Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Sat Aug 25, 2018 6:17 am
It is simply that the place name Nazareth here is spelled with a tsade (like the Hebrew word for Branch), not with a zayin (like the Hebrew word for Nazirite, and like what the Greek transliteration for Nazara/Nazareth would suggest). One of the arguments against Nazareth really being the name behind the term Nazarene is that Nazarene is spelled with a Greek zeta, suggesting a Hebrew zayin behind it, not a tsade, which is what we find in the inscription. It is this mismatch between the tsade and the zeta that suggests that Nazareth is not what lies behind the sect of the Nazarenes in the first place.
Sure, but I also wondering looking at the various Greek variations may provide more background too.
MrMacSon wrote: ↑Sat Aug 25, 2018 12:23 am
The title "Nazarene" is 'first found' in the Greek texts of the New Testament as an adjective, nazarenos, (Ναζαρηνός) as used in the phrase apo Nazaret "from Nazareth." Overal, the form Nazoraios or Nazaraios (Ναζωραῖος, Ναζαραῖος) is more common in the New Testament than Nazarenos.
Mishnaic (and modern) Hebrew has notzrim (נוצרים) as a standard Hebrew term for "Christian".
The term "Christians" is said to have been first used at Antioch (Acts 11:26) and Herod Agrippa II is attributed with using it, in Acts 26:28.
"Nazarenes" is used in Acts 24:5, where Paul the Apostle is accused before Felix at Caesarea (the capital of Roman Judaea) by Tertullus.
Epiphanius in Panarion, 29:6,1, says that "the sect of Nasaraeans/Nasaraioi was before Christ and did not know Christ" and distinguished them and the spelling from Nazoraeans.
Another view is
The name[s] could have been applied to any strictly law-observing Jewish sect, for the root n -ṣ-r means ‘to keep, observe, guard’ and could have been used as a laudatory term for more than one group of Jewish dissidents, particularly if they had secret teachings.’ Nasoraeans of the Mandaean type ‘keep and observe’ ritual law with zealous fidelity and ‘keep back‘- even from their own laity-mysteries considered deep and easily misunderstood by the uninitiated.
http://holybooks.lichtenbergpress.netdn ... Gnosis.pdf
And
MrMacSon wrote: ↑Fri Aug 24, 2018 8:10 pm
There are also references to linguistic discrepancies due "a peculiarity of the 'Palestinian' Aramaic dialect wherein a sade (ṣ) (tsade) between two voiced (sonant) consonants tended to be partially assimilated by taking on a zayin (z) sound" -
- Carruth, S; Robinson, J McC; Heil, C. (1996) Q 4:1–13,16: the temptations of Jesus : Nazara. Peeters Publishers. p 415.