Jesus' home in Capernaum?

[spin]

A simple possibility is that Jesus was known in Nazareth and Capernaum at different times.

Conjecture doesn't help. You need to deal with the fact that Nazara is more integral to the gospel tradition than Nazareth. One can't - like some have done - guess that the difference between Nazara & Nazareth is "code-switching". That too is unfalsifiable. The evidence that Nazara entered the tradition first seems strong. Capernaum is earlier in the tradition than either, being in all three synoptics and Q. Remember there is no shared exemplars of either Nazara or Nazareth, pointing to their lateness.

[spin]

They all make Ben C Smith into a martyr because of his departure from the forum. You were always number 1 to me.

Thanks. Seemed you were suggesting more than simply leaving, but no.

[StephenGoranson]

Conjecture?
Nothing I have read, here or elsewhere, nor seen on my visits to both places, nor from my archaeological experiences in Galilee, demonstrates such a putative relative time sequence, not counting conjecture.

[StephenGoranson]

"Capernaum is earlier in the tradition than either, being in all three synoptics and Q."

Leaving aside Q, which is conjecture,
That the three canonical synoptics include something, by itself, demonstrates to you early-ness?
Oh, please.

[spin]

compare Mk 6:1-2 and Mk 1:21-22, 27. They are fundamentally the same story. Which was earlier, the "hometown" version or the "Capernaum" version?

I tend to agree with this random person on the internet who wrote:

These two sources were absorbed into the Marcan textual fabric apparently without recognition that these are the same story bones

Put together with Kunigunde Kreuzerin's observation that Mark is quite redundant and repeats himself, and I learned something new about Mark today. I mean, I always wondered why he had 2 stories about feeding the multitudes, but never even noticed, let alone connected, his more pervasive tendency to double things. And here we have another doubling! Gunna be thinking about that for a while..

The Marcan writers were collectors of tradition. If there are two versions, it suggests that's how they got it - as two tradition fragments. The connection betweeb the two feedings was obvious and formed the heart of two sequences of tradition, feedings, crossing the lake, dealings with Pharisees, and healing a blind and a deaf man with saliva. The amazement at the synagogue may not have been noted as related by the writers.

Amazing how no matter how many times you read Mark, and no matter how many decades you study it, there's always still more to learn about it.

Notwithstanding Tertullian's amazing text-critical skills, writing circa 200CE renders him worthless for any historical analysis of texts that had reached their final forms.

Worthless for *any* historical analysis of the text? IMHO that's......hyperbolic; Tertullian is the earliest witness we have for Luke, which makes him the earliest witness we have for Mark. And whether or not Marcion cut down Luke, or Luke cribbed from Marcion, there's some textual evolution there as well---both Luke *and* the Evangelion are witnesses to the text of Mark, and perhaps even witnesses to two very early, but different stages in the composition of Mark.

A golden rule: we learn about the content of a text from chronological indicators in the text, what came before and what is contemporary, not from what came after. This is why using Acts to elucidate Paul is useless. John is no help in understanding the synoptics as we cannot relate the text to the others in any chronological manner.

Working within the synoptics provides better hopes for a meaningful analysis. We can see for example that the Lucan rejection at Nazara (4:16ff), based on Mk 6:1ff, has strangely been reordered in Lk. 4:31 contains a first mention of Capernaum as "a city in Galilee", yet the relocated section contains a secondary reference of the town, simply as "Capernaum", and the people had heard what he did there, but what he did is reported later (4:31ff).

As such, they may very well have something to say about the historical evolution of the text of Mark. For example, Marcion doesn't have the secrecy motif, or the baptism by John---does this mean that they were tacked on after Marcion wrote his gospel, but before Luke wrote his?

As I said in the last post, I'm swimming lost in these considerations and any help would be appreciated.

[spin]

Conjecture?

Yes, the assertion that Jesus may have been known in Nazareth and Capernaum at different times is simple conjecture.

"Capernaum is earlier in the tradition than either, being in all three synoptics and Q."

Leaving aside Q, which is conjecture,
That the three canonical synoptics include something, by itself, demonstrates to you early-ness?
Oh, please.

I'll accept your diffidence regarding Q as shall we say caution, but I can't see what follows it deals with what you are responding to.

Do you agree that

1. "Nazareth" only occurs once in Mt (inserted in a Marcan borrowing) and in the birth narrative of Lk?
2. not one mention of Nazareth reflects a shared context?
3. no assumptions about a tradition relationship between Nazara and Nazareth can be made other than that Nazara appears in the main body of each text?
4. Capernaum is found in material shared from Mk and in shared contexts outside Mk?

If not, why not?

[spin]

Conjecture?

Yes, the assertion that Jesus may have been "known in Nazareth and Capernaum at different times" is simple conjecture. And I'm dealing with texts, not presumptions of history.

"Capernaum is earlier in the tradition than either, being in all three synoptics and Q."

Leaving aside Q, which is conjecture,
That the three canonical synoptics include something, by itself, demonstrates to you early-ness?
Oh, please.

I'll accept your diffidence regarding Q as shall we say caution, but I can't see what follows it deals with what you are responding to.

Do you agree that

1. "Nazareth" only occurs once in Mt (inserted in a Marcan borrowing) and in the birth narrative of Lk?
2. not one mention of Nazareth reflects a shared context?
3. no assumptions about a tradition relationship between Nazara and Nazareth can be made other than that Nazara appears in the main body of each text?
4. Capernaum is found in material shared from Mk and in shared contexts outside Mk?

If not, why not?

[StephenGoranson]

One place may have more than one spelling(s) in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

[spin]

One place may have more than one spelling(s) in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

That seems to be not taking note of my third point, for once again you are putting forward an idea with no apparent probative value.

Also, the peripheral nature of the use the Nazareth goes unchecked.

[RandyHelzerman]

The Marcan writers were collectors of tradition.

Weeelllll.....I recommend to you RG Price's book https://www.amazon.com/Deciphering-Gosp ... 226&sr=8-1

When I sat down with that book, I was persuaded that the gospels grew by accretion, in specific communities, according to the needs and traditions of those communities...

.....when I put that book down and stood back up, I was surprised to find myself persuaded that Mark is, to an incredible degree, an integral whole, written by one person at one time. With later redactors putting orthodizing touches and and such, of course. But virtually every senentence--almost ever word--of Mark has a corresponding antecedent in the Septuagint, particularly the Elijah-Elisha cycles, which looks for all the world as if the text of Mark has been allegorized from. What's more, the allegories always have the same point: to show that God has cursed/abandoned the Jews. As a bonus,the allegories serve to illuminate some obscurities in the story. I'll give a few examples:

1. The story of Jesus cursing the Fig tree is mysterious because Its not the time for figs, so why would Jesus be looking for them on the tree, and why would he curse the tree for not having figs in the off season? Its allegorized from Hosea 9, "when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree." Even though it was too early for figs, sometimes you found some anyways. Later on it talks about root and branch being destroyed etc. The story emphasizes God rejecting the Jews.

2. The story of the arrest of Jesus and the naked young man who ran away: This is allegorized from Amos 2, which matches the story in Mark on many points: righteous being sold for silver, giving the nazarite wine to drink---and "the strong shall find no confidence in power: the naked shall flee away in that day, says the Lord.”

One or two of these are dismissible, but RG Price just relentlessly give page after page of examples. After a while, it becomes really hard to believe that the fig tree story, or the story of the naked man, was a tradition passed down, and not something that was written by one guy at one time, for one purpose--to justify the fact that god abandoned the Jews to the Romans soldiers who destroyed them.

If there are two versions, it suggests that's how they got it - as two tradition fragments.

So yeah....one of the things I'm going to be doing while following up on your insight is to see whether these doublets really are explainable by some sort of harmonization process of two or more earlier, possibly oral, gospels, or were they a *deliberate* technique used by the evangelist, for some other reason which remains mysterious at present?

Working within the synoptics provides better hopes for a meaningful analysis.

You are not wrong, but keep in mind, The Evangelion *is* a synoptic gospel too.