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Re: Nazoreth vs. Nazorean
>Re: Nazareth: There is NO epigraphic evidence before 3rd Century CE! The
textual evidences from the manuscripts support the attribution (Jesus the
Nazorean) I've given. The King James Redactors were wrong.<
We've discussed this before (either on Orion or Ioudaios or both!). My
suggestion was that the term "Nazorean" represents an Aramaic form similar to
the one we see in the present-day "Natorei Qarta" group (meaning, "Guardians
of the City.") The Aramaic root is cognate with the Hebrew root N-TZ-R --
likewise meaning to guard. If Jesus' group did call themselves "Guardians"
this in Hebrew would be *notzerim* and in Aramaic something like *natorei*,
and could easily appear in Greek as Nazoraioi. Later, when there WAS a
city called Nazareth, it is easy to see how people could have imagined that
Notzerim meant "Nazarenes", i.e., guys from Nazareth. BTW, the common confusion
with Nazirites is just that -- a confusion -- the Greek zeta being used indis-
criminately to render both the Hebrew letter tzaddi and the Hebrew letter
zayin. (I wish I had a dollar for every student in my courses who started out
the course with this particular misapprehension!)
Judith Romney Wegner, Connecticut College