It's all yours (Was about a non-Nazareth indicator)

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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spin
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It's all yours (Was about a non-Nazareth indicator)

Post by spin »

Mark records an event that happens in the hometown of Jesus (6:1ff): Jesus comes to his hometown and on the sabbath he goes to the synagogue and begins to teach, from which everyone is amazed. This passage is later reworked by the Lucan writer who relates the hometown as Nazareth. There is however a parallel to Mark's hometown scene, starting at 1:21 which reports Jesus going to the synagogue to teach and everyone is amazed. However, instead of the report talking of the hometown of Jesus, it refers to the location as Capernaum. (Stephen Hultgren sets out the strong relationship between these texts in his Narrative Elements in the Double Tradition, DeGruyter 2001, 140.) These two sources were absorbed into the Marcan textual fabric apparently without recognition that these are the same story bones. The most significant outcome of the two versions is that Nazareth is nowhere in sight: the hometown is made to be Capernaum in 1:21 which is extreme odd in a context where the hometown of Jesus should be Nazareth. (In fact 2:1 tells us that Jesus had his home there.) The fact that a tradent used Capernaum for the hometown strongly suggests that Nazareth was not in the earliest Jesus tradition.

I put this back per request. I'm tired of posters who don't want to talk about the topic posting here from the get-go. Have fun.
Last edited by spin on Wed Nov 15, 2017 10:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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FransJVermeiren
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Re: Another small but significant pointer to the Nazareth issue

Post by FransJVermeiren »

Isn’t it strange that Tiberias, the most important town of Jesus’ home region, is not mentioned at all by Mark, Luke and Matthew, and only indirectly by John? Nazareth is highly improbable as Jesus’ home town, but that doesn’t mean that we should accept Capernaum unquestioningly. In my opinion the gospel writers used Nazareth as well as Capernaum to obscure Jesus’ connection with Tiberias, the capital of Galilee.
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Re: Another small but significant pointer to the Nazareth issue

Post by spin »

FransJVermeiren wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2017 6:27 am Isn’t it strange that Tiberias...
(....)
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Re: Another small but significant pointer to the Nazareth issue

Post by Secret Alias »

If you want input from a crazy person, you should consider that the gospel of John also parallels the Capernaum/Nazareth situation. The question for me is - why doesn't Jesus appear in Jerusalem at the very beginning of the gospel? Let's suppose for arguments sake that the gospel narrative - leaving aside the beloved subject of this forum viz. 'whether or not Jesus was historical - was mostly fiction. The author could have written anything. On the one hand he has Jesus appear in a synagogue in one of two insignificant locales - Capernaum, Nazareth. First of all, what was a synagogue? What did it symbolize in the minds of contemporary Jews? The reason I ask this is the reason Jesus appeared there had symbolic significance and understanding the authority at the heart of a synagogue might help us unlock the author's introduction of Jesus.

I can't help think that John's structure is more original. Jesus goes up to the temple. He declares some form of the declaration which by the end of the story factors into his crucifixion. Could Jesus have said 'I am going to destroy THIS temple' or 'THE temple' at a synagogue in Galilee? I don't think it works for the puppet show-quality narrative of the gospel. Jesus has to be in the actual temple to make the declaration resonate. Let's not forget there is also always a dimension of height even in the Capernaum/Nazareth narrative(s). Jesus physically has to be above the ground in order to be cornered by the crowd and then they try to push him off the cliff leading to their own destruction when he passes through them or flies away from their murderous push down the precipice. Again the puppet show-quality to the narrative (viz. the crowd trying to kill Jesus is like two puppets hitting each other with sticks).

Jerusalem has a high precipice and the scapegoat (= Jesus) was thrown off from this height. The fact that Barnabas and other early Christian sources equate Jesus with the scapegoat means that his escape from the crowd in the ur-gospel narrative had deep significance. The evil is not flushed away. The evil is present with Jesus the scapegoats continued existence. This factors into the Pharisees parodistic (again the puppet show quality of the gospel narrative) need to kill Jesus from the start. He's the scapegoat that got away. So for the rest of the ur-narrative they are hunting down Jesus.

I think Capernaum was invented to replace the anti-Jewish nature of the original gospel narrative - i.e. replacing Jerusalem. At that level, perhaps the level of Mark, Jesus is still a stranger but a stranger who appeared in Capernaum. Then at the next level a new need is created - Jesus has to be known to people in order to reinforce that he is a man of flesh and blood. To this end, he is from Nazareth, the Christians Nazarenes (because it means 'of Nazareth) and the like. But the original layering to the gospel was:

1. Jesus came down from heaven to Jerusalem to declare the destruction of the temple
2. Jesus came down to Capernaum with no mention of the destruction of the temple but as a stranger
3. Jesus came from Nazareth and appeared at Nazareth as a man familiar to the congregants.
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Re: Another small but significant pointer to the Nazareth issue

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....
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Re: Another small but significant pointer to the Nazareth issue

Post by Giuseppe »

If ''Galilee'' allegorizes the Upper Realm and ''Jerusalem'' allegorizes the Lower Realm, then there is a reason for Jesus descending to Capernaum as first step. Note that ''Luke'' (editor) specifies ''Capernaum, of Galilee'', possibly fearing that someone could allegorize too much by reading the simple name of Capernaum.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Another small but significant pointer to the Nazareth issue

Post by Secret Alias »

I don't really understand why you haven't dealt at all with the topic I proposed in the o.p. regarding the parallels between the specified sections of Mk. It's as though you took the opportunity to talk past the topic and present something unrelated.'
I mean here are the facts

1. Mark seems to dictate Luke and Matthew but not John
2. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were presented as a set and canonized.

I think it is artificial to deal with (1) without considering (2). Start with (2). Let's suppose the quarternion was canonized c 180 CE. Consider (1). How on earth would John have been received into the community which embraced (1) i.e. that all gospels were variants of Mark. It doesn't add up. Therefore the order of Mark can't originally have been that persuasive. Even in Papias Mark is an outlier. Who is the authority for Papias? John. It is John that introduces the discussion, John the author with the gospel beginning with visitation - not to Capernaum nor Nazareth - but to Jerusalem.

My point is simply that you can't just limit yourself to synoptic examples to understand why all the gospels start with Jesus in a house of Jewish worship. John has to be included to understand how and why there were so many variants.

Now if you want to ignore these facts then go ahead. Approach the problem as a 'synoptic problem' but you're ignoring significant pieces of evidence. Not merely the parallels in John but also that Ephrem's gospel harmony - and possibly Marcion's too - seem to substitute 'Capernaum' and 'Nazareth.'

Here's the interesting thing about the substitution. It seems to be that in Ephrem and Marcion's gospel the Capernaum synagogue incident is immediately followed by the pushed off the precipice incident (i.e. no Nazareth). But Capernaum has no cliffs where Jesus can be pushed off a precipice. There is something wrong with a core introduction narrative where:

1. Jesus goes to a Jewish house of worship
2. he enrages the Jewish authorities with his teaching
and presumably
3. they gather together to push him off a cliff and he either passes through them as a phantom or in another variant he flies away.

Capernaum can't be the original locale because there are no Jewish houses of worship set up on a high hill or mountain in a Galilean fishing village. Nazareth is also not the original locale. So what are you left with? An initial appearance in Jerusalem explains all the shifting of locales by later editors. As such canonical Mark is not the original gospel narrative. I will now shut up and allow you and the rest of the 'Mark gang' to continue following this as 'a synoptic problem' which it clearly isn't. Bye.
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Charles Wilson
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Re: Another small but significant pointer to the Nazareth issue

Post by Charles Wilson »

FransJVermeiren wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2017 6:27 am Isn’t it strange that Tiberias, the most important town of Jesus’ home region, is not mentioned at all by Mark, Luke and Matthew, and only indirectly by John?
Uzi Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee...
https://www.amazon.com/Settlement-Histo ... dpSrc=srch

The Lists which tell of the Settlements in Galilee given to the Mishmarot Priests are found in multiple archaeological digs and they do not mention Tiberias. Result? One should conclude that the Lists were compiled before Tiberias existed. *IF* the Original Stories were constructed around the Mishmarot Priesthood (I believe that they were), one would not expect to find Tiberias.

In my more fearful moments, I see a faint glow of something MUCH earlier than 4 BCE - "Go into the city and you will find a man carrying a water jar". "Someone knew something" and it is over the heads of any Roman writing the NT in Greek from Source. Talk to my Psychiatrists if you wish.

BTW,
SA wrote:I can't help think that John's structure is more original.
Be careful here, Secret. You are truly approaching something of Major Importance. For all of the "Settled Science" with Markan Priority, there is a "Yeah, but in Rebuttal..." character with John that may be contemporaneus with the production of Mark.
Keep up the Good Work.

CW
Last edited by Charles Wilson on Wed Nov 15, 2017 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Another small but significant pointer to the Nazareth issue

Post by spin »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:59 am..
.. This is all fucking useless ..
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Re: It's all yours

Post by Secret Alias »

Well the fact that I don't think that Mark is the end all and be all of everything doesn't mean you shouldn't stop investigating it. For God's sake no one listens to me in my 'real life.' I apologize if my off the cuff statement prevented you from contributing a valuable inquiry to the forum. You know I admire your contributions. Please ignore my comments. I actually agree with your initial observation. I was just hoping that you would add John as another witness of variation in the lost initial sequence of Jesus inside a Jewish house of worship. If arguing for that causes you to lose interest in pursuing the line of inquiring, I apologize for making that observation. You are a valuable contributor to the forum. The forum is a better place with you in it than outside of it. I promise not to raise any objections or observations henceforth.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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