Malachi151

Hmm... I guess I missed that part. I hadn't read all of the threads. Which one has the bit about Mark not mentioning Nazareth? Its in Mark now, all over the place. What texts show that it wasn't there? Thanks

The question would then become, why would Matthew reference a passage talking about the Nazarite sect and head shaving to say that Jesus came from a place called Nazareth?

aa5874

Even if Nazareth was a place during the 1st century, Matthew's Jesus, according to so-called prophecy, is a Nazarite not a Nazarene. The Jesus of Nazareth was not a Nazarite. The author of Matthew wrote about some other person.

Mark's Jesus is not a Nazarite, but a Nazarene, so if Nazareth was a place in the 1st century and was indeed a city, then his story line may still be intact. However, there is no evidence to support a city called Nazareth in the 1st century.

With many incidents of forgeries and interpolations, I am extremely cautious to signify who may have written any thing in the Bible, and which book was written first. The dates given for the writings of the Gospels and Epistles are not written in stone, because chronological problems are still not resolved when we use the accepted dates.

seeker

The 2nd century gnostic Gospel of Philip offers this explanation:

'The apostles that came before us called him Jesus Nazarene the Christ ..."Nazara" is the "Truth". Therefore 'Nazarene' is "The One of the Truth" ...'
(Gospel of Philip, 47)

Personally I think Matthew took the OT prophecy 'For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.' (Judges 13.5) where Nazarite means 'he who vows to grow long hair and serve god'

and simply misunderstood it. The word in Hebrew is NZR and could easily have meant Nazara or been mistaken for a place name.

Later there was a sect of Jews called Nazerines that was related to the Essenes but we only know of them from christian sources (Epiphanus) so who knows if that was real of not.

Nazereth the town doesn't come into existance till about 130AD or so

Malachi151

Hmm... like many ideas about the scriptures, this may be undermined not by evidence that supports the Christian story, but by evidence that the scriptures aren't reliable enough to even postulate this hypothesis. Ironic...

seeker

That's the big problem with any duscussion of the bible. There is so much wiggle room in the bible that almost any theory is possible.

spin

Actually, the current gospel text mentions it only once, 1:9, the rest is just poor translation of nazarhnos, a title or description. Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, though Mt 3:13 says Jesus came from Galilee.

First, I've pointed out that a few traditions supply Nazara in Mt 2:23. This version is better attested in 4:13. It may also have already been in circulation in oral tradition.

Mk features the term nazarhnos, which was unknown in Matt for all references to nazarhnos have been removed by the first Matthean editor of Mk. Now either Nazara was a place from which nazarhnos was derived or vice versa, Nazara was a back-formation from nazarhnos. I go for the latter, as no-one has come up with a location for Nazara, though Julius Africanus and a few others mention the place name.

The Alexandrian text of the LXX of Jgs 13:5 uses the term "nazeiraios", which could be conceived of as a gentilic adjective from Nazara. It also could be seen as related to the form "nazwraios" (w = omega) which a later Matthean editor used, ie there are at least two editions of Matthew, one in which the Marcan nazarhnos has been removed as obscure, and one in which nazwraios had already gained acceptance along with Nazara. Then, some time later, when Nazareth had gained acceptance -- and I think there must have been a place called Nazareth, discovered when Nazara wasn't --, that form, ie Nazareth, was added to Matt.


spin

rlogan

I don't bother reading your posts after the long history of demonstration you usually don't bother to read what you claim to be posting on.

I see nothing has changed.

rlogan

This was what I thought to be Spin's clearest statement of the naza-something development:


The Bible inspires a saying in my mind: "Close enough for Jesus".


Matthew insists that prophecy is being fulfilled all over the place, and this midrash dumpster diver doesn't care about the stench.

Naza-something. Close enough. We have to propose fake reasons to get Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem and then fleeing to Egypt. To get those prophecies fulfilled.

So Nazareth is the very same standard. Close enough for Jesus.


Bethlehem. Egypt. Galilee. Naza-something. All of it from the HB dumpster.



Statistically, this is an impossibility. And indeed that is the apologist's cry - he must be the messiah because he fulfilled all these prohecies. But it is the opposite. Because it is impossible we know that Jesus was constructed from the Hebrew Bible.

The disengenuous historicist is fond of pretending there is no evidence for the myth. But there is an abundance of it. Midrash was a tradition. Here we have it in a DNA match making it a statistical impossibility of being something else.

WishboneDawn

?

That's a leap. At most it points to Mark filling in blanks or possibly a legendary Jesus, not mythical.

Malachi151

I don't think ti would be too much of a leap if not for the info that spin has posted, which pretty much undermines the whole thing, because apparently Mark didn't use Nazareth in the first place.