was by Romans.

I think that it makes very good narrative sense.

mikem

Knowing the source doesn't make a story reliable, unless you can trust the source. Not knowing a source means that you have to establish reliability on other grounds.

Independent attestation is always useful, but not an absolute requirement.

I would also add the criteria of internal coherence and fitting in with background knowledge. In the case of the narratives of Jesus last week, these are important criteria, unless you are also prepared to accept that it is also based on eyewitness testimony i.e Peter.

Vorkosigan

The argument isn't that there are clear echoes of the OT -- it is that the scene depicted in the Gospels could never have happened as it is socially and physically impossible.

But more importantly, the argument is not that there are clear echoes of the NT -- it is that the scene is constructed out it of the OT, not merely embellished with it. Each and every detail in there is either Markan invention or Markan fiction off the OT. There is no reason to see any of it as history. At every level it is a fiction.

And yes, as far as I can see there is no history in the gospels.

What action? He walked into the most politically and religiously sensitive building for 250 kms in any direction, and starts overturning the established order? Cut me a break! It is ridiculous as depicted. How did Jesus "prevent the movement of vessels/merchandise through the temple" that was 35 football fields in size with just a group of apostles? How did he carry out this action in the face of crowds and guards? The whole thing is farcical.

Well, I got the idea from reading the text, in which as I understand it the action of teaching occurs at the same time the action of tossing the tables does.

It's even more interesting that you didn't notice that these two positions don't conflict, anymore than the majority of the crowd at a football game notices that some brawlers in the corner have been arrested by the police. You can resolve the apparent paradox by noting that unlike ordinary people, security forces are paid to keep an eye on things.

I agree. It would also be far more fruitful to stop presenting vapid moralizing, which is both tiresome and shallow. Far more than you, I have tried to understand this text in its own terms.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Luke refers to Nazareth as a polis as I recall in Luke 2, as does Mt in 2:23

"Kai eltheon, katokesen eis polis legomenen Nazareth; opos plerothe to pethen dia propheton oti Nazaraios klethesetai."

Just google this and you'll read lots of interesting stuff.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Karl Popper noted in his famous discussion of falsifiability that the thing about Marxism that made it so successful was that it was essentially not falsifiable. Each time something occurred that the believer in Marxism could experience as negatively affecting his belief, he could raise an auxiliary hypothesis to explain the problem.

There is no way I can refute your claim that "the historically plausible elemnts of the Gospels originated with a man named Jesus" because as I show that at each level the gospel is a fiction, you will simply reduce the size of the historical kernel. This "kernelization" strategy is important, because it is irrefutable. If it is demonstrated that a gospel scene is heavily overlain with the OT, it is embellished. If the embellishments are removed and what's left is demonstratably fiction, then it covers a "kernel." If I can show that at the level of trope, convention, and details it is all readable as fiction, why then, it displays an attitude: Jesus didn't trash the temple, but he spoke out against it. As long as you can keep reducing the size of the kernel, I can't beat your strategy.

So here's the way out: I have explained why, at every level, the Temple Tantrum is a fiction through and through. Fiction is the best explanation for the existence of the story. It is now up to you to show why a historical core is a better explanation than fiction.

As I said, this "historical core" is an auxiliary hypothesis that I have no way to defeat, since it does not depend on any dataset to support it.

It is up to you to defend this position -- I have already shown that the Temple Tantrum is best understood as a fiction (I have other arguments that I have not yet deployed).

Vorkosigan