Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ApostateAbe · 11-18-2009, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Equally valid? The validity of an explanation rests on probability, and the most probable explanation is that the gospel authors knew that Jesus was from Nazareth but they didn't know anything about it. Jesus had the title, "Jesus of Nazareth," or "Ihsou tou Nazwraiou" because that was a standard way men were identified (i.e. Joseph of Arimathea, Saul of Tarsus).

ΙΗΣΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΥ (Ihsou tou nazwraiou) is only used in Matthew 26:7. A similar phrase is used in John 19:19 (ihsou o nazwraiou) and Luke 24:19 (ihsou tou nazarhnou).

If Mark 1:9 is an interpolation or copy error (his only use of the word "Nazareth") then Jesus being "from" Nazareth is a post Markan. Later in Mark, the author makes it seem as though Jesus is from Capernaum.

If you read Judges 13:5,7 out of context like how Matthew read Isaiah 7:14 out of context, it looks like a messainic prophecy with a similar sounding word. It seems as though prophetic verses were recalled from memory, not by reading them while writing new text. Thus the nazirite of Judges might sound a lot like the nazarene of Mark. The ΝΑΖΙΡΑΙΟΣ (naziraios) of Judges 13:5,7 sounds an awful lot like the ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΣ (nazoraios) of Matthew 2:23.

The canonical gospels and Acts uses "Nazarene" six times, while "Nazorean" is used 13 times; with "Nazorean" never occuring in Mark.

The gospel of Phillip says that the root "nazara" means "truth". This gives the place where Jesus is from Gnostic significance. Jesus the Nazarene might mean Jesus the Truth (John 14:6).

Quote:

Originally Posted by gospel of Philip

The apostles who were before us had these names for him: "Jesus, the Nazorean, Messiah", that is, "Jesus, the Nazorean, the Christ". The last name is "Christ", the first is "Jesus", that in the middle is "the Nazarene". "Messiah" has two meanings, both "the Christ" and "the measured". "Jesus" in Hebrew is "the redemption". "Nazara" is "the Truth". "The Nazarene" then, is "the Truth".

But the canonical gospels repeatedly refer to "Nazareth," in whatever linguistic form, as a city in Galilee. The gospel of Phillip is at least 100 years later than that.

spin · 11-18-2009, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

I believe that Nazara is a back-formation of the Greek adjective nazarhnos, working back from a gentilic to its source, as one might from gadarhnos, "Gadarene", to Gadara, however, upon research, there proved to be no Nazara -- but there was a Nazareth.

Tertullian refers to a "prophecy" regarding the christ in Contra Marcion 4.8.1: "Her Nazarites were whiter than snow;" (Lam 4:7). Actually the original Hebrew should be translated as "Nazirite", though the Latin tradition followed by Tertullian and the later Vulgate have "nazarei". Eusebius offers another Greek Jewish source for Nazarene in the Dem. Ev., so that there is a relatively strong alternative etymology known by church fathers about the term nazarenos. It all ultimately derives from the Hebrew word NZR, the source for "Nazirite", "consacration" and "crown", all terms relevant to the messiah. Even Matt 2:23 points back to Jdg 13:5, 7 and the birth of the most famous Nazirite, Samson. So Nazarene might refer back to the Nazirite persuasion, or it might be a later recycling of biblical ideas in a newer religious group, whose name apparently eventually goes back to the Hebrew NZR. Jesus Nazarene would then be a reference to a specific member and from the indications he was messianic in stature.

I can see how the similar terms would lead to confusion for non-native speakers.

There's little confusion when it doesn't make it into the translation.

However, you skirt around the bigger issue, which is the fact that Nazareth is not in the synoptic tradition, but has been imposed upon it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

For me, the doubt about what "Jesus of Nazareth" or whatever really refers to should be resolved by there being a Nazareth in Galilee dating back to 300 CE at the latest,...

When Nazareth isn't part of the earliest tradition, it doesn't matter when the town came into existence. The town has nothing to do with any history of Jesus.

spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

...when it was a sizable city, and I think the biggest hurdle would be to establish the probability that the town could have founded ad hoc, to compete with the theory that Nazareth was small at the time and the Greek writers got the size of the town wrong, which still seems more likely, since I know they got plenty of things wrong and some things right.

show_no_mercy · 11-18-2009, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

ΙΗΣΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΥ (Ihsou tou nazwraiou) is only used in Matthew 26:7. A similar phrase is used in John 19:19 (ihsou o nazwraiou) and Luke 24:19 (ihsou tou nazarhnou).

If Mark 1:9 is an interpolation or copy error (his only use of the word "Nazareth") then Jesus being "from" Nazareth is a post Markan. Later in Mark, the author makes it seem as though Jesus is from Capernaum.

If you read Judges 13:5,7 out of context like how Matthew read Isaiah 7:14 out of context, it looks like a messainic prophecy with a similar sounding word. It seems as though prophetic verses were recalled from memory, not by reading them while writing new text. Thus the nazirite of Judges might sound a lot like the nazarene of Mark. The ΝΑΖΙΡΑΙΟΣ (naziraios) of Judges 13:5,7 sounds an awful lot like the ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΣ (nazoraios) of Matthew 2:23.

The canonical gospels and Acts uses "Nazarene" six times, while "Nazorean" is used 13 times; with "Nazorean" never occuring in Mark.

The gospel of Phillip says that the root "nazara" means "truth". This gives the place where Jesus is from Gnostic significance. Jesus the Nazarene might mean Jesus the Truth (John 14:6).

But the canonical gospels repeatedly refer to "Nazareth," in whatever linguistic form, as a city in Galilee. The gospel of Phillip is at least 100 years later than that.

Well I think the "canonical" gospels got their final form sometime around 130 - 150 CE. With Philip being sometime in the late 2nd or early 3rd. No matter, though. Philip was probably just doing some wacky exegesis of John 14:6 trying to figure out why Jesus was a Nazarene.

spin · 11-18-2009, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

ΙΗΣΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΥ (Ihsou tou nazwraiou) is only used in Matthew 26:7. A similar phrase is used in John 19:19 (ihsou o nazwraiou) and Luke 24:19 (ihsou tou nazarhnou).

If Mark 1:9 is an interpolation or copy error (his only use of the word "Nazareth") then Jesus being "from" Nazareth is a post Markan. Later in Mark, the author makes it seem as though Jesus is from Capernaum.

If you read Judges 13:5,7 out of context like how Matthew read Isaiah 7:14 out of context, it looks like a messainic prophecy with a similar sounding word. It seems as though prophetic verses were recalled from memory, not by reading them while writing new text. Thus the nazirite of Judges might sound a lot like the nazarene of Mark. The ΝΑΖΙΡΑΙΟΣ (naziraios) of Judges 13:5,7 sounds an awful lot like the ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΣ (nazoraios) of Matthew 2:23.

The canonical gospels and Acts uses "Nazarene" six times, while "Nazorean" is used 13 times; with "Nazorean" never occuring in Mark.

The gospel of Phillip says that the root "nazara" means "truth". This gives the place where Jesus is from Gnostic significance. Jesus the Nazarene might mean Jesus the Truth (John 14:6).

But the canonical gospels repeatedly refer to "Nazareth," in whatever linguistic form, as a city in Galilee. The gospel of Phillip is at least 100 years later than that.

Please document this claim that 'the canonical gospels repeatedly refer to "Nazareth," in whatever linguistic form, as a city in Galilee'.

Do you miss out the fact that there is no obvious connection between Nazarene/Nazorean and Nazareth other than partial appearance? Are you simply going to assume more unfounded stuff?

As I have said a number of times on this forum, the Hebrew name of the town NCRT has a tsade as the second consonant, which is almost always transliterated as a sigma in Greek, yet on every occasion in the gospels the Greek form doesn't have a sigma, but a zeta. The Greek form isn't directly derived from the Hebrew/Aramaic form, which you would expect if the tradition were veracious.

spin

spamandham · 11-18-2009, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

For me, the doubt about what "Jesus of Nazareth" or whatever really refers to should be resolved by there being a Nazareth in Galilee dating back to 300 CE at the latest, when it was a sizable city,

I guess I'm not following. In 300 CE, Nazareth was not a sizable city, it was still a lost city. No-one knew where it was until Empress Helena declared it found in the latter 4th century.

It seems extremely unlikely to me that the modern day location of Nazareth is the historical location, assuming there was a historical Nazareth in the 1st century. It would basically be pure coincidence if that turned out to be the case, since the declaration made by Helena was baseless.

andrewcriddle · 11-18-2009, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

2. Where exactly is there an unexpected lack of archaeological evidence of Nazareth as a city prior to ~300 CE?

...in the location presently known as Nazareth. There isn't any evidence of occupation of the region during the first part of the first century. There are a few tombs in the area that date to the bronze age. That's it. I'm not an archaeologist either, but I don't think it's necessary to be an archaeologist to understand what archaeologists say.

Of course, no-one really knows where the Biblical Nazareth was - assuming it existed. It was a lost city until the 4th century when a newly discovered well was declared to have been Mary's well by Empress Helena. Prior to that no-one knew where Nazareth was.

There is an artifact from ~300 CE (the one Carrier alluded to) that describes Jewish priests being relocated to Nazareth in the late 1st century.

Is it really simpler to posit that a tiny hamlet too small to have been noticed nonetheless was described in the Gospels in grander fashion, then immediately lost, only to be rediscovered hundreds of years later when Christianity was the official religion of Rome and the empress was on a mission to locate it?

Is this really simpler than "the gospel authors made it up/made a mistake"?

The location currently called Nazareth is almost certainly not the location of the Biblical Nazareth, assuming it existed. That location is a region of bronze age tombs without a significant water source.

There seem to be two different versions in this thread of the idea that there was no Nazareth at the time of Jesus.

a/ Nazareth came into being c 100 CE and was wrongly thought by the Gospel writers to have already existed in the time of Jesus.
b/ There was no place in Galilee called Nazareth till c 300 CE

At least one of these must be wrong.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874 · 11-18-2009, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

There seem to be two different versions in this thread of the idea that there was no Nazareth at the time of Jesus.

a/ Nazareth came into being c 100 CE and was wrongly thought by the Gospel writers to have already existed in the time of Jesus.
b/ There was no place in Galilee called Nazareth till c 300 CE

At least one of these must be wrong.

Andrew Criddle

But, if at least one is right, then there was no CITY of Nazareth at around the time of Pilate in Judea.

Jeffrey Gibson · 11-18-2009, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Richard Horsley is a professor of religious studies, not an archaeologist.

I note with interest that you yourself are neither.

And if the implication of your assertion about Horsley not being an archaeologist is that nothing he says about Nazareth and the archaeology of the Galilee has any merit, then what do we make of the merit of the claims about Nazareth and the archaeology of the Galilee that you make?

Jeffrey

storytime · 11-18-2009, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by gdeering

This is getting to be too much. The historical Jesus was an insignificant preacher, no one ever noticed, from an insignificant town that was never recorded (or one that might simply have been a graveyard). It's going to push someone, somewhere, off the fence into mythicism.

Gregg

And we can't even find any prophets who claimed Jesus was to be called a Nazarene.

Matthew 2:23 -

Quote:

And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

No prophet in the KJV Bible can be found to have made such a statement.

Jesus has fulfilled non-prophecy once again.

And, if you think the CITY of Nazareth did not exist, wait till you hear you hear what CITY HE lives in now.

The CITY OF GOD. I am not going to look.

Well aa5874, it's all in how you look at it.

The New Jerusalem for example, is that city of God, the very place where God chose to place His name. Also called the city of David, the great king.

The New Jerusalem is described as having four great and high walls, measured in the twelve tribes of Israel, three gates to the city per side. Names of tribes are given. No Gentiles are within nor can enter into that realm of Judaism. (See the book of Revelation)

aa5874 · 11-18-2009, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

And we can't even find any prophets who claimed Jesus was to be called a Nazarene.

Matthew 2:23 -

No prophet in the KJV Bible can be found to have made such a statement.

Jesus has fulfilled non-prophecy once again.

And, if you think the CITY of Nazareth did not exist, wait till you hear you hear what CITY HE lives in now.

The CITY OF GOD. I am not going to look.

Well aa5874, it's all in how you look at it.

The New Jerusalem for example, is that city of God, the very place where God chose to place His name. Also called the city of David, the great king.

The New Jerusalem is described as having four great and high walls, measured in the twelve tribes of Israel, three gates to the city per side. Names of tribes are given. No Gentiles are within nor can enter into that realm of Judaism. (See the book of Revelation)

You may be right. Jesus is homeless right now, then or where he lives has no walls or roof? Is the New Jerusalem as described ready for occupancy?

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.