Ted Hoffman

I remember reading Fredricksen giving the population of the pharisees and arguing why some polemics against them did not make sense.

From my understanding, Josephus mentioned in his writings 240 cities and villages, least of which had around 15,000 residents, IIRC (some say between 8000 and 12000 residents). Of course, Nazareth isn't among the cities Josephus mentions and critics will claim that this is not remarkable since Josephus also fails to mention many other cities.

And this streak of failure to mention the city from which the lord hailed from is maintained by Paul, by the Talmud and by the Old Testament.

I don't need to talk about Archaological evidence for Nazareth from Jonathan Reed's work and the Franciscan fathers. What we do know is that Luke 2.3 and 4, Matthew 2.22,23 and Luke 2.39,40 refer to Nazareth as a city.

Now, is there anywhere I can get a working and authoritative definition - population wise and perhaps in terms of infrastructure and administrative make-up - of what "a city" could have meant in first century Galilee?

Thanks

edited to remove reference to Decapolis