Quote:
Originally posted by IROC
I thought there was no place called "Nazareth" in Jesus' time. I don't think "Nazareth" was a community until hundreds of years later. I always thought that "Jesus of Nazareth" was sort of a mis-translation of "Jesus the Nazarene" which meant something like "Jesus the Peaceful" or something like that?
Mike
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From Wiki:
Archaeological digs conducted in Nazareth and surrounding areas have confirmed human habitation from roughly 8000 years ago in what is known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B era.
Most notable of these are the discovery not 2 miles from the center of present-day Nazareth of the remains of some 65 individuals, buried under huge horizontal headstone structures, some of which were made with up of some 3 tons of locally-produced white plaster. Decorated human skulls have led archaeologists to believe that Nazareth was a major pre-Christian cult center. [4]
The word nazur, meaning separate in Aramaic. The word is related to Nazir. There are a number of references to Nazirites in the Old Testament and New Testament. A Nazirite (ðÀæÄéø) was a Jew who had taken special vows of dedication to the Lord whereby he abstained for a specified period of time from using alcohol and grape products, cutting his hair, and approaching corpses. At the end of the period he was required to immerse himself in water. Thus the baptism of Jesus by his relative John the Baptist could have been one "to fulfill all righteousness" at the end of a nazirite vow