Meaning of Nazareth?

[Sinouhe]

And (וְנֵ֖צֶר) is not the version of branch you have above ... or the נֵ֫צְר version in the Lexicon/s

http://lexiconcordance.com/hebrew/5342.html

[StephenGoranson]

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Fri Aug 24, 2018 8:10 pm

... Nazirite/Nazarite...comes from nazir (which, in turn, comes from net.ser), which can mean (i) under a vow;...
~~~~~~

That is false. These two are separate roots, separate words, separate spellings, separate pronunciations, and separate meanings.

[Charles Wilson]

Diacritics such as dots and other pointing (niqqud) are important, afaik.

Yes, of course. However, the use of DIACRITICALS IS LATER.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud

This provides more evidence of the Roman Rewrite.
"Immar" is "Lamb" and "Immer" is the 16th Mishmarot Group. (Strong's H563, H564, https://studybible.info/strongs/H563 and next H564)

Immar are Immer are the SAME WORD - An Automatic Word Play if needed.

Revelation 5: 6, in part (RSV):

[6] And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain...

What is the meaning of "...I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain been slain..."?

"Golgotha" and "Gabbatha" are two single use words that appear nowhere else and people have been traipsing all over the countryside in a vain attempt to locate these and other places, so I expect the explanation of "a lamb standing as though it had been slain..." to be a Doozy.

So what is this "Lamb" they're talking about? WITHOUT DIACRITICALS?

Until you can take off the blinders (Not directed at you, MrMacSon...), you will get nowhere.

CW

PS: I'll be away from the Fun-Club for a few days. There's a lot to comment on but right now I'm at the limit on time.

[StephenGoranson]

CW, nun-tsade-resh is different than nun-zayin-resh, regardless of vowel pointings, whether absent or present.

[rgprice]

What ? Are you serious ?

- John, as Elijah, is a pesher of Malachi.
- The Spirit on Jesus is a pesher of Isaiah.
- Jesus curing blind and deaf people is a pesher of Isaiah.
- The Son of God is a pesher of the messianic Psalms 2 & 110
- Jesus's edges of his cloak is a pesher of Zechariah.
- The conspiracy of the Elders is a pesher of the messianic Psalm 2.
- Jesus's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey is a pesher of Zechariah.
- Jesus's purification of the temple is a pesher of Hosea.
- Jesus on the Mount of Olives is a pesher of Zechariah.
- Judas's betrayal and the naked man is a pesher of Amos.
- The fleeing of the disciples is a pesher of Zechariah.
- Jesus's silence is a pesher of Isaiah 53.
- Jesus whipped and humiliated is a pesher of Isaiah 50.
- The whole passion narrative is a pesher of several psalms.
- The eclipse is a pesher of Amos.
- The whole concept of sacrifice is a pesher of Isaiah 53.
- Jesus being exalted in heaven is a pesher of Isaiah 52.
- The resurrection of Jesus is a pesher of Isaiah 53.
- His resurrection after 3 days is a pesher of Hosea.
- Jesus's parousia with the saints is a pesher of Zechariah and Daniel.

Just because Mark doesn't use Matthew's explicit formulas "thus was the scripture fulfilled" doesn't mean that Mark doesn't make pesharim.

Mark and Matthew had entirely different approaches and intents. Matthew was working from Mark's story. Matthew viewed the literary parallels between Mark the scriptures as signs that "Jesus fulfilled prophecy".

Mark wasn't trying to show by a parallel to the scriptures that Jesus had fulfilled a prophecy. Pesher is commentary it isn't a claim of prophecy fulfillment. Yes, Mark is drawing parallels between the events that led up to the First Jewish-Roman War and the history of Israel, he's showing how the leaders of Judea repeated the ways of the past that led to God's judgement against the Israelites. Mark is not attempting to show that "Jesus is the messiah because he fulfilled x prophecy from the Jewish prophets."

[Sinouhe]

Mark and Matthew had entirely different approaches and intents. Matthew was working from Mark's story. Matthew viewed the literary parallels between Mark the scriptures as signs that "Jesus fulfilled prophecy".

I don't see the need to invoke Matthew in the discussion since this text didn't even exist in Mark's time.

Mark wasn't trying to show by a parallel to the scriptures that Jesus had fulfilled a prophecy. Pesher is commentary it isn't a claim of prophecy fulfillment.

• It (a pesher) interprets biblical prophecies as if they related to contemporary times. According to this method, the original historical context is no longer taken into account. It updates Bible texts and gives an eschatological interpretation of current events. This method of interpretation has parallels with the way the authors of the New Testament read the Hebrew Bible.

Lawrence H. Schiffman (trad. Jean Duhaime), Les Manuscrits de la Mer Morte et le Judaïsme [« Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls »], Éditions Fides, 2003 (1re éd. 1994)[/list]

Mark is full of prophetic fulfillment. The list I gave above bears witness to this.
Many of these prophecies "fulfilled" by Jesus were interpreted messianically in Second Temple Judaism. Of course, this is no coincidence. Mark doesn't just address pagans. He also addresses Jews.

Yes, Mark is drawing parallels between the events that led up to the First Jewish-Roman War and the history of Israel, he's showing how the leaders of Judea repeated the ways of the past that led to God's judgement against the Israelites.

Just because one of Mark's agendas is to explain the destruction of the temple, doesn't mean he isn't also trying to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah of Scripture.
They're not incompatible. I don't understand this reasoning.

Mark is not attempting to show that "Jesus is the messiah because he fulfilled x prophecy from the Jewish prophets."

He is. What is the first verse in Mark ? Jesus is the Messiah. And in all the book, he is presented as the Son of Man, the Son of God, the suffering servant, etc. These ideas were already present in the second temple literature about the Messiah.

[rgprice]

Let's take Psalm 22 and the crucifixion as an easy example. Do you think that Mark is indicating that Psalm 22 was a prophecy to be fulfilled? https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ion=NRSVUE

The way that peshers typically work is something like quoting a passage from scripture, and then saying, "This means that X and Y will happen". Lots of examples in the DSS.

I don't think that Mark is writing a pesher on Psalm 22, indicating that Psalm 22 was a hidden prophecy to be fulfilled. What Matthew did was invoke pesher techniques, not Mark.

Mark is merely drawing the reader's attention to Psalm 22. The ending of Psalm 22 reads:

23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me
but heard when I cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord.
May your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before him.
28 For dominion belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations.

29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.
30 Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord
31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it.

Surely the writer was drawing on the entire theme of Psalm 22 in the writing of their narrative.

The writer didn't think, "Ahh Psalm 22 is a prophecy, so I'll interpret the prophecy through the events of the crucifixion!" The writer understood the meaning of Psalm 22 and crafted a narrative that allowed him to impart that meaning to his story.

These are examples of pesher:

They have willfully rebelled, walking on the path of the wicked, about whom God says, “Their wine is serpent’s venom and the head of asps is cruel” (Deut 32:33) The serpents are the kings of the people and their wine is their paths, and the head of asps is the head of the kings of Greece, who came to wreak vengeance on them. (CD VIII 8-12)

“The well was dug by the princes and excavated by the nobles of the people, with a ruler” (Num 21:18). The well is the Torah and those who dug it are the penitents of Israel who left the land of Judah to dwell in the land of Damascus. God called them all princes, for they sought Him and their honor was not rejected by anyone’s mouth. And the ruler is the interpreter of the Torah, of whom Isaiah said, “He takes out a tool for his work” (Isa 54:16). The nobles of the people are those who come to dig the well with the statutes which were ordained by the ruler. (CD VI 3-9)

Those who held firmly (to the covenant) escaped to the land of the north. “I will expel your king’s booth and the bases of your images from my tent to Damascus.” (Amos 5:26-27) The books of the Torah are the booth of the king; as God said, “I will raise up the fallen booth of David.” (Amos 9:11) The king is the assembly, and the bases of the images are the books of the Prophets whose words Israel despised. (CD VII 13-18)

[Sinouhe]

There was a messianic interpretations of some
Psalms in second temple judaism.

[Steven Avery]

When, Steven Avery ____, is the earliest record that Nazareth was a presumed misunderstanding for Nitai?

The evidence for Nitai is at core New Testament, plus some archaeology, not etymology.

Still, it was a good question, so we had a little discussion about this naming question, which I placed here:

when was the name of the Har Nitai village changed from Nazareth to Nitai? - thoughts from Frederic Parpin
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.ph ... inel.3507/

[MrMacSon]

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Fri Aug 24, 2018 8:10 pm

... Nazirite/Nazarite...comes from nazir (which, in turn, comes from net.ser), which can mean (i) under a vow;...
~~~~~~
That is false. These two are separate roots, separate words, separate spellings, separate pronunciations, and separate meanings.

Here's what the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 4, 1992, pp.1049-50, says:

NAZARENES. The term "Nazarene" has been used in English for several related Greek and Semitic-language terms found in NT and later writings. Some of these terms are more accurately represented by other spellings, and the ways in which these terms became related remain to some extent a matter of debate ...

Two Greek forms, Nazōraios and Nazarēnos, are rendered in English versions of the NT as Nazarene, corresponding to the more Hellenistic of the two. (Similarly, English uses Essene for Essaios and Essēnos.) However, in the Greek NT text, Nazōrazos is the more frequently used form. That Nazōraios is the more Semitic of the is suggested by the Syriac NT, which renders both forms as Nāsrāyā. Matthew, John, and Acts use Nazōraios exclusively; Mark and Luke (once or twice, depending on the manuscript) employ Nazarēnos. No other NT books use the name.

... questions on the formation of the gentilic remain. In rabbinic literature Jesus is labelled YSHW HNWSRY, apparently a nomen agentis from the root NSR, meaning, e.g., "observer" (of torah). There are at least two cases in the NT where Nazarene means something different than, or additional to, "from Nazareth." Most of Jesus' followers were not from Nazareth, nor, according to Luke 4, was he well received there. These cases are significant for later use of Nazarene as a group name.

Matt 2:23 has puzzled many by asserting that when Jesus' family arrived in Nazareth it fulfilled what was said by the "prophets" (note the plural) "that he shall be called Nazōraios." The text clearly associates Nazareth and Nazōraios, but since no Hebrew Scripture mentions Nazareth, readers had to look for other allusions, calling on the Hebrew roots NSR and NZR. In the case of N$R, Isa 11.1 prophesies the messianic "shoot (neser)" from Jesse; additionally N$R as a verb can mean "to observe, to guard."

On the other hand, if Matt 2:23 alludes to NZR, there are stories of Nazirite vows, consecrating Samson (Judges 13) and others (Samuel in 4Ql Sam). Jesus was surely not a Nazirite proper, but the LXX associates this root with holiness, and consequently some church writers (e.g., Tertullian, Eusebius) so interpreted the verse. The intention of Matt 2:23 depends in part on the language knowledge and exegetical method of the writer(s) of Matthew (Brown 1977: 207—13). In any case, Matt 2:23 presents Nazōraios as a favorable appellation.

In Acts 24:5 Paul appears accused by other Jews as a leader of the "heresy" of the Nazōraioi. Though of course he defends his teaching, Paul does not disown the name. Acts also introduces the name Christian (Christianoi), which eventually displaced Nazarene as the preferred self-designation of the increasingly Greek and Latin speaking gentile Church. But while those who believed in Jesus as Messiah abandoned the name Nazarene, Jews generally— including Jews who believed in Jesus, but who still observed Mosaic law—kept using Nazarene and its apparent varieties, including Heb Nosrim. Additionally, the name was retained by the churches speaking Syriac (Nāsrāyā), Armenian, and Arabic (Nasāra).

In patristic literature the evolution continued. Writing ca. 200 C.E. Tertullian noted, "the Jews call us Nazarenos" (Against Marcion 4. 8). A century later Eusebius switched to past tense: "We who are now called Christians received in the past the name Nazarenoi" (onomast.). Writing about 375 C.E. Epiphanius condemns the Nazōraioi, who are not a newly founded group, as a heresy (Panarion 29). Jerome followed Epiphanius: ". . . since they want to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews nor Christians" (Epistle 112.13 to Augustine).
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To define Nazarene, one must take into account the time, place, language, and religious perspective of the speaker, as well as the meanings of the other available religious group names. The development of these names merits further study.

https://archive.org/details/AnchorBible ... ew=theater (links to p.1049)

NAZARETH (PLACE). [p.1050]
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The etymology of the Hebrew name of the town is difficult. The formula quotation in Matt 2:23, "He went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth [Gk [Ναζαρετ] Nazaret], that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, 'He shall be called a Nazarene [Gk Nazōraios]' "calls for an explanation.

The usual solution is to appeal to Isa 11:1, "... a branch [Heb nēser] shall grow out of his [Jesse's] roots." In this case Nazareth would mean "branch" or "shoot," indicating the fecundity of the area. But the plays-on-words are more enigmatic than that, and Matthew's formula is used in a form that appears nowhere else in Matthew, suggesting that he is not quoting the OT.

The name Nazareth, Ναζαρετ, Ναζαρεθ: Summary

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Meaning

• Watch Tower, Branches
• Consecrated, Place Of Nazirites
• Scattering, Diaspora

Etymology

• From the verb נצר (nasar), to protect or preserve; or the noun נצר (neser), branch or shoot.
• From the verb נזר (nazar), to consecrate oneself.
• From the verb זרע (zara'), to scatter to sow; or זרה (zara), to scatter to winnow.

Related names

• Via נצר (nasar) and נזר (nazar): Nazarene, Nazirite ...

https://www.abarim-publications.com/Mea ... areth.html

nazir, נָזִיר, is from nazar, נָזַר . https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5139.htm and https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon ... v/wlc/0-1/

natsir, נָצִיר, is from na[t]sar, נָצַר . https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5336.htm

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .na[t]sar, נָצַר, isn't that different to נצר, neser

The differences between na[t]sar and nazar are צִ (tsadi?) cf. זַ (zayin)

As with the differences between nazir and natsir

The [main] differences between nazir and neser are צִ (tsadi?) cf. זַ (zayin); and the geresh י and the pointing in nazir