Nazareth - The Town that Theology Built

Here's a sidebar from the above article:

Never heard of the place' – Josephus

In his histories, Josephus has a lot to say about Galilee (an area of barely 900 square miles). During the first Jewish war, in the 60s AD, Josephus led a military campaign back and forth across the tiny province. Josephus mentions 45 cities and villages of Galilee – yet Nazareth not at all.

Josephus does, however, have something to say about Japha (Yafa, Japhia), a village just one mile to the southwest of Nazareth where he himself lived for a time (Life 52).

A glance at a topographical map of the region shows that Nazareth is located at one end of a valley, bounded on three sides by hills. Natural access to this valley is from the southwest.

Before the first Jewish war, Japha was of a reasonable size. We know it had an early synagogue, destroyed by the Romans in 67 AD (Revue Biblique 1921, 434f). In that war, it's inhabitants were massacred (Wars 3, 7.31). Josephus reports that 15,000 were killed by Trajan's troops. The survivors – 2,130 woman and children – were carried away into captivity. A one-time active city was completely and decisively wiped out.

Now where on earth did the 1st century inhabitants of Japha bury their dead? In the tombs further up the valley!

With Japha's complete destruction, tomb use at the Nazareth site would have ended. The unnamed necropolis today lies under the modern city of Nazareth.

At a later time – as pottery and other finds indicate(see below) – the Nazareth site was re-occupied. This was after the Bar Kochba revolt of 135 AD and the general Jewish exodus from Judea to Galilee. The new hamlet was based on subsistence farming and was quite unrelated to the previous tomb usage by the people of Japha.

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House Of Love

This thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, but only seekers find it.
~Abu Yazid

Really the new 'in' place to post. ..I'll bring up what I've thought might be connected with the name of 'Jesus of Nazareth'...since there likely was no actual town of Nazareth at least at the time when Jesus of the Bible was supposed to exist. Ever hear of a 'Nazerite vow'? As much confusion of names and places as there is in the Bible, I thought this may be a possibility for why the name Jesus of Nazareth came to be. Perhaps there was a Yeshoua who had taken this vow doing some preaching about the time period in question. Anyway just thought I'd share this thought.
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Numbers Chapter 6 gives us the requirements or directives for taking a Nazarite vow. I am going to list the different aspects of this vow and see if I can gain some understanding of the vow and how it impacts the scripture in later passages.

It is for men and women who want to separate themselves to the Lord. Verse 2
He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink… he shall not drink vinegar of wine, vinegar of strong drink, liquor of grapes or eat moist grapes or dried grapes all the days of the vow. Verse 3
He shall eat nothing made from the vine tree, the kernels or the husk. Verse 4
No razor shall come upon his head all the days of the vow.
He shall come to no dead body all the days of his vow. He shall not make himself unclean for father, mother, brother or sister when they die. Verses 6 & 7
If someone should die suddenly by his side, he shall be defiled and go through a cleansing process and offer sacrifices and then the vow shall begin from the beginning. The days served shall not count toward the fulfillment of the vow. Verses 9 – 13
When the days of the vow were fulfilled the man is to shave his head at the tabernacle and offer sacrifices. Verses 13 – 21
http://www.haydid.org/pot8.htm


Open Babble
Love one another is the total message of God to man

The word Nazareth likely comes from that root.

It's most interesting that the Septuagint translation (Hebrew to Greek) which all non-Hebrew-speaking-reading people used at that time contains only ONE reference to "Nazar" and it's the scripture referenced in Matt. 2:23 -"that it might be fulfilled which was spoken...." The scripture referred to is Judges 13:5, which reads, in the Septuagint, as follows .......

[Judges 13:5 for behold, thou art with child, and shalt bring forth a son; and there shall come no {1} razor upon his head, for the child shall be a {2} Nazarite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Phylistines.]

Here are the footnotes to the above ...
[ {1) Gr. iron 2) So Vat. i.e., nazir, but Alex. nearer to reading in Mt 2; ult. nazeiraion} ]

Think about it ........... the ONLY time the word "Nazarite" was used in the Septuagint was in that ONE scripture. Naturally, it would seem kind of odd and out of place and would attract attention as being a prophecy (even though it was speaking about Samson).

The razor part and strong drink appeared as frequently in the Septuagint as it does in other translations but the word Nazarite did not.

If you do a word search in the OTestament (Authorized Version) you'll see numerous places where that word is used and you can easily find out what it means but the early "Christians" had only the Septuagint to read and therefore, did not KNOW specifically what it meant.

Without me going into further 'expounding' ....think about the possibilities. What might have happened with the NTestament Gospels over the course of 300 years as more and more "new information" was found in the writings of the early Essenes, Ebionites and Nazarenes?

-Vince

As per usual, Bill no tell :-)

Google "jesus the nazarene" and the facts be there...somewhere...enjoy!

luv,

He was "born again". He agreed with the Nazarene. I recollect he also didn't believe that Nazareth existed, due to his studies.

Which is where I was trying to go with this.

Although PRev, as always, presents some real pearls.


peace bro

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House Of Love

This thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, but only seekers find it.
~Abu Yazid

And cast...
As per usual.

-PRev1-

the BIBLe is not a book of history or even geography even though towns and cities are related to factual places: more important in HEBREW are the "MEANING OF ALL THE NAMES and PLACES" in the BIBLE: they are all part of our NATURE:

a Nazerene is one who is set apart, consecrated for GODS PURPOSE but GOD DOES this and not the person:

can anything GOOD come out of this? ONLY GOD KNOWS

but be sure that every name in the BIBLE is a place WITHIN YOUR experience, past, present and FUTURE:

every animal is a thought or feeling within your, not outside of you:

every Name of God is an ACTION OF THE SPIRIT within the SOUL and mind:

the Bible talks about us and HOW GOD WORKS IN US

if we don't know this by now, the BIBLE will become more and more meaningless and cumbersome and people will outgrow the need to understand it:

if they FIND THE TRUTH, it will set them free and they will see it didn't take 66 books to tell us what GOD IS DOING

he just made sure that he said it enough times, through enough PEOPLE, that we would have no excuse unless we harden our hearts against the truth

and it is foretold we all would

but that too is part of the PROCESS of regeneration:

we will experience every prophet, every teacher, every animal, every story, every SPIRIT, including Satan and God himself, before GOD IS FINISHED WITH US:

Thank you for this food for thought. I haven't quite thought of it in this way before. Much appreciated.

if you look up the meaning of the words in Hebrew and Greek, you will see the PROCESS OF LIFE working in our soul: Take any chapter of the Bible; everyone will show you this if you translate it to the originol language:

this is why the KJV is the ONE I USE because it hasn't been messed with in terms of changing the words around from the originol:

it may sound wierd, but it has the MEANING in the right order:

great if you actually would present something as evidence??

Do you even really know the hebrew word for soul and how it is applied in scripture?