Evidence for first-century Nazareth?

[Tenorikuma]

We also have the general issue of whether there was or to what extent there was a first century Nazareth in Galilee. There are early Patristic references that place this Nazareth in Judea.

Do you remember what they are, offhand? I took a quick poke around and only found two references of that sort: one by Julius Africanus attesting to a town called Nazara in Judea during the time of king Herod, and a reference to Nazareth as a city in Judah in Acts of Peter and Paul.

[Tenorikuma]

Matthew 2:23: “And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’”

Where is this prophesy to be found?

In my opinion, Matthew is quoting Judges 13 from memory. In one of the OT's several miraculous birth stories that parallel Matthew's, an angel appears to the husband of a barren woman and tells him there will be a miraculous birth: "the boy shall be a Nazarite".

Perhaps he thought it was in one of the prophetic books, couldn't find it, and then quoted from memory (like both Origen and Jerome did with Josephus).

The alternative is that Matthew is quoting a religious text that is no longer extant.

[arnoldo]

Matthew 2:23: “And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’”

Where is this prophesy to be found?

In my opinion, Matthew is quoting Judges 13 from memory. In one of the OT's several miraculous birth stories that parallel Matthew's, an angel appears to the husband of a barren woman and tells him there will be a miraculous birth: "the boy shall be a Nazarite".

Perhaps he thought it was in one of the prophetic books, couldn't find it, and then quoted from memory (like both Origen and Jerome did with Josephus).

The alternative is that Matthew is quoting a religious text that is no longer extant.

Another alternative is that the "prophecy" is not that Jesus would be from Nazareth, rather that Jesus would be despised since Nazarene supposedly became a derrogatory term (like sodomite?). For example, the Birkat haMinim provides the following blessing to a group of people called the nozerim in the passage below.

"For the apostates let there be no hope. And let the arrogant government be speedily uprooted in our days. Let the noẓerim and the minim be destroyed in a moment. And let them be blotted out of the Book of Life and not be inscribed together with the righteous. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkat_haMinim

[Tenorikuma]

That's an interesting idea, but a bit of a stretch. Like saying "Jesus came and dwelt in Crete, that it might be fulfilled what was spoken by the prophets, 'people will call him a Cretin'." It's possibly anachronistic, and it only works if Matthew is paraphrasing his source and making a deliberate pun between two unrelated words. And we still don't know what "prophet" he would have been quoting.

[spin]

Why are we mentioning Vardaman? He had nothing to do with the discovery of the inscription.

[spin]

For example, the Birkat haMinim provides the following blessing to a group of people called the nozerim in the passage below.

"For the apostates let there be no hope. And let the arrogant government be speedily uprooted in our days. Let the noẓerim and the minim be destroyed in a moment. And let them be blotted out of the Book of Life and not be inscribed together with the righteous. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant"

The mention of Notzrim in the Birkat ha-Minim is a later addition, not part of the commission received by Shmuel haKatan. It's probably from the 4th century when christians first referred to the prayer against them. It started out only against the minim. (See b.Shabbat 117b.)

[stephan happy huller]

Is minim a corruption on ma'aminim? I strongly suspect so.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

little bit material
Stephen Pfann ao, Surveys and Excavations at the Nazareth Village Farm (1997–2002):Final Report
Harry M. Jol ao, NAZARETH EXCAVATIONS PROJECT: A GPR PERSPECTIVE
Jacob Walker, The Ancient Bath House of Nazareth
K. Dark, Early roman-period Nazareth and the sisters of Nazareth

[spin]

Is minim a corruption on ma'aminim? I strongly suspect so.

Seems counter-intuitive to me.

[steve43]

little bit material
Stephen Pfann ao, Surveys and Excavations at the Nazareth Village Farm (1997–2002):Final Report
Harry M. Jol ao, NAZARETH EXCAVATIONS PROJECT: A GPR PERSPECTIVE
Jacob Walker, The Ancient Bath House of Nazareth
K. Dark, Early roman-period Nazareth and the sisters of Nazareth

Selections from the Dark publication:

First discovered by accident in 1884 – and thereafter informally investigated by workmen, nuns
and clergy, for several decades – the archaeological site at the Sisters of Nazareth convent in
central Nazareth has remained unpublished and largely unknown to scholarship. However, work
by the Nazareth Archaeological Project in 2006–10 showed that this site offers a full and
important stratified sequence from ancient Nazareth, including well-preserved Early Romanperiod
and later features. These include a partially rock-cut structure, here re-evaluated and
interpreted on the basis of both earlier and newly recorded data as a first-century AD domestic
building – perhaps a ‘courtyard house’ – the first surface-built domestic structure of this date from
Nazareth to be published, and the best preserved. The site was subsequently used in the Roman
period for burial, suggesting settlement contraction or settlement shift.

THE NATURAL TOPOGRAPHY OF THE CONVENT SITE
It is perhaps most helpful to begin with a reconsideration of the natural topography of the
site. As a watercolour of Nazareth (1838) by David Roberts illustrates (fig 3), until its
nineteenth-century infilling, there was a steep-sided wadi approximately along the line
of the present Casa Nova Street (the street that runs immediately in front, west, of
the current Church of the Annunciation). Traced by Bagatti, the wadi ran northwards
following the ‘metalled road which runs to the Fountain of the Virgin’: the road north
west of the Church of the Annunciation leading eventually to St Mary’s Well.19 The
natural surface of the limestone in the convent cellar slopes to the east toward this wadi
and more sharply to the south. The preserved part of the site was, therefore, at the
southern end of a natural limestone ridge parallel to, and above, the wadi, with sharply
rising ground to the north and west. This would place the top of the ridge at the north end
of the cellar, underneath what is today the convent garden.

As is common in the Lower Galilee, the rock slope contained natural caves, traces of
which remain. One cave has been utilized to form part of a structure (‘Structure 1’), and
is discussed below; there is another (fig 4) immediately east of an Early Roman-period
tomb (‘Tomb 1’) in the south slope of the limestone ridge. There was also a spring
rising underneath the south-east range of the convent cloister, where it was afforded a
Crusader-period wellhead and accessed by a purpose-built Crusader-period tunnel, well
constructed in ashlar. It is possible, although unproven, that this spring could have risen
elsewhere on the site, as the large artificial cave (a Byzantine cave-church) forming the
north end of the cellar is exceptionally humid.20
Two more springs in central Nazareth had been identified before 2006: the ‘Apostles
Fountain’, some 200m uphill to the north west of the convent, and an anonymous well in
the western part of the ‘old city’ of Nazareth, seen by Paul Range during World War I.21
Another, at the so-called ‘Synagogue Church’, north east of the site, is implied by a
Byzantine-period water-channel shown on an unpublished plan of c 1900 in the convent
archive. This part of the present city had a plentiful local water supply, and Schumacher
heard a story of another spring to the south of the convent.22 St Mary’s Well is the only
known spring to the east of the wadi.

Dating Structure 1

Structure 1 may be dated stratigraphically to the Early Roman period, specifically to the
first century AD. The deep rectilinear forecourt of Tomb 1 (fig 14) cuts away the south of
Structure 1. Given that Tomb 1 is a kokhim tomb, typologically dating to the first century AD
(see below), then Structure 1 must date from the first century AD or earlier. This gives a
broad terminus ante quem for the structure, and, although a terminus post quem is, of course,
impossible for rock-cut walls, finds within Structure 1 strongly support a date in the
Early Roman period and, given this terminus ante quem, the first century AD. A freshly
broken body sherd of Early Roman-period cooking pottery was found on the original floor
surface just south of the doorway of Structure 1. Another was on the surface of what
seems to be the original cave floor on the south-west edge of the twentieth-century cut.

CONCLUSION

The Sisters of Nazareth site has a very well-preserved first-century AD domestic structure,
perhaps a ‘courtyard house’. This was conventional in plan, but the location allowed its
builders to work the limestone hillside into more solid walls than they could possibly
construct themselves. This ability to work stone in a sophisticated way may reflect the
otherwise archaeologically attested familiarity of local people with quarrying. Finds
indicate low-status (but far from impoverished) culturally Jewish occupants, probably
including at least one woman. This is all consistent with what one might expect on the
basis of other settlements of this period, and with what was found at the International
Marian Center nearby.
While it is unlikely that further excavation will take place at the convent, past work
provides plentiful evidence to demonstrate the importance of the Sisters of Nazareth site.
Further analysis of the data from the twenty-first-century work at the site may be expected to
provide much more information about Early Roman-period Nazareth in future.




Soooo.....case closed?