Why 'Nazareth' ?

[MrMacSon]

No mention of Nazareth in Josephus's autobiography - The Life of Josephus - which Josephus wrote near the end of his life (~100 AD/CE), and which includes a lot about Galilee and places therein -

• http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/autobiog.htm

NB - I am not saying that this fact demands any particular conclusion. I'm just saying...

[Peter Kirby]

No mention of Nazareth in Josephus's autobiography - The Life of Josephus - which Josephus wrote near the end of his life (~100 AD/CE), and which includes a lot about Galilee and places therein -

• http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/autobiog.htm

NB - I am not saying that this fact demands any particular conclusion. I'm just saying...

Sadly, I anticipated this kind of response too.

[Peter Kirby]

Once again, with feeling:

I'm kind of inclined to think that modern day Nazareth is not the site of any ancient village called Nazareth mentioned in the Judean scriptures. That village may no longer have even existed in 1st-2nd centuries CE, but a regional designation turned into a village by the imagination of the early Christians seeking an identity. A lot of early Christian history seems to be "reconstructed" from such desiderata picked from the Judean scriptures.

I was replying to this.

[DCHindley]

DCH:

Isn't one of the facts of the case regarding 'Nazareth' the fact that it is not mentioned in 'Judean scriptures' (or Josephus)?

There may be stuff about a 'branch' or something else spelled similarly but no 'Nazareth'.

(NB - I am not saying that this fact demands any particular conclusion. I'm just saying...)

Oopsie! My bad! ... I must have been thinking of Bethlehem.

I think it was Hugh Schonfield who first proposed that a region in parts of Galilee, parts of the Decapolis, Gaulanitis, Batanea, Auranitis, and parts of Ituraea formed a "Nazarene Country", with the name derived from Hebrew Notsrim, in the sense of "Keepers, preservers".

(Schonfield, Hugh) illustration of Outlaw Territory (Pentecost Revolution,.jpg (93.76 KiB) Viewed 5932 times

From the 1985 reprint of Schonfield's The Pentecost Revolution, Copyright 1974, London: Schonfield Svcs Ltd. It was also published in 1975 by Macmillan New York as The Jesus Party.

Schonfield thought that this was identical to a "Nazerine tetrarchy" mentioned by Pliny the Elder as adjacent to Coele-Syria (Natural History v.81) in the first century (Pliny wrote after the end of the Judean war, FWIW), but such a tetrarchy is not mentioned by Josephus in this region. It was probably not, technically, a formal "Tetrarchy" like Philip's domain, which surely overlapped with the region proposed by Schonfield.

But there was something else I was chasing, something about one of the Greek cities in the region, which had a valley that was reportedly super fertile. Unfortunately I do not remember the city at the moment. I think I found it in one of those 19th century atlases you can sometimes access online.

DCH

[Giuseppe]

Well, at least this shows that *one* two room structure with a courtyard was present in the first century or so CE, although we are not quite to the point of being able to call it a "village" or "town". It may well be a "Jewish" inhabitation.

And if Nazaret was chosen just in virtue of his total insignificance, so to make the same point that today the Christians do when they say that 'you can't prove a negative' ? In this way they could continue to do the same point of Mcn - that the place of provenance of Jesus was unknown and unrecognized, at the limit of not-existence (as the provenance ''from Heaven'') - but in a more mitigated form: he (as Nazaret) was not entirely unknown and alien to Galilee.

with the name derived from Hebrew Notsrim, in the sense of "Keepers, preservers"

In this case the theological point is big as a home: Jesus comes from the ''town of the Keepers of the Torah'', those same people described so by Paul:

This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
(Galatians 2:4-5)

It wouldn't be a coincidence that the ''brothers of Jesus'' take their names just in the ''town of the Keepers''.

[gmx]

In antiquity, was there any dispute about Nazareth being the hometown of Jesus, other than Marcion's "it's raining cats and Jesus in Capernaum"?

[Giuseppe]

In antiquity, was there any dispute about Nazareth being the hometown of Jesus, other than Marcion's "it's raining cats and Jesus in Capernaum"?

In antiquity the heretic judaizers were called (disparagely) nazarenes: preservers, keepers of the Torah.

[Giuseppe]

Another prove of the use of ''Nazaret'' in anti-marcionite function:


Luke 18:35-43:

35 As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. 36 When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. 37 They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”

38 He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

39 Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

40 Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, 41 “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.

42 Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” 43 Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

The version in Mcn is very equal to Luke, less ''of Nazaret''.

Adv.Marc.iv.36; Panarion 42
35 And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho,
a certain blind man sat by the way side begging:
36 And when he heard the multitude passing by,
he asked what this might be.
37 And they told him, that Jesus passeth by.
38 And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
39 And they which went before rebuked him, that he might be silent:
but he cried so much the more, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
40 And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be brought unto him:
and when he was come near, he asked him, saying,
41 What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?
And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight.
42 And Jesus said unto him,
Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.
43 And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God:
and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

Dieter Roth confirms the presence of ''son of David'' in Mcn.

Tertullian indicates that the pericope Luke 18:35–43 was interpreted as an antithesis to
2 Sam 5:6–8.

(The Gospel of Marcion, pag. 167, n. 379)

2 Samuel 5:6-9

David Conquers Jerusalem

6 The king and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites, who lived there. The Jebusites said to David, “You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off.” They thought, “David cannot get in here.” 7 Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion—which is the City of David.

8 On that day David had said, “Anyone who conquers the Jebusites will have to use the water shaft to reach those ‘lame and blind’ who are David’s enemies.” That is why they say, “The ‘blind and lame’ will not enter the palace.”

9 David then took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David. He built up the area around it, from the terraces inward.

The antithesis is clear: while David was cruel particularly against the BLIND and the lame, the presumed ''son of David'', at contrary, Jesus, was good just with a blind man (!!!), for the way to Jerichum (the city-symbol of the pre-Jewish Palestina).

Thus no problem with the presence of 'son of David' in Marcion.

But what proves that Mcn was older than Luke, in this case?

The emphasys of Mark on the name of the blind man betrayes the proto-catholic Mark:

46 Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

48 Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

49 Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” 50 Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

52 “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

(Mark 10:46-52)

Why ''Timeus son of the Timeus'' ?

Timeus is the title of a famous Dialogue of Plato, where Plato reveals that by imitation of the eternal ideas and the numbers, the Demiurg creates the passing of the unity, that is the time, that is a ciclic moviment, the dynamic image of the heternity.

Mark is insisting that the blind man, son of Demiurg, did recognize rightly his Creator, Jesus!

Therefore Jesus is really the son of the Demiurg, of the Creator God, and not the Son of an Unknown God.

This analysis proves that even the other point where Luke did insert the occurrence of ''of Nazaret'', he was doing a mere anti-marcionite point. Therefore Mcn comes first than Luke and first than Mark.

[Giuseppe]

Secret Alias, see the Greek of Zech 6:12, please.

@GakuseiDon

The better sort coming from the east is the Platonic Adam, who is the firstborn son of God, made in the image of God and is the archetypal pattern.

(GakuseiDon's exegesis of Philo about Zech 6:12)

(Matt 2:23)

And he went and settled in a city called Nazareth, that the word through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene”.

Now we know why Nazaret.

Zechariah 6:12:

12 Tell him this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

So Adamczewski about Nazareth:

A similarly artificial, not simply geographical, use of the name 'Nazareth' (Mk 1:9) can also be found in another Markan text, in which the strange in itself, suggested by the evangelist, semantic correspondence between the terms 'Nazaret' and 'son of David' is costitutive for the narrative logic of the story: o Nazaarenos --> uie David ('of Nazaret'-->'son of Daivd': Mk 10:47)

Mark 10:47

καὶ ἀκούσας ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζαρηνός ἐστιν ἤρξατο κράζειν καὶ λέγειν Υἱὲ Δαυεὶδ Ἰησοῦ ...
and having heard that Jesus the Nazarene is he began to cry out and to say Son of David Jesus ...

Yes, a surprising conclusion by Bartimaeus.