![]() ![]() Likewise, Paul himself never mentions Nazareth in his writings (but then again, he also doesn't mention Bethlehem). Likewise, the Talmud mentions 63 Galilean towns by name but not Nazareth. But Josephus, the general-turned-historian who battled the Romans in Galilee and who later reported that there were 240 towns in Galilee ( Vita.45), mentions 45 Galilean cities by name but not Nazareth (which was a πολις, a city, and not a κωμη, village for more on Josephus, see our article on Dalmanutha). Why did Jesus become known as Jesus of Nazareth (Jesus of Nowhere Ville Jesus of Irrelevance) and not as Jesus of Bethlehem, or even Jesus of Capernaum?Īccording to Luke, Nazareth was large enough a town to sport its own synagogue, which contained its own scroll of Isaiah ( Luke 4:17), and folks inside who obviously saw so many faces that they had to think a moment who the fellow was reading from Isaiah (ah, it's that nice son of Joseph - Luke 4:22). The Bethlehem prophecy was met by Jesus' birth during the people's movement caused by the census, but the need for Nazareth in the narrative is harder to explain. The Messiah was supposed to come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), and not from an obscure hamlet in gentile-infested Galilee (notes too the astonished Nathanael John 1:46, see Isaiah 9:1 and Matthew 4:15). It's a bit of a mystery why the Powers that Be (or else the very early gospel tradition), placed Jesus' childhood in a town that no one else ever mentioned. □Traditional etymology of the name Nazareth ![]() ![]() The name Nazareth is used 12 times in the New Testament see full concordance (and the name Nazarene an additional 19 times: see full concordance). Consequently, his followers were referred to as Nazarenes ( Acts 24:5). Jesus was often referred to as Jesus of Nazareth ( Acts 2:22, 3:6, 4:10, 6:14) but more commonly as Jesus the Nazarene (= someone from Nazareth, not to be mistaken for Nazirite Matthew 26:71, Mark 1:24, Luke 4:34, John 19:9). It may very well be that the name Nazareth was taken from the New Testament and projected back on some existing town somewhere in the general area.įrom the New Testament we learn that Nazareth was located in Galilee ( Mark 1:9) and built on a hill (from which Jesus' unappreciative fellow townsmen tried to throw him Luke 4:29). Africanus' original work is lost, but this particular passage was quoted by Eusebius (Church History 4th century AD). The name Nazareth neither occurs in the Old Testament nor in any other writing apart from the New Testament, until the third century AD in the work of the Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus, who localized the physical relatives of Joseph in Nazara and Cochaba, near Decapolis. It's generally assumed that the Nazareth mentioned in the New Testament is the same as the town called such today, but certainty does not exist in this regard. The young Joseph and Mary lived there (it's where the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her about her impending pregnancy Luke 1:26), and where they returned after their flight to Egypt ( Matthew 2:23, Luke 2:39). The name Nazareth belongs to the place in Galilee where Jesus spent most of his childhood and lived up to his early ministry days. ![]()
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