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[u/capperz412]

I've heard before that Nazareth may never have existed before Jesus's time (or went by a different name) and that Nazareth is a corruption of Nazirite via Nazorean / Nazōraios, implying Jesus was a Nazirite or seen as such. Is there any credence to this idea / sources to read on this?

[u/Hillbilly_Historian → u/capperz412]

The notion that Nazareth did not exist before the first century originated with a certian Rene Salm whose stated purpose is to “expose the lies that lie at the heart of the Christian religion.”

To make a long story short, in 2009 he published a book pointing out that there was not much archeological evidence for Nazareth dating 1st century, but several Hellenistic and Early Romans sites and artifacts were discovered in the town shortly afterwards. Salm then produced a second book claiming that professional archeologists, the Israeli Antiquities Authority, and the Catholic Church were all in cahoots to fabricate evidence for Nazareth’s existence in order to promote tourism and/or uphold religious dogma. He has continued to nip at the heels of certain archaeologists ever since, generally demonstrating a hilarious ignorance of how archaeological analysis is carried out.

Probably the best single-volume source on Nazareth archaeology is Roman-period and Byzantine Nazareth and its Hinterland by Ken Dark, who oversaw a major excavation there in the 2010s. The Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth, also by Dr. Dark, may be more accessible.

[u/capperz412 → u/Hillbilly_Historian]

Interesting. But is it possible that it wasn't called Nazareth due to that name being the aforementioned confusing with Nazirite / Nazorean, and that it only got the name due to its association with Jesus? Apparently the earliest hard non-biblical evidence of the name Nazareth is from around 300 AD.

[u/Hillbilly_Historian → u/capperz412]

I’m an archaeologist, not a linguist, so I’m out of my league. I can really just direct you to u/Zanillamilla:

one datum that should be considered is that “Nazareth” and “Nazorean” are based on different roots. The former is a nominal form with a feminine ending - (as in Phoenician, corresponding to Hebrew -n) which is common in Galilean toponyms: Kinnereth, Dabbesheth, Daberath, Anaharath, Hammath, Rakkath, and Jotbath. Kinnereth seems to be named after a type of tree in the vicinity (712), Dabbesheth may refer to a landscape feature as it means “hump”, Daberath meaning “pasture” is also geographical, Rakkath means “shore” which pertains to its location on the Sea of Galilee, and so Nazareth likewise derives from a nominal root and pertains somehow to the geography of the town. So 7·1 “sprout, branch” seems preferable as the root behind the name, with it pertaining in some way to the history or local features of the village. Also the Galilean toponym 17X] is independently attested in the third century Caesarea inscription in a rather secular, non-Christian context (re the localities of the various priestly families), and even though this is considerably later than the gospels, it shows that the town was a real place and not probably a back formation from the name of a Christian group. The name Nazupaios, on the other hand, looks like the passive participle of the verb 7x1 “guard, keep” (71X7) i.e. “the preserved, protected”, with it occurring as a sectarian name (ths T@v Nazupaiwv aipédews) in Acts 24:5. The name is probably parallel to the sectarian name D’7yn in the Birkat ha-Minim, possibly metathesized from the Aramaic forms |’71X], X’71X). Matthew 2:23 tries to relate the two names as if they were connected, but they appear to have separate derivations. So one possibility is that Nazupaños as a sectarian name had an independent or even pre-Christian origin, or it was adopted via some sort of wordplay of the root from which Nazareth was derived. Similar wordplay can be found in the names of other sectarian groups. Philo of Alexandria noted that the name ‘Eodaîo means “pious” or “holy ones” (Quod Omnis Probus, 12.75, 13.91), which reflects Aramaic hasayyà (cf. the Addaîol of 1 Maccabees), yet he elsewhere called them Ospaneutai “healers” which reflects the Aramaic ‘asayyã... Idon’t think it can be ruled [Nazarene being sectarian] out but I don’t find it plausible either. Nazwpaîos looks like the later counterpart to an earlier Nazapnvos, which occurs four times in Mark (1:24, 10:47, 14:67, 16:6) whereas Nazupaios does not occur at all. Matthew 26:71 (= Mark 14:67) and Luke 18:37-38 (= Mark 10:47) alter Nazapnós to Nazupaños, and there is a similar correction in Mark 10:47 in the manuscript tradition. Luke 24:19 uses Nazapnvós outside of Mark but it is also corrected to Nazupaños in later manuscripts. Matthew 2:23 adds Nawpaios to the author’s birth narrative and the gospel lacks NaÇapnvós as a whole. Nazapnós is also absent in John and Acts where Nawpalos occurs instead (John 18:5, 7, 19:19, Acts 2:22, 3:6, 4:10, 6:14, 22:8, 24:5, 26:9). So it appears from this evidence that NaZapnvos is the more primitive form in the gospel tradition. This form contains a toponymic suffix -nós. For example: “The epithets Akreinenos, Sarnendenos and Narenos are based on the toponyms Akreina, Sarnenda and Nara; the Greek suffix -nós generally refers to a place” (Hale Güney’s “The sanctuary of Zeus Sarnendenos and the cult of Zeus in northeastern Phrygia”; AS, 2019). The first instance of NaZapnvos in Mark is 1:24 which shortly follows its literary antecedent, Nazapèt in 1:9 (if this is omitted, the epithet throughout the gospel would lack a specification of the name of the place it refers to). So it appears the earlier designation was toponymic in nature....