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This thread follows on from the 'Historical Jesus' thread and I trust that the mods will move whatever material they think necessary from that thread to here.
I will give a brief summary of my arguments against the existence of the city of Nazareth here before moving on. I would also respectfully ask pneuma to refrain from bringing up the same 'Jesus House' argument that I feel has been adequately dealt with in the other thread. Both sides of the argument can be reviewed here //www.city-data.com/forum/chris...cal-jesus.html and I see no purpose in reintroducing it here. Those that wish to view the argument or comment on it can do so in the other thread.
I would of course welcome any NEW evidence for Nazareth that hasn't been covered in the other thread.
NAZARETH.
The Gospels state that Jesus came from the city of Nazareth. A city large enough to have a synagogue.
As things stand, we have ascertained beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no city of Nazareth at the time of Jesus for 'Jesus of Nazareth' to have come from. Nazareth is not mentioned in any historical records of the time and receives no mention by any contemporary historian. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, the Talmud, nor in the Apocrypha and it does not appear in any early rabbinic literature. Nazareth was not included in the list of settlements of the tribes of Zebulon which mentions twelve towns and six villages nor is it included among the 45 cities of Galilee that were mentioned by Josephus.Nazareth is also missing from the 63 towns of Galilee mentioned in the Talmud.
While living at Japha, Josephus resided 2000 meters from what eventually became the centre of late Roman Nazareth, yet in his later survey of the area he makes no mention of the town.
Origen lived within a day's journey of the future site of Nazareth for many years but was unable to find such a city, eventually concluding that the Gospel references to Nazareth should be interpreted figuratively or mystically. Nazorean roots of Christianity
Exhaustive archaeological studies have been done by Franciscan monks for decades to try to prove that there was a city of Nazareth but they have failed miserably. Of the artefacts uncovered from the area known as the bath-house, none are known to pre-date the 2nd century CE.
There is verifiable evidence of a settlement on the site during the middle Bronze Age and Iron Age which would be around 2300 BCE - 600BCE and verifiable evidence of a settlement there from the end of the first century CE.
However, excavations in the area have failed to show any evidence of habitation as a city, town etc for the Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic and Early Roman times. Thus the verifiable evidence tells us that whatever settlement was there BCE was likely to have been destroyed c710 by the Assyrians, who destroyed many towns in that area and, other than perhaps a farm or two, the site was not resettled until the late 1st - early 2nd century CE.
If an area is exhausively excavated and that area gives us artefacts from the Bronze Age and Iron Age and items from the late 1st century - 2nd century CE but nothing from the period between the Iron age and the late 1st century - early 2nd century, it is not unreasonable to conclude that, between those times, there was nobody living there.
A building discovered by an Israeli Bible archaeologist and 'claimed' (along with her claim of finding the actual wine jars used by Jesus at Canaan) to have been there at the time of Jesus has only been dated to the 1st century rather than to the time when Jesus is said to have existed. The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) will only commit themselves to saying that it's 'Early Roman'. There is no verifiable evidence that it was there at the alleged time of Jesus and could just as well have been built in the late 1st century or early second....and even if it was dated between say...1CE and 33CE, one single dwelling does not make a city.
The area became repopulated at the end of the 1st to early 2nd century and has grown to what it is today.
So Nazareth is 'strike one' against the historical accuracy of the Gospels.
So moving on. What is next in the quest for historically reliable Gospels? How about the NATIVITY?
TRANSPONDER is much more learned on this subject and hopefully he will bring his expertise here.
Luke has the Christian man-god being born during the census of Quirnius (6CE) and Matthew says he was born before the death of Herod (4BCE). They can't both be true because there is 10 years difference between the two events. It is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled, however hard apologists try to twist and 'invent' history. The verifiable history is against them.
The one and only time that Quirinius was governor of Judea was 6CE. Apologist attempts to invent a Quirinius census prior to 6CE fail miserably because before that time there was no need for a census because then, Judea was a client kingdom and the Romans did not need a census for a client kingdom....the king took care of taxes. The Romans took over the area in 6CE and that is why the census was required.
So...
1. Quirinius wasn't governor before 6CE so there could not have been an earlier Qurinius census of Judea.
2. Before 6CE, Judea was not under the control of Rome. It was a client state that was, until 4BCE, ruled Herod.
3.The Romans didn't collect taxes in client kingdoms.
4. Following the death of Herod, his son Herod Archelaus took over. In 6CE, Herod Archelaus was kicked out for screwing up and the Romans took control of Judea. 5. They installed Quirinius as governor and his first job was to conduct a census so that the area could be taxed.
There was no Roman census of Judea before 6CE because Judea was not under the control of Rome, so no census was required. The census was a literary tool to get the Christian man-god to Bethlehem to be born.
Even if we completely ignore that the time line makes no sense, the rest of the story does not make any sense either. One has to be a idiot to believe that the Romans uprooted their entire empire and had people travel for days to sign a tax form at the home of some dead ancestor. That it was for tax purposes makes the story even more ridiculous because for tax purposes it does not matter where you are from, what matters is where you live NOW.
....and what kind of jerk would Joseph have to be to make his wife who is due to pop any day make a 90 mile journey on foot to watch him sign a tax form? She did not matter...only Joseph would have to have been there.
The Census of Quirinius was a census of Judaea taken by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, Roman governor of Syria, upon the imposition of direct Roman rule in 6 CE. The Jewish historian Josephus portrays the annexation and census as the cause of an uprising which later became identified with the Zealot movement. The author of the Gospel of Luke uses it as the narrative means by which Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-5) and places the census within the reign of Herod the Great, who actually died 10 years earlier in 4 BCE. No satisfactory explanation has been put forward which could resolve the contradiction, and most scholars think that the author of the gospel made a mistake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius
So moving on. What is next in the quest for historically reliable Gospels? How about the NATIVITY?
TRANSPONDER is much more learned on this subject and hopefully he will bring his expertise here.
According to Matthew, Herod tried to kill newborn 'Messiah' by having all the male children two years old and under bumped off in Bethlehem and its environs.
It's pure invention. Herod was guilty of many crimes, including the murder of several members of his own family but such as Josephus, who delighted in listing Herod's crimes, do not mention what would have been Herod's greatest crime. It simply didn't happen and is yet another historical inaccuracy of the Gospels.
It's likely written to draw a parallel between Jesus and Moses who, surprise, surprise, also had a miraculous escape from the hands of a Pharaoh. The OT says that the extermination of the new-born male children of the Jews was decreed by the Pharaoh to stop the growth of the troublesome Jews, which he saw as a threat to Egypt..
Much of the Gospel narratives are fanciful, unhistorical and made up - that's for sure.
But why is there such an emphasis on "disproving" Nazareth? As far as I'm aware, no such thing has happened since archaeological evidence points to a small village during the Hellenistic and Roman period. There is even a Herodian period tomb.
This all sounds like an argument from silence.
Contrary to what was stated in the OP, early Jewish and Rabbinic sources DO mention Nazareth. A priestly family settled in Nazareth shortly after the time of the Jewish Revolt (70 CE), the Hapizez family (see Mishmaroth 18); there is a Byazantine inscription in Hebrew detailing a Priestly tradition at Nazareth; Midrash Qoh. Rabba 2:8, in the 3rd century, mentions a priestly tradition at Nazareth.
As for the village itself,
The general archaeological picture is that of a small village, devoted wholly to agriculture, that came into being in the course of the 3d century BC. Although there are traces of earlier Bronze Age or Iron Age occupation, none of these suggests a continuity of more than a generation at a time. It is the late Hellenistic period that gives life to Nazareth, as it does with many other sites which have been surveyed or excavated in the Galilee. People have continued to live in Nazareth from the 3d century BC to the present day.
(James F. Strange, ABD IV, Doubleday 1992, p. 1051)
Nazareth is spoken of as some dirt-poor little podunk village. I wouldn't expect to see it massively attested in historical sources - why would it? It is unlikely that the tradition of Jesus coming from Nazareth (which was viewed so negatively by many), which Matthew and Luke had to leap around to match the tradition of the messiah coming from Bethlehem, was a mere reflection of the so-called prophecy that the messiah would be a "Nazarene".
I understand the desire to "negate" the existence of Nazareth, but it's really not needed. One can support the historical existence of a Jesus, or of a town, without having to admit that he was some sort of divine Messiah. There are many other historical problems with the Gospel narratives - I don't really see how this one adds to that picture.
Anyways, I'm no expert on the New Testament or anything, but I did study the Historical Jesus problem many years ago - and the existence of Nazareth as a town was never a major stumbling block, as far as I can recall. There are SO many other problems that are much more obvious.
Much of the Gospel narratives are fanciful, unhistorical and made up - that's for sure.
Which is what we are setting out to discover old chap.
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But why is there such an emphasis on "disproving" Nazareth?
It's simply on the list of things that, when disproved would lead us to conclude that, if so many things are provably false in the Gospels then why not the crucifixion and resurrection also. I know it's not necessary for the likes of me and thee but is is necessary to prove our case to the theists and especially the fundies.
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As far as I'm aware, no such thing has happened since archaeological evidence points to a small village during the Hellenistic and Roman period. There is even a Herodian period tomb.
I see no evidence of the city with it's synagogue described in the gospels. I would accept a small farm or two but there is no evidence that I have found for a city, town, village or even a hamlet. The tombs along with the funerary items appear to be from the 2nd century from what I have researched but even so, that only supports the claim that Nazareth at the time of the Christian man-god wasn't much more than a cemetery. We would need to find more than one house or even two before we even got a hamlet, a village much more and a town or city big enough to have a synagogue.... well.
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Contrary to what was stated in the OP, early Jewish and Rabbinic sources DO mention Nazareth. A priestly family settled in Nazareth shortly after the time of the Jewish Revolt (70 CE), the Hapizez family (see Mishmaroth 18); there is a Byazantine inscription in Hebrew detailing a Priestly tradition at Nazareth; Midrash Qoh. Rabba 2:8, in the 3rd century, mentions a priestly tradition at Nazareth.
Well I was referring more to a time when Jesus was allegedly born so that he could have from there as a child as the Gospels state...say from 1CE to 20CE. There could have been some kind of settlement taking shape in 70CE but then we would have to dismiss one of the Church fathers, Origen who was around in the early second century, live near to wher Nazareth was supposed to be yet couldn't find any trace of it, finally concluding that there was no physical Nazareth and that the Gospel references to Nazareth should be interpreted figuratively or mystically.
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As for the village itself,
The general archaeological picture is that of a small village, devoted wholly to agriculture, that came into being in the course of the 3d century BC. Although there are traces of earlier Bronze Age or Iron Age occupation, none of these suggests a continuity of more than a generation at a time. It is the late Hellenistic period that gives life to Nazareth, as it does with many other sites which have been surveyed or excavated in the Galilee. People have continued to live in Nazareth from the 3d century BC to the present day.
(James F. Strange, ABD IV, Doubleday 1992, p. 1051)
...but the evidence doesn't bear that out old fruit and of course Jim Strange is a Bible archaeologist and we know that they can't be trusted. Nazareth was supposed to be big enough to have a synagogue and a cliff (the geography doesn't support it) and be big enough to whip up a hostile crowd. Do you thing a few agricultural dwellings could whip up up a hostile mob that would want to throw Jesus off a non-existent cliff? Hell man! If Nazareth really was a dirt-poor collection of farms, most of the inhabitants would have been interbred...they would have been Jesus' family!
As I point out here...
"There is verifiable evidence of a settlement on the site during the middle Bronze Age and Iron Age which would be around 2300 BCE - 600BCE and verifiable evidence of a settlement there from the end of the first century CE.
However, excavations in the area have failed to show any evidence of habitation as a city, town etc for the Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic and Early Roman times. Thus the verifiable evidence tells us that whatever settlement was there BCE was likely to have been destroyed c710 by the Assyrians, who destroyed many towns in that area and, other than perhaps a farm or two, the site was not resettled until the late 1st - early 2nd century CE."
...and even if that wasn't the case and it was just a few farms we have still proven the Gospels to be historically incorrect when it describes a city with a synagogue.
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Nazareth is spoken of as some dirt-poor little podunk village. I wouldn't expect to see it massively attested in historical sources - why would it?
I don't see why not. Even dirt poor little podunk villages are listed on maps, especially military ones. Hell, the military maps I have seen even include bus stops. I also don't see why the 45 cities of Galilee that were mentioned by Josephus or the 63 towns of Galilee in the Talmud wouldn't have also mentioned some dirt-poor podunk place as most of them were probably such.
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It is unlikely that the tradition of Jesus coming from Nazareth (which was viewed so negatively by many), which Matthew and Luke had to leap around to match the tradition of the messiah coming from Bethlehem, was a mere reflection of the so-called prophecy that the messiah would be a "Nazarene".
...but it's possible wouldn't you say, that Matthew got it wrong and confused what was meant by 'Nazarene' and thought it was a place?
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I understand the desire to "negate" the existence of Nazareth, but it's really not needed. One can support the historical existence of a Jesus, or of a town, without having to admit that he was some sort of divine Messiah. There are many other historical problems with the Gospel narratives - I don't really see how this one adds to that picture.
Oh I agree with you entirely old horse. For critical thinking people it's not necessary but we know that we don't all think critically. One could also argue that even if it was proven that there was no Nazareth at the time of Jesus, there will still be the fundies that will deny the evidence. We seek not to change their minds as we know that we can't but, come on old fruit, surely you enjoy a damn good debate??
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Anyways, I'm no expert on the New Testament or anything, but I did study the Historical Jesus problem many years ago - and the existence of Nazareth as a town was never a major stumbling block, as far as I can recall. There are SO many other problems that are much more obvious.
Quite my old toe-rag, which is why I really wanted to keep this thread for those problems rather than re-visit the same old stuff that has been hammered out on the Historical Jesus thread.
Luke has the Christian man-god being born during the census of Quirnius (6CE) and Matthew says he was born before the death of Herod (4BCE). They can't both be true because there is 10 years difference between the two events. It is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled, however hard apologists try to twist and 'invent' history. The verifiable history is against them.
The one and only time that Quirinius was governor of Judea was 6CE. Apologist attempts to invent a Quirinius census prior to 6CE fail miserably because before that time there was no need for a census because then, Judea was a client kingdom and the Romans did not need a census for a client kingdom....the king took care of taxes. The Romans took over the area in 6CE and that is why the census was required.
So...
1. Quirinius wasn't governor before 6CE so there could not have been an earlier Qurinius census of Judea.
2. Before 6CE, Judea was not under the control of Rome. It was a client state that was, until 4BCE, ruled Herod.
3.The Romans didn't collect taxes in client kingdoms.
4. Following the death of Herod, his son Herod Archelaus took over. In 6CE, Herod Archelaus was kicked out for screwing up and the Romans took control of Judea. 5. They installed Quirinius as governor and his first job was to conduct a census so that the area could be taxed.
There was no Roman census of Judea before 6CE because Judea was not under the control of Rome, so no census was required. The census was a literary tool to get the Christian man-god to Bethlehem to be born.
Even if we completely ignore that the time line makes no sense, the rest of the story does not make any sense either. One has to be a idiot to believe that the Romans uprooted their entire empire and had people travel for days to sign a tax form at the home of some dead ancestor. That it was for tax purposes makes the story even more ridiculous because for tax purposes it does not matter where you are from, what matters is where you live NOW.
....and what kind of jerk would Joseph have to be to make his wife who is due to pop any day make a 90 mile journey on foot to watch him sign a tax form? She did not matter...only Joseph would have to have been there.
The Census of Quirinius was a census of Judaea taken by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, Roman governor of Syria, upon the imposition of direct Roman rule in 6 CE. The Jewish historian Josephus portrays the annexation and census as the cause of an uprising which later became identified with the Zealot movement. The author of the Gospel of Luke uses it as the narrative means by which Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-5) and places the census within the reign of Herod the Great, who actually died 10 years earlier in 4 BCE. No satisfactory explanation has been put forward which could resolve the contradiction, and most scholars think that the author of the gospel made a mistake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius
Ok, let's play Devils' advocate and argue apolgetics. The thing to do is mainly to reconcile Luke and Matthew and the problem that Matthew's nativity is set in the time of King Herod and that of Luke during the census of Quirinus which is dated to 6 AD after Herod had died, his sons has split the kingdom between them and Archelaus, who was Tetrarch of Judea had been deposed by Rome and the country taken over as a province, the census being conducted to assess Judea for taxation.
The only way to do this is to say that the census Joseph signed up for was actually in the time of Herod. In fact it has to be, as the Matthew story had Joseph going to Egypt and then to Galilee to avoid Archelaeus. Indeed Luke places the Annunciation in the days of Herod, not Archelaus, let alone Rome. We know (as Luke says) that Augustus was introducing taxation and, if Judea as a client kingdom wasn't appropriate for a Roman tax, didn't Augustus feel that Herod should be subjected to a tax like everyone to 'make him feel he is a slave'? And the Greek for Quirinus being governor can also be read as before he was governor.
The objection is that a census sign -up conducted by Quirinus (appointed governor) sounds unlike Herod's methods of taking income from trade and avoiding a head count which would offend the Jews (the Roman census led to a revolt - see Acts 5.37). Any such taxation carried out for Herod by Rome could not be secret, would lead to wide disturbances and could not be overlooked or ignored by Josephus. He writes about the Roman census and the revolt it provoked, but not a mention of one in Herod's time, whether by Quirnus or by anyone else.
This I say knocks the 'Herodian census' on the head and, while the coffin of the '2nd census' is being knocked up, let me dismiss the arguments that Varus could have been Legate in 1 BC, that Herod might have died in 1 BC and that Varus or Quirinus might have serves a second term makes no difference. During Herod's time there was (so it seems from Josephus) no census as described by Luke.
This is an omission which cannot be shrugged off. If there had been on, Josephus could not credibly have ignored it. Thus, the better explanation is that we have two accounts that contradict. Now the nails for the coffin of the 2nd census.
The Roman census wouldn't have applied to Galilee, so Joseph wouldn't need to register.
Matthew clearly had Joseph living in Judea and only goes to Nazareth to avoid Herod's son, not because that was where he had been living.
Even if Joseph did have to register for a tax, he'd do it in Galilee, not some ancestral city that was no use in collecting taxes in Galilee.
The Greek grammar (so I read) doesn't admit a reading of 'before' Quirinus was governor, and it makes no sense to say who wasn't governor yet rather than to say who was.
Never mind the absurd star hovering 50 feet above the inn or stable or house, but the Matthew story is a series of clumsy leaps from a royal pretender whom Herod immediately had looked up in scripture rather than interrogate his nobles and officers, asks about when the star appeared so he's know to massacre anyone born in the last 2 years, ask the magi to report back rather than sending his best to follow them and grab the family as soon as they'd gone and then carries out a massacre unknown to Josephus or indeed Luke or any other gospel, to going 'home' to Judea and then having to be warned to relocate to Nazareth thereby (says Matthew trying to make it look like a prophecy) the reason Jesus was called a Nazarene.
And that introduces that final nail needed (not the last one we have ) that Mark does not even have a nativity story. And John (7.42) has the objection that Jesus can't be the messiah as he doesn't come from Bethlehem, the village where David was, Now, if John had an inkling of a Bethlehem birth, he could hardly have failed to counter this objection by putting it into Jesus' mouth or one of his asides "(For they know not that Jesus was truly born in Bethlehem, thus fulfilling scripture, so there)"
And that is the reason why the stories were written -separately and in total contradiction - because Jesus ought to have been born in Bethlehem..so Matthew and Luke would make sure he was,
Much of the Gospel narratives are fanciful, unhistorical and made up - that's for sure.
But why is there such an emphasis on "disproving" Nazareth? As far as I'm aware, no such thing has happened since archaeological evidence points to a small village during the Hellenistic and Roman period. There is even a Herodian period tomb.
This all sounds like an argument from silence.
Contrary to what was stated in the OP, early Jewish and Rabbinic sources DO mention Nazareth. A priestly family settled in Nazareth shortly after the time of the Jewish Revolt (70 CE), the Hapizez family (see Mishmaroth 18); there is a Byazantine inscription in Hebrew detailing a Priestly tradition at Nazareth; Midrash Qoh. Rabba 2:8, in the 3rd century, mentions a priestly tradition at Nazareth.
Yes, I read that. But I saw nothing irreconcilable with the idea that Nazareth town was built in Nazareth (Genessaret) after the Jewish war and after the devastation of Sepphoris and Jotapa. In other words, it was a new town. I'd heard various dates for the tombs, some thought them pre Herodian, others say associated with the revolt in Trajan's time. Others see them as old tombs used as part of Nazareth slum -dwellings. I haven't seen a convincing reason to date them to Herod's time.
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As for the village itself,
The general archaeological picture is that of a small village, devoted wholly to agriculture, that came into being in the course of the 3d century BC. Although there are traces of earlier Bronze Age or Iron Age occupation, none of these suggests a continuity of more than a generation at a time. It is the late Hellenistic period that gives life to Nazareth, as it does with many other sites which have been surveyed or excavated in the Galilee. People have continued to live in Nazareth from the 3d century BC to the present day.
(James F. Strange, ABD IV, Doubleday 1992, p. 1051)
Nazareth is spoken of as some dirt-poor little podunk village. I wouldn't expect to see it massively attested in historical sources - why would it? It is unlikely that the tradition of Jesus coming from Nazareth (which was viewed so negatively by many), which Matthew and Luke had to leap around to match the tradition of the messiah coming from Bethlehem, was a mere reflection of the so-called prophecy that the messiah would be a "Nazarene".
I understand the desire to "negate" the existence of Nazareth, but it's really not needed. One can support the historical existence of a Jesus, or of a town, without having to admit that he was some sort of divine Messiah. There are many other historical problems with the Gospel narratives - I don't really see how this one adds to that picture.
Anyways, I'm no expert on the New Testament or anything, but I did study the Historical Jesus problem many years ago - and the existence of Nazareth as a town was never a major stumbling block, as far as I can recall. There are SO many other problems that are much more obvious.
You are quite right; for the point of view of the historical or 'real' Jesus it makes no difference to Raffs of me whether Jesus was born in Nazareth, Capernaum or Jotapa. It may make a difference to the Gospels because they do represent Nazareth as a place he came from and could go back to and try to do his teaching and healing there (so it had to be a decent size) and cause some confusion and doubt and disbelief because the people there all know his family.
I find it ironic that the Bible Archaeologists, KJV in one hand and *****xe in the other, seriously try to identify the hill those neighbours tried to throw Jesus off. They might as well search France for the site of Amon Sul. That story in Luke is garbage.
We know where he gets it. Both Mark and Matthew have ts rejection Mark as 6.1 (not Mark says Nazareth is his own country, not town). And Matthew 13 5, (also country, though he has a synagogue there to teach in) and the same sort of passage 'is this not the Carpenter's son, the son of Mary, and the family all here?) and Luke has this too, but instead of having it after the calling of disciples, sermons, healings, sling to Gadara, healing Jairus daughter etc, Luke has Jesus start off there preaching to his neighbours in the synagogue of a place we doubt even existed. Oddly this actually goes down well, but Luke loses no time in having all the neighbours fly into a rage bustle Jesus up to the top of a hill intent on murder and he simply walks away from it.
Balls, folks, even if there was not the tiniest hint of it at the same event described my Mark and Matthew, and John appears to say nothing of the event, either. This is not only a tall story but a contradiction by Luke who already looks unsound over his Nativity story. One more strike and he's out.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 10-11-2016 at 09:46 AM..
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) that Mark does not even have a nativity story. And John (7.42) has the objection that Jesus can't be the messiah as he doesn't come from Bethlehem, the village where David was, Now, if John had an inkling of a Bethlehem birth, he could hardly have failed to counter this objection by putting it into Jesus' mouth or one of his asides "(For they know not that Jesus was truly born in Bethlehem, thus fulfilling scripture, so there)" 