Ben C Smith

Mentally remove the Nazara episode from Luke altogether. What in the remaining text tells us that Capernaum was home to Jesus?

If there is something in the Luke that remains that tells us that Capernaum was home to Jesus, show it to me. If, on the other hand, there is nothing in the Luke that remains that tells us that Capernaum was home to Jesus, then clearly the Nazara episode had nothing to do with supplanting Capernaum, since there would be in that case nothing to supplant.

Luke did not need to move the Nazareth episode in order to spurn Capernaum. That work had already been done by removing (for whatever reason) all Marcan references to Jesus being in the house, at the house, at home, or what have you in Capernaum.

Let us turn this around for a minute. On your terms, Luke and Matthew are independent, which means that it really does not matter who put Nazara here first, since each did it without reference to the other anyway.

So let us imagine that Luke had a splendid reason for wanting to put Nazara between Galilee and Capernaum. Why then did Matthew do so? How did Matthew know that Jesus visited Nazara between the temptation and his first visit to Capernaum?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I am saying that the redactional process by different authors is less likely than that the authors themselves redacted their own texts in the process of composing.

It is indicative of the general process of text production. It is just that before publication it is generally done by the author himself whereas after publication it is generally done by others (scribes, redactors, Marcion).

Pardon? I am a Q skeptic. I think Nazara in Luke came from Matthew, not from Q.

And the placement of Nazara in Q hardly needs revived; it is the current majority position on Q, I believe.

How did I know you would say this?

Defoe wrote his conflicting statements into the same paragraph. The length of the rest of the novel is irrelevant.

Ben.

Amaleq13

This inspired me to check Kloppenborg (Excavating Q) and I found something quite interesting. After describing and discussing the cities named in Q as existing in a bullseye-like set of circles, Kloppenborg continues referencing Reed and notes:

"Reed suggests that this "map" draws attention to a Galilean center, with Kefar Nahum situated at the hub...It is perhaps rather speculative to identify Kefar Nahum as the center of Q's map on the basis of concentric constructions...Nonetheless, there is a particular focus on Kefar Nahum in the final form of Q insofar as Q's geographical markers move from the "circuit of Jordan" (3:3) to the wilderness [of Judea?] (4:1), to Nazara (4:16), and then focuses on Kefar Nahum from 7:1 to at least 10:15, where the town is addressed directly (Greek letters I don't know how to type ). (p.174)

Ben C Smith

Yes, I vaguely recall something like that from the book. Thanks for the reference. I have not looked over Excavating Q for a while.

If Q existed, and if it matched in some way the form hypothesized for it by modern Q scholars like Kloppenborg, I agree that it has quite a bit to do with Capernaum.

I think Mark himself makes it fairly clear that Jesus made Capernaum his center of operations. One live question for me is whether Mark is thinking about the house of Peter as home for Jesus; that is, after all, where Jesus spends his first recorded night in Capernaum in Mark. Maybe when Mark later says that Jesus is home, he means that he is back where Peter lived, using his house as his home base.

Ben.

spin

Without a substitute the hometown rejection remains nameless. Mark supplies Capernaum, which Matt accepts.

It's funny to talk of something between Galilee and Capernaum, seeing that Capernaum is in Galilee. Perhaps I don't understand your question. Nazara is in Mt 2:23. Matt has the problem of needing to move Jesus to Capernaum. The choices of when are limited. Luke on the other hand by suppressing Capernaum has to offer something else, but already has something else. The solution of best location is before the references to Capernaum, which gives Nazara priority. As it is a part of the tradition, shown by the fact that both Matt and Luke attest to it independently, it needs to be dealt with as reasonably as possible.


spin

spin

But why can't it mean what it says?


spin

Amaleq13

I would have to reread the relevant portions but I don't think the layered structure Kloppenborg suggests is required for the conclusion. IIRC, Reed essentially took all the place names included in Q and looked at a map.

I'm not sure how (or why) we might expect the author to differentiate between a "home base" and a "hometown". Especially if the "home base" was not recently established.

I refer to myself as being from Eagle River, Alaska but my original hometown is in Illinois. When I talk about visiting my parents there, I often refer to it as "going home" even though I haven't lived with them since I was 17.

ynquirer

Why must 21st century residence conventions in North America apply in first-century Palestine?

Ben C Smith

If you just cannot accept Luke both having written the Capernaum line and having moved the Nazara episode forward, there is an easy way out. Just assume the entire Nazara episode came to Luke, not from Mark, but from some other tradition, as it stands, Capernaum line and Nazara setting and all. Then Luke just located the non-Marcan pericope within his Marcan framework awkwardly, given the Capernaum line.

Trouble is, this scenario (which has been proposed before, IIUC) does nothing for your view. It has non-Marcan tradition helping to locate the Marcan pericope 6.1-6a in Nazara/Nazareth.

Yes. I mean between Galilee and Capernaum in a literary sense. All three synoptic mention the return to Galilee in Matthew 4.12 = Mark 1.14 = Luke 4.14-15. Then Matthew and Luke immediately mention the visit to Nazara (by that name) in Matthew 4.13a; Luke 4.16-30. Then both Matthew and Luke immediately have Jesus going into Capernaum. Mark lacks a visit to Nazara here.

Again, this is the point that is in dispute. I dispute that Matthew and Luke are independent on that point. However, if they are independent, then I see it as too much of a coincidence that they both have Jesus going back to Galilee, then visiting Nazara (against Mark), then going into Capernaum immediately afterward (Mark has a delay).

You say that Matthew had to locate this move before his first mention to Capernaum, and that is fine, but Matthew has manufactured this mention of Capernaum; he did not get it from Mark, at least not directly. Mark first mentions Capernaum in 1.21, an episode which Matthew skips. Mark next mentions Capernaum in 2.1, an episode which Matthew suspends until chapter 9.

So Matthew was not compelled, at least not by Mark, to touch upon either Nazara or Capernaum right after mentioning the return to Galilee in 4.12. Yet there they are, in parallel with Nazara and Capernaum in Luke, who moved them there for completely different reasons.

My own view is that Luke knew Matthew. He read Matthew 4.12-13, which has Nazara and then Galilee, and decided to move his only Nazara event (gleaned and modified from Mark 6.1-6a) into that slot in parallel with the brief mention in Matthew. He may have done this under the influence of outside traditions, too, but I doubt he and Matthew are independent here.

On the same subject, here is why IMHO the town in Mark 6.1-6a is not Capernaum. Already in Mark we have seen quite a few events in Capernaum, many of them miracles. In Capernaum Jesus has cast out a demoniac (1.21-28), healed a woman (1.29-31), healed many more (1.32-34), and healed a paralytic (2.1-12). In each relevant case the crowd reacts positively(1.27, 33; 2.2, 12). But in the hometown of Mark 6.1-6a the reaction is negative (6.3-4) and the emphasis is on how few miracles he could do there for their lack of faith (6.5).

Even the way of introducing the town in Mark 6.1 is not the norm for Capernaum. It says that Jesus came to his fatherland; nowhere is Capernaum described by this word, but it would be a good word to use in order to distinguish his old stomping grounds from his current abode in Capernaum. Mark 6.4 uses the same word again, and in a way that virtually has to exclude Capernaum as this town. Jesus says that a prophet is not without honor except in his fatherland. But Jesus has received plenty of honor already in Capernaum. His statement would be proven false to the reader before he even uttered it if Capernaum is the town in 6.1-6a.

One last consideration. It makes more sense to me that Mark 6.1-6a would be his last visit to the town that knew him and rejected him than that Jesus would casually return to this same town as if nothing had happened. Yet Jesus returns casually to Capernaum in Mark 9.33 and possibly already as of Mark 7.17, depending on how we read the expression came into a house (or came home).

To my mind, making Mark 6.1-6a refer to Capernaum makes mincemeat of the narrative logic. So, if it is not Capernaum, what town is it? I think Mark has already told us by calling Jesus the Nazarene.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

That is not what I meant. I meant if Q contains the portions that are assigned to Q (at any level), since there is always room from debate on whether some passages might not have come from some other source besides Q.

In Greek a distinction between point of origination and present abode is easy to make, and I think Mark has made it. He calls Capernaum home (using οικος expressions) and the town in 6.1-6a the fatherland (πατρις), a word cognate with the Greek word for father.

There are many for whom point of origination and present abode would be the same place, of course (they simply stayed where they were reared). But the distinction seems quite clear in the case of Jesus.

Ben.