ApostateAbe

The argument that Christians would much rather have Jesus come from Bethlehem than Nazareth, ergo Nazareth is a historical element, seems rather obvious to me, but it is mere opinion or fanciful wishful guesswork to you, which I suppose reflects a frustrating long-standing division I have with MJ advocates in particular and unlikely-fringe-theory advocates in general, the tendency to treat arguments about probability as merely speculative, and the tendency to treat uncertainties as a dead end or an excuse to believe anything. The criterion of embarrassment can not be used to establish anything as a fact, except maybe for those who have unlikely theories about what motivated the early Christians. If you believe that Old Testament prophecy had very little to do with the development of Christian myths, for example, then of course the argument from embarrassment based on messianic prophecies will seem ridiculous. But those who build their model of early Christianity based on what is plainly on the face of the New Testament will tend to accept the argument.

But my point about Bethlehem and Nazareth is only a tangent issue and not essential to the main point. I'll repeat what I said without it so it isn't so much of a distraction.

Yes, I wouldn't rely purely on the gospel accounts as evidence that Nazareth existed in the first century. Even if the gospels are completely mythical, then we should take as corroboration the fact that there are extra-Christian accounts of Nazareth existing from the fourth century and onward. The gospels would be comparable to fictional stories that integrate real towns and cities, like Pride and Prejudice names and correctly locates the city of Brighton, England. I first made the conclusion that Nazareth existed in the first century just because of the Christian gospels and because of the fact that Nazareth exists today in Galilee.

neilgodfrey

You are reading something into my words that has never been there. Of course the reason for the choice of Bethlehem as the birth of Jesus is inspired by the prophecy. No-one is questioning that. That's obvious.

But it is just as obvious that Nazereth also had a prophetic significance. The "Nazarene" epithet required explaining or dismissing.

Both are ideologically inspired place-names in the narrative. I am simply being consistent with the evidence and treating both as having a provenance in the gospels more to do with ideology than historical fact.

Bethlehem was easy because it was stated as a known place-name in the prophecy. Finding a way to explain away "Nazarene" proved a bit more complex. A tiny village no-one had ever heard of before had to be invented, presumably. Or maybe there was a village there, but we have no evidence to believe this to be the case.


Where did I ever suggest I don't think OT prophecy has 'very little do with the development of Christian myths'? I believe it had probably "nearly everything" to do with the development of Christian myths!

No argument. I have argued the same myself many times.

But let's be consistent and not have one rule for Bethlehem and another for Nazareth. Both are named in the gospels for ideological purposes. One coincides with a real name-place. We have much external control evidence for this.

And the external evidence that supports the existence of Bethlehem fails completely in the case of Nazareth -- see post #111.

So for Bethlehem we have ideology plus external testimony; for Nazareth we have ideology and no external testimony.

(From my reading of some of the scholarly literature as well as Salm, there is NO undisputable primary archaeological evidence that I know of for the existence of such a town before 70 c.e., but that's another question.)

ApostateAbe

OK, if you agree with my main point, then I hate to get involved in a debate about a side issue, except for my own edification: what is the ideological motivation for inventing the town of Nazareth? You seem to think that maybe they needed to invent a town in order to explain the name of the sect of "Nazarenes," and that seems weird to me since a seemingly very straightforward explanation for the likeness of the two names is that the sect named themselves after the town of Jesus, not the reverse. But maybe I misunderstood what you are saying or I am missing something relevant.

neilgodfrey

In the scholarly literature discussing this (sorry, I don't have names and titles handy at the moment) it has been pointed out that we know of not a single sect name ever deriving from the place-name where its founder grew up. It is simply not a plausible explanation. Groups give themselves names after persons, after their beliefs or practices, but not after a small town where its leader grew up.

Add to this the apparent fact that the sectarian word for "Nazarene" does not naturally derive from "Nazareth", anyway (I am not an expert in the languages discussed but I have seen this explained in the literature often enough).

The most plausible explanation is that either Matthew attempted to contrive the name from "Nazarene", or that he attempted to force a fit between "Nazarene" and "Nazareth" since by the time he wrote (towards the end of the first century or second century) the town by then did exist, and it looked close enough to his "Nazarene" for him to at least attempt a case. The latter seems the more likely to me.

From the external literary and archaeological evidence, Nazareth appears to have been founded or settled by the Judean/Jerusalem refugees after 70 c.e. This coincides with the appearance of Pharisees and synagogues throughout Galilee. The external literary and archaeological evidence points to Nazareth being as much an anachronism as Pharisees and synagogues in Galilee prior to 70 c.e.

Many things can seem seemingly straightforward if we take a single text narrative at face value. But historians need to evaluate the nature of that evidence and seek external corroboration. In the case of Nazareth there is no external corroboration -- what exists as external support for Bethlehem does not exist for Nazareth -- and we have only an ideological explanation for its appearance in the gospel narrative. This is not loony reasoning. It is normal methodology -- drawing conclusions from evidence that the evidence can logically support -- for any real (generally nonbiblical) history.

It has been opined (not often enough) that "biblical history" should be taken out of the departments and faculties of religion, theology and biblical studies, and placed fair and square in the regular history departments. Not hard to see why.

aa5874

But, when you examine gMatthew it seems that the author may had to change locations for Jesus for some unknown reason.

In Matthew 2. 5-6, the author claimed it was fulfilled prophecy that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and quoted a passage found in Micah 5.2.


Matthew 2.4-6 And this is Micah 5.2 The author is actually quoting from Micah 5.2 for the prophecy on Bethlehem, but when he mentioned that Jesus was to dwell in Nazareth, no such prophecy can be found anywhere in the OT by any prophet.

Matthew 2.23.


Not one single prophet in the Bible claimed Jesus was to dwell in Nazareth or was to be called a Nazarene but the author of Micah did claim that a ruler was to come out of Bethlehem.

Why did not Jesus dwell in Bethlehem a well-known place and seemed to be based on prophecy but went instead to a place where no prophecy can be found and was still called Jesus of Nazareth?

No ruler should come out of Nazareth, there is no prophecy anywhere in the Bible by any prophet. The words Nazareth or Nazarene are not even in the OT.

It should have been Jesus of Bethlehem. The prophecy was fulfilled. Based on the very author of gMatthew Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Micah 5.2 Something went wrong? Another author? What happened? An interpolation?

Josephus mentioned villages and cities surrounding where the city of Nazareth should have been but never mentioned the city.

Josephus was in Besara, Simonias and Japha, all a few miles from the supposed city of Nazareth.

And there is another interesting point Jesus, born in Bethlehem, did nothing in Nazareth, he started his ministry in Capernaum.

neilgodfrey

Nothing went wrong. No interpolation here. Matthew wanted to explain (away) the uncomfortable Nazarene epithet and was lucky enough to find a small village that sounded sort of like Nazarene -- he was writing late first century or early second century by which time Nazareth had appeared in the wake of the population dislocations after 70 c.e.

spamandham

Why is "Nazarene" an epithet? If you are referring to a sect by this name, although I may be wrong, I think the only evidence we have that such a sect existed prior to the gospels comes from Acts.

If we accept that Mark is the earliest of known gospels (canonical or not), Mark refers to him as "Jesus of Nazareth". It seems like Matthew would have to be primary to make this make sense, or a 3rd source (Q, gospel of the Hewbrews, etc)

Possible sequence:

- There is a pre-existing tradition that the messiah would be a Nazirite, and this is rooted in Judges 13:5-7. This is transliterated by the Greek speeking early Christians and confused with the name of a sect that does not yet exist.

- Since such a sect does not even exist, there is confusion as to why the messiah is known as a member of such a sect.

- Nazareth is established, and the gospel writers make the connection between Nazarene and Nazareth, since they can't figure out any other reason Jesus would be called by the name of a nonexistent sect

- This link is recognized as tenuous, so the writer of Acts fixes it by retroactively creating a Nazarene sect

- Some time after that, the Nazarene sect is established, or at least legends of it proliferate

aa5874

There must have some been problem why the author switched from Bethlehem to Nazareth.

In the 1st century, it would appear that Nazareth has no significance at all just from a geographic point of view. Neither Philo or Josephus mentioned such a city. No book in the OT or book of the prophets mentioned Nazareth.

The author has established very early in his story that Jesus was to be from Bethlehem and, very likely before even beginning to write his story, has already found a passage in Micah 5.2 as so-called prophecy.

So, in effect, the author has shown that he is genuinely familiar with Hebrew Scripture and that the place of birth of Jesus is really prophetic and not just some wild guess.

But, by the end of the same chapter that the author establishes very early that there would be a RULER out of Bethlehem, he NOW changes to a Nazarene from Nazareth and has no prophecy at all for the change.

Jesus was supposed be a King or a Ruler from Bethlehem at the start of the chapter, but by the end he is a NOBODY from Nowhere.

Who is a Nazarene? Where is Nazareth? Where is the prophecy? Nothing.

But, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It is Jesus of Bethlehem, the predicted Ruler.

And now look at gJohn supposedly written after gMatthew, the author of gJohn will also claim there is prophecy about Jesus of Nazareth but again no such prophecy can be found.

John 1.45-46 Something changed. Jesus was supposed to be a predicted Ruler, a King, from out of Bethlehem now the author of gJohn implies that nothing good ever came out of Nazareth.

Micah 5.2 stated that there would be a Ruler from out of Bethlehem, how did some unknown non-prophecy make Jesus a no-good nobody from nowhere in the 1st century?o

ApostateAbe

I learned from talking to spin that there are five different spellings of what should have been the same name: Nazareth. spin, of course, has a very complex explanation for these variations, claiming that "Nazara" did not at first refer to the town, but instead to something else (Nazirites? The Nazarene sect?). But I go with the simpler explanation. The Greek authors did not have a translation for the Aramaic name, they had only the mythical Aramaic pronunciations, and Aramaic pronunciations do not correspond easily with Greek, so they had many ways to transliterate the same name. spin believes that this argument ignores the principle of lectio difficilior. And I think he is misapplying the principle, because lectio difficilior is used when there are two manuscripts that should contain the same text but with a difference, and one variation is a more difficult reading than the other. It is not properly applied when there are many variant spellings of a word contained in one set of manuscripts in agreement. A universal rule in exegesis is that the simplest explanation should prevail, and my explanation is by far the simplest.

And I think the rule applies in this case, too. Maybe "Nazarene" is not the proper gentilic form of "Nazareth," but the gospel authors have shown that they had no agreement over how to spell "Nazareth," so the seeming mismatch should be expected as a continuation of their fumbling with transliterations. That is the simplest explanation that lines up best with the evidence.

The point you made, "...it has been pointed out that we know of not a single sect name ever deriving from the place-name where its founder grew up. It is simply not a plausible explanation."

That sounds like a good point, because I hate to require my model to break normal patterns. Sure, maybe the sect of "Nazarenes" would be breaking the pattern if my model holds true, for a sect to name themselves after the town of their leader. But that doesn't mean it isn't a plausible explanation. After all, why not? I imagine that such a thing hasn't happened merely because the religious sect would be confused with the people who are actually from the town. Such a confusion would not really exist in this case, because Nazareth was so small, just a hamlet known only for the place of Jesus.

show_no_mercy

Mark never refers to Jesus as "Jesus of Nazareth". That is the interpretation of English Bible translators. Mark consistently refers to Jesus as "Jesus the Nazarene" in Greek, not "of Nazareth". The only time that Mark even writes the word "Nazareth" is at 1:9 which I suspect is an interpolation.