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Re: Re: Nazoreth vs. Nazorean

On         Wed, 25 Sep 96 18:35:03 EDT,  PWEGNER@BROWNVM.brown.edu writes:

Thank you very much
 
  see below..

>>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
>

   This fits in perfectly with argument ex scripta but I just received notice
   of a Louvre epigraphphy from the time of Claudius Caesar about disturbing
   tombs in Nazareth!  Another posting notes the number and kind of tombs
   also.  I am driven to accept both sides of the argument now?  Yours tells
   me that as Nazareth prospered and more Greek or Latin was used, the 
   distinctions over Nazareth, Nazarite and Nazarean became blurred.

Thanks muchly

Tom Simms, the waffler#####