Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

The apparatus criticus in my Greek NT doesn't show any variant readings at Mark 1:9, where it says that it happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized... What is our evidence that we have an interpolation?

We have no evidence as we know

[ficino]

Agreed, I don't see it. In the case of passages like the TF or TT, a strong case can be made that the passage doesn't fit in its place in the text, that there are incongruities within it, and, at least in the case of the TT, that those who you would expect to use it don't seem to know of it. Or, the contested passage is absent from the older MS. witnesses, like the Comma Johanneum. Here, the absence of από Ναζαρεθ from the Matthaian and Lucan accounts of Jesus' baptism can have more than one motive. Those words don't look like a marginal gloss that crept into the text, since they create more problems than they explain.

[arnoldo]

But really, the elephant in the room has to be that Nazarene/Nazorean does not derive etymologically from Nazareth. What an amazing coincidence it would be for a Nazarene to just happen to come from Nazareth. A scribal insertion or error seems more likely.

Another point of interest is that Luke alludes that John the Baptist is a Nazarite.

For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.

http://biblehub.com/luke/1-15.htm

[spin]

Agreed, I don't see it.

Let me go back to something I said earlier:

Mark is a collection of tradition material. Hence he can be "at home" in Capernaum (2:1), yet his πατρις in 6:1 is certainly not Capernaum, for unlike Capernaum in his home town he could do no deed of power. It just means that the Capernaum and hometown stories were from distinct sources.

When you learn how to read Mark it doesn't matter about such distinctions. You learn from the accumulated tradition that the hometown is Nazareth, as 1:9 would go on to intimate and you can overlook the idiomatic εις οικον/εν οικω by reading it literally as "in(to) a house".

There are both signs of a plurality of home towns in Mark and a reason in later tradition to ignore them. The oddity of Mk 1:9 is that it is out of the blue with no contextualization, which wouldn't matter if Nazareth were already well-established, but, as both Mt and Lk show, it was not well-established. In Mark as we have it today, there are two specific indications of a home town, ie Capernaum (courtesy of 1:9) and the unnamed home town, unaccountably unnamed given the claim of later tradition that it was Nazareth and the preference of connecting people to home towns in Jewish and christian tradition. And of course there is Nazareth in 1:9 which states no claim. Again it is later tradition that makes it easy for one to assert that Nazareth here is obviously Jesus's home town.

In the case of passages like the TF or TT, a strong case can be made that the passage doesn't fit in its place in the text, that there are incongruities within it, and, at least in the case of the TT, that those who you would expect to use it don't seem to know of it. Or, the contested passage is absent from the older MS. witnesses, like the Comma Johanneum.

There are incongruities to be considered for Nazareth in 1:9. We wouldn't be discussing the issue if there weren't. You already know of a few.

Here, the absence of από Ναζαρεθ from the Matthaian and Lucan accounts of Jesus' baptism can have more than one motive.

Luke doesn't supply a close parallel, but the απο is certainly there in Mt which has all elements of Mk 1:9 except Nazareth...

Those words don't look like a marginal gloss that crept into the text, since they create more problems than they explain.

...If you compare it with the Mt version (απο της γαλιλαις), Nazareth makes eminent sense as a marginal gloss. There is no need to do anything but carry a marginally noted Nazareth into the text by inserting it before της γαλιλαις, no changes in grammar needed. So what problems would you like explained? Can you explain why there are clear signs in Mk of home towns that are not Nazareth?

[ficino]

Nazareth might be an interpolation in Mark 1:9. There is a lot of weird stuff, some of it seemingly out of the blue, in Mark. There might be lots of other interpolations. The MSS. show different readings at, e.g., 9:49; maybe interpolation has occurred in one or more branch of the tradition. In general, the burden of proof is on the person making a positive claim. The burden is not on the defender of the received text of Mark 1:9 to explain why "Nazareth" is not written at Matt. 3:13; various explanations suggest themselves, and I think it's idle to push speculation so far as to insist on one. As you noted, Luke's narrative is different, not necessary for "Nazareth" to be written at Luke 3:21-22.

[Tenorikuma]

But really, the elephant in the room has to be that Nazarene/Nazorean does not derive etymologically from Nazareth. What an amazing coincidence it would be for a Nazarene to just happen to come from Nazareth. A scribal insertion or error seems more likely.

Another point of interest is that Luke alludes that John the Baptist is a Nazarite.

Indeed. We have Jesus called a Nazarene and a Nazorean (with Matthew using an OT passage about a Nazarite as a prophecy), John the Baptist as a Nazarite, James and John as Nazarites (in extra-biblical texts), and two places named Nazara and Nazareth. What a confusion of similar words.

@Spin: excellent comment.

[spin]

Nazareth might be an interpolation in Mark 1:9. There is a lot of weird stuff, some of it seemingly out of the blue, in Mark. There might be lots of other interpolations. The MSS. show different readings at, e.g., 9:49; maybe interpolation has occurred in one or more branch of the tradition. In general, the burden of proof is on the person making a positive claim. The burden is not on the defender of the received text of Mark 1:9 to explain why "Nazareth" is not written at Matt. 3:13; various explanations suggest themselves, and I think it's idle to push speculation so far as to insist on one.

There's not much relevant here that needs any response other than to wonder why you felt the need to state the burden of proof. As I stated the lack of the town name in preference to the province is unexpected. The town is always more indicative than the province, especially given both town and province occurring in Mt 2:23. One would expect the town, not the province to be repeated in 3:13 if one were to omit one from Mk 1:9.

You say "various explanations suggest themselves". Well, let's have them, if you think you can explain away the unexpected use of the province in preference to the town given Mt 2:23.

As you noted, Luke's narrative is different, not necessary for "Nazareth" to be written at Luke 3:21-22.

The important thing to note with Luke is that Nazareth only occurs in the birth narratives, nowhere else. We only have the use of Nazara in Lk 4:16. We don't expect the first Lucan reviser of Mark to use Nazareth at all. The evidence points to his never having seen the name.

[ficino]

I haven't done an in-depth reading of the synoptics and can't devote time to it, really, so I'm not going to push the ball further on Mark 1:9 except to note that Richard Carrier in the comments in his blog, 2.1 (see entry linked below), wrote that it's plausible to think that "Nazareth" at Mk 1:9 is interpolated, but that the evidence is insufficient for us to be certain:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/3522

[spin]

I haven't done an in-depth reading of the synoptics and can't devote time to it, really, so I'm not going to push the ball further on Mark 1:9 except to note that Richard Carrier in the comments in his blog, 2.1 (see entry linked below), wrote that it's plausible to think that "Nazareth" at that spot is interpolated, but that the evidence is insufficient for us to be certain:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/3522

Carrier read an early version of a paper on the subject by me some years ago. I've continued the research since then.

[ficino]

Would you be willing to link your paper, or an update - w/o RL author ID, if that suits? Textual criticism is one of the things I "do," so even though I'm not an expert on the synoptics, I'd be interested to read it, and perhaps others would also.