Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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ficino
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Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by ficino »

Hello all, I've seen a lot of argument on websites and blogs over whether Nazareth, Jesus' purported home town, existed in the first century CE. I've tried to look at some scholarly publications but haven't yet been able to get a clear picture. Does anyone know about the "state of the question" among professional archeologists and ancient historians?

I gather one problem arises from the 3rd- or 4th-century inscription found at Caesarea Maritima and first published by M. Avi-Yonah, which connects places in Galilee with different courses of Jewish priests, one place being Nazareth. Many Christian apologists say that these courses of priests migrated to Galilee in the first century, shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple, while others (e.g. the Wikipedia article) say they did so after the Bar-Kokhba revolt against Hadrian. It's not clear to me whether the inscription says they had gone to these places in Galilee or only records their attachment to these places at the time the inscription was carved. there is dispute among websites even about this find itself (e.g. here:

http://www.mythicistpapers.com/2013/07/ ... -god-pt-5/)

I gather another problem concerns the interpretation of remains of cisterns, floors, etc. - who built them, and when?

I will be grateful for any pointers to scholarly discussions of the physical remains (not Christian or atheist websites or blogs!).

Why do I want to know? I must admit, it's because lack of physical evidence for Nazareth in the first century seems to be another pebble on the "not historical" pan of the balance scale.

I note that Matthew's and Luke's use of the word πόλις to designate Jesus' home town is hard to square with attempts of Christian apologists to account for the paucity of evidence by saying that Nazareth was "just a bump on the road."

Many thanks, Ficino
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MrMacSon
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by MrMacSon »

  • The Myth of Nazareth:
    The Invented Town of Jesus

    by René Salm
    Edited by Frank Zindler
    American Atheist Press, Cranford, New Jersey. 2008
    375 pages. $20. ISBN 978-1-57884-003-8
http://www.nazarethmyth.info/

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html
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Tenorikuma
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by Tenorikuma »

I don't get why it's such a big deal to Jesus historicists. Surely it's obvious that Nazareth as Jesus' hometown was a mistake over confusion about what "Jesus the Nazorean" meant. Mark seems to imply that Capernaum was his home.
Robert Tulip
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by Robert Tulip »

Of course the identity of Nazareth was not a 'mistake over confusion'. The Gnostics invented Jesus as the imaginary leader of the Nazarene sect. The most plausible reason for the use of Nazareth in the Bible is that when the Romans attacked, the Gnostics found plausible deniability in saying that Nazarene just meant 'from Nazareth'. On purpose, not by mistake.

Origen lived just up the road and reportedly had no idea where Nazareth was. That is not possible if Nazareth existed in the second or third century.

In Bart Ehrman and the Quest for the Historical Jesus of Nazareth, Frank Zindler writes "Unlike the case of other archaeological sites that date with certainty to the first centuries BCE and CE, virtually no coins datable to that period have been found at Nazareth. By contrast, hundreds to thousands of coins are typically recoverable from other sites inhabited at that period."

As I mentioned today at the Jesus Mysteries list, this presents the opportunity for a simple scientific probability study.
1. List some comparable towns
2. List the number of coins found there dating from around the time of Christ
3. Analyse statistical probability of result for Nazareth against hypothesis that Nazareth existed at the time of Christ.

I would be grateful for the assistance of members here in providing data for such a study, or for information on whether it has already been done.

Robert Tulip
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Tenorikuma
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by Tenorikuma »

Robert, what do you think about James? Do you think he was a flesh-and-blood leader of the Nazoreans or something else?
ficino
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by ficino »

In my OP I was asking whether anyone can steer me to academic studies on Nazareth. Nevertheless, I am aware that René Salm has a very pointed rejoinder to recent claims that Hellenistic and early Roman coins have been found at the so-called Nazareth Village Farm:

http://www.nazarethmyth.info/scandaleight.html

(I haven't read Salm's book.)

If people want to discuss James, can there be a thread dedicated to questions about him? I've derailed threads in the past, for which I apologize. I hope that this thread can stay on topic, unless James really does fit into discussions about the dates of occupation of Nazareth as a municipality.

@Robert: where/what is the Jesus Mysteries list? Is it the yahoo group?
Robert Tulip
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by Robert Tulip »

Ficino – My comment on Nazareth coins at the Jesus Mysteries group is here, and Rene Salm has kindly replied. I highly recommend Rene's book as a good overview of Nazareth Studies.

Any mention of the historicity of Nazareth is going to be hard to confine, as it is such an explosive question for faith, touching on the difficult question of who actually were the Nazarenes. The James link appears to be that he was allegedly head of the Nazoraeans, allegedly (but not) named after Nazareth. I respect your comment about keeping on topic, especially in view of my question about data on coins and offer to do a statistical analysis. However, I have composed this reply to Tenorikuma which I hope helps to illustrate the rich context of studies of the origin of Nazareth, without even opening the story of the true vine. I hope if others want to discuss tangential material raised here they can start new threads as you suggest.

I have no clear view on the existence of James, who appears to be another of those murky Bible figures with little or no independent or objective attestation. The Epiphanius text linking James to the Nazoraeans is Panarion 29.4. It also mentions mythical figures such as Mary, indicating that it is unreliable as history. By the way Epiphanius also says that James wore the 'priestly tablet' which I assume is the zodiac breastplate as described by Philo and Josephus, illustrating the Gnostic astrological context of this material.

My view is that the Nazoraeans probably emerged from the Nazirites as a religious group set apart, although I understand that Rene Salm disagrees with Frank Zindler on this. The teaching on works in the Epistle of James is surprising from a Nazirite angle. If Nazirites were 'set apart' they were more on the Mary than the Martha end of the faith and works spectrum, so to speak.

For me the more interesting questions about the Nazoreans are how they may link to the Nazirites and Gnostics as intellectual mystics who constructed the Christ Myth. Proving up such links, together with the analysis of tombs and coins, helps to justify the hypothesis that Nazareth was named after Jesus (probably at the time of Constantine). The historical story of Jesus appears in my view to have been developed by the Nazoreans/Nazirites after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, with Jesus Christ imagined as the 'one for all' who enabled psychological sublimation, displacement and transference of the social trauma of Roman evil. The repressive influence of Rome meant that an excuse (ie Nazareth) was needed to deflect magisterial attention from any suspicions of Nazirite subversion and sedition.

I consider most of the characters in the New Testament as primarily fictional, while recognising they draw on history to make the composition more believable, in the sense that the passion story draws on the fact that Romans crucified Jews like crazy. The placement of the Jesus story under Pilate is astronomical, to fit with the observation of the stars imagined as the shift of the age which occurred at that time due to precession.
Robert Tulip
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by Robert Tulip »

ficino wrote:Does anyone know about the "state of the question" among professional archeologists and ancient historians?
Are you familiar with The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein? He is a distinguished professional archaeologist who explains the many disappointments of religiously motivated archaeologists, after their initial successes in finding some Biblical towns. But Nazareth is not even in the index of his book. My impression is that like many academics, Finkelstein is scared of Christians due to their political power, so does not discuss the implications of archaeology for New Testament claims.

Biblical historiography is corrupted by faith commitments, with otherwise sensible writers such as Michael Grant losing their marbles when it comes to matters touching on church evangelical agendas.
lack of physical evidence for Nazareth in the first century seems to be another pebble on the "not historical" pan of the balance scale.
A boulder more than a pebble. If the inscription allegedly placed by Pilate above the crown of thorns of Christ on the cross is shown to be fraudulent (Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews - John 19:20), the entire edifice of belief built upon Christ as alleged founder of Christianity is cast into radical doubt. Mythicism provides a far more elegant and parsimonious explanation of the evidence of Christian origins than does Historicism.

The story of the tombs in Nazareth explained by Rene Salm is really quite decisive in illustrating how Empress Helena was treated to a Potemkin Village experience as bad as Shaw in Russia when she visited Israel to find the holy places.
ficino
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by ficino »

Thanks for these citations, Robert. I've read Salm's website over the last couple years but have not read his book. One question: if Vardaman forged the Caesarea inscription, as Salm claims, and was banished by the Israeli authorities from the investigation, as Salm claims, why did the supervisor of the excavation, Avi-Yonah, go ahead and publish the inscription anyway?
outhouse
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Re: Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

Post by outhouse »

Salm is a clown, period.


Just because much of the church was built over the supposed oldest part of the village so no digging can be done, does not mean the town did not exist.

The NT literature is not just confusing Nazarenes, for a village wjhere no good can come from it.



Sepphoris was being rebuilt, there is no reason there would not be sattelite villages for labor and agrarian workers to keep the city fed.


There are three basic reasons for historians accepting that Nazareth existed:
1) Nazareth is mentioned in the literature [yes, this includes the New Testament, which is not rejected on a simple bias]
2) Excavations have located Nazareth on no uncertain terms [though anyone can say that it's located somewhere else]
3) Cities do not just fall from the sky. Nazareth did not suddenly appear the first time that it was mentioned in a non-Christian text.
4) Excavations have located early [first to third century] material in Nazareth

Now aside from the archaeological evidence, which is more than adequate in destroying Salm's arguments, # 3 is most convincing for me. You want to reject literary evidence on the sole criterion that it is Christian (i.e., coming from the New Testament or Early Christian Literature), but the mentioning of Nazareth in Christian literature does not destroy it, and a mention of Nazareth in non-Christian literature does not create it. And if the first archaeological evidence is found from the first - third century, it does not mean that there was not an earlier settlement. I don't think that this is what happened in Nazareth, but the argument defeats Salm.

He explains Nazareth as being built by theology, but it really is a place and there really were people living there. So it's not a mythical place built by theology -- people built the place and lived there.
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