Did Jesus come from Nazareth?

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>     <snippity>

>

> Ed

>

> I'm certainly skeptical that Jesus was from Nazareth, because it seems

> plausible that the "Ha-Nostri" could account for the attribution.  It seems

> that the gospelers didn't know a Nazarite from a Nazarene.

>

> But even the latest dates of the gospels would have Jesus being assigned to

> Nazareth well before the end of the first century.  If Nazareth didn't

> exist until c. 300 AD, then how did it come to appear in the gospels?


ELF    Confusion of "Nazarite" with "Nazarene" certainly seems a very plausible
hypothesis (and one I entertain). But as Ed notes, the fact that the confusion
could take place by the time of our earliest existing copies of the gospels argues
that the city was either in existence around the time of the beginning of the
Christ cults, or was established soon after, (perhaps as an aftermath of?) the
destruction of the temple in 70 AD and the consequent diaspora.
    Confabulation across cultures and languages is easy enough to understand, but
time reversed causation involves problems with some rather fundamental laws of
physics. Indeed, in one way it would actually be in the interests of inerrantists
to establish that Nazareth didn't exist until after the latest possible date for
the Codex Sinaiticus. Then they could argue that a reference to a city which
didn't exist when the earliest (existing) gospels were  written would constitute
the evidential smoking gun of a miracle that skeptics keep demanding .  .  . ;-)

¡Salud!

Mike, aka Elfish Chimera

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