andrewcriddle

Part of the problem here IMO is distinguishing between different editions of Matthew.

IIUC we are agreed that in order to read the final form of Matthew as consistent Nazara must be regarded as in Galilee (whether or not it is regarded as in Zebulon-Naphtali.)

However, it is perfectly plausible that there was an early version of Matthew which lacked the Infancy narratives with their reference to Nazareth but had most of Matthew 4. In which case it would be more ambiguous as to whether or not Nazara is in Galilee.

My problem is that the difficulty with combining Matthew 4 with the traditional location of Nazareth seems IMO to derive from the use of the Isaiah quotation to make the move to Capernaum a fulfillment of prophecy. However the use of the Isaiah quotation seems to be part of the very late stage of Matthew at least as much as the Infancy narrative

IE the version of Matthew 4 in penultimate Matthew probably read without any reference to Isaiah.

This (hypothetical) version of Matthew can IMO be read perfectly well either with Nazara being in Galilee and/or Zebulon-Naphtali or being somewhere else. It is the addition of the Isaiah prophecy which causes the problem. But this occurs at a very late stage when Nazareth is clearly located in Galilee.

Hence there is probably no stage of Matthew at which Nazara is clearly located outside Galilee although there may have been a stage at which the location was ambiguous.

IF one regards it as plausible that Matthew regarded Nazareth as in Galilee but not in Zebulon-Naphtali this would be by far the most likely solution.

Andrew Criddle

spin

There is no reference to Nazareth in the Matthean birth narrative. Our earliest fragment of the text, P70, shows that 2:23 had Nazara.

What makes you think this last notion? Nazara has yet to be associated with Galilee and nazwraios has to be linked to Nazara. Then Nazara has to become Nazareth (if 21:11 is not a later scribal effort).

I wouldn't say "penultimate" with the addition of Nazara and there is no evidence I can see for the above conjectural form of the text.

I think 4:12-16 doesn't support this.

The use of Zebulun and Naphtali in conjunction with Galilee of the gentiles in the citation doesn't support you. You need to guess that the writer thought that Isaiah's use of Zebulun and Naphtali was for an area smaller than Galilee, rather than think he was using it in parallel, a common feature in Hebrew literature at the time. You are merely insinuating the difference in order to get the text to conform to the way you want it to be. The text in no way suggests it and you wouldn't think it at all except for the fact that you know from latter tradition that Nazareth is in Galilee. And as DCHindley naughtily mentioned, there was a tradition known to Eusebius which indicated that Nazara was in Judea.

The Matthean text doesn't support what you want it to indicate... or not indicate in this case, ie that in 4:13-16 the writer doesn't see Nazara as not in Galilee. A natural reading of the text here, ie not contaminating it with later ideas, places Nazara outside Galilee. Fudging the boundaries of Zebulun-Naphtali/Galilee just misses understanding the discourse.


spin

ynquirer

I really don’t know what extension Galilee of the Gentiles did have in the first-second centuries. It is the gospeller that says Capernaum was there, not I. (If Capernaum wasn’t thought to be so, the whole of Matthew 4:12-16 is senseless.) What I may infer from the rabbinic writings is that Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee were in Lower Galilee while the highlands were not.

I’m not as sure as you seem to be that Galilee of the Gentiles was the area adjacent to Phoenicia with exclusion of anywhere else. It is true that 1 Mac 15 places Ptolomais, Sidon, and Tyre within Galilee of the Gentiles, and Josephus more or less corroborates this in saying that Carmel, for instance, “had formerly belonged to the Galileans, but now belonged to the Tyrians.” Thus, it seems that Galilee of the Gentiles might have meant ‘Galilee currently occupied by Gentiles’. And yet Josephus is rather careful not to call the area ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’. Could ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ in Roman times – when no Tyrians could display military might – encompass any land in Galilee that hosted a considerable, and economically dominant, non-Jewish population? That would possibly include the cities by the Sea of Galilee. At least, that is what the gospeler seems to imply.

On the other hand, I disagree with your assertion that the area adjacent to Phoenicia was Upper Galilee. Down from Carmel (1,742 ft) northward to Tyre, the coastland is low. Universally acknowledged to belong in Lower Galilee, Jezreel Valley is just at the foot of Carmel. I don’t think there was any problem for sycamores to grow in there.

I am not aware of any disagreement of Josephus with later rabbinic usage of the names. You could perhaps give me some examples.

At any rate, I must repeat that the issue of Upper/Lower Galilees appears to be useless to decide on Mat 4:12-16. Of much greater import is the fact that Galilee was given to four different tribes, not only two. Assurances that use in the Hebrew literature was normal of ‘the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali’ as coextensive with Galilee at large, however self confident, do not find the least factual support.

IE there is no mention in Hebrew literature of such towns as Beyth Patstsets/Bersabe, Yizrael/Jezreel, and Qanah/Cana as belonging in the land of Zebulon and Naphtali. That would be simple ignorance of the Scriptures.

Amaleq13

spin,

Am I correct in thinking that your conclusion is dependent upon the assumption that Matthew would attempt to completely fulfill or parallel the prophecy in Hebrew Scripture?

If I do understand this correctly, don't the somewhat questionable natures of certain of Matthew's other appeals to prophecy (eg 1:23, 2:23, 27:9) work against your argument?

In the context of those, the problems you see with the alternates that have been proposed seem somewhat normal for the author, IMO.

spin

As I've said a lot of stuff in this thread, I'll assume you're referring by "[my] conclusion" to the idea that the Matthean community saw Nazara outside Zebulun-Naphtali/Galilee. I do find it difficult to see how the text added by the writer plus citation of Isaiah can be read any other way. The writer specifically used Zebulun and Naphtali in order to hook the prophecy into the passage. Is there any reason to think that the writer saw Zebulun and Naphtali as anything but a means of referring to Galilee?

I'm not sure I see the problems with these prophecies from your point of view. Is it for example that 1:23 says he will be called "Emmanuel" (ie "God with you"), rather than Jesus? Jesus, the messiah, is god's representative and those accepting his role as messiah would be calling him god among people. It mightn't be sound argumentation, but I see no problem: the writer went into the issue knowing Jesus's name. Or 2:23, a reference to Jdg 13:5/7, what's the problem? NT nazwraios <- LXX nazeiraios <- Heb. NZYR?

Perhaps I haven't got at what you are trying to say, but how do these prophecies reflect on the writers of Matthew to you?


spin

Amaleq13

They suggest to me that we shouldn't assume the author(s)' "fulfillments" of Scripture passages to be perfect or complete every time one is offered.

IOW, it seems reasonable to think, along with some of your opponents, that the author(s) were only interested in the destination part as being a fulfillment of the prophecy.

spin

You'd have to argue a case.


spin

ynquirer

If, according to the earliest fragment of Matthew, P70, the text in 2:23 had Nazara instead of Nazaret, then there is no inconsistency in the use by the writer of different words (Nazara/Nazareth) for what basically was the same name, and no necessity – accordingly – to assume different writers. For Nazara would be used twice as accusative, while Nazareth once as genitive.

The writer would so make use of Nazara/Nazareth as an irregular though declinable form, as much as, for instance, Josephus so does of Genhsaridos/Gennhsaritidi/Genhsariwn in Antiquitates Judaicae – surely by chance the ancient name of the Sea of Galilee?

It looks as if the use of Nazara/Nazareth by the writer of Matthew was nothing other than an erudite self proclamation of enlightenment – they had read Josephus in full – with added connotation of the central role of the Sea of Galilee in their notion of Galilee of the Gentiles.

Is there anything else in this gospel that points at different layers?

Amaleq13

I thought I already did.

When you've got an author(s) who, apparently, isn't terribly concerned about claiming that Jesus being from Nazareth fulfills an alleged prophecy about being a Nazarene or refers to a prophecy in Jeremiah when he probably meant Zecharia even though that passage isn't anything of the sort, it seems strange to me to expect him to intend a complete parallel of fulfillment in this case.

The author(s) played fast and loose with both "prophecy" and "fulfillment" as far as I can tell and were not terribly concerned about perfect accuracy.

That's my "case".

spin

What's the problem for you here? The writer see no difficulty in employing what he thinks to be a prophecy that "he will be called a Nazorean" justifies the notion that he spent much of his life in Nazara.

(Note P70, the earliest exemplar of the text says "Nazara". Eusebius sites the same literary tradition before any other text tradition existed saying Nazareth.)

Can you blame the Matthean community for the fragment of tradition it received and absorbed? Again, I can't see what you want on the issue. The source of the information isn't correct, but so? We're not dealing with inerrancy.

I see no "fast and loose"-ness. Do you think the writer didn't intend that Jesus was known as a Nazorean or that he could be called "of Nazareth"? The writer seems to take the 30 pieces of silver seriously.

What exactly do you want to say about these prophecies and why? You seem to want to use them somehow to question the integrity of the writing. Are your conclusions verifiable?


spin