The Nazareth argument.
The Nazareth argument is put forward by mythesists.
It goes: the town of Nazareth did not exist at the time of Jesus.
This implies that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist either.
The first assertion, that Nazareth did not exist at the time of Jesus, is the most widely
discussed part of the argument.
We need to be careful about the opposing positions because as usual both sides are incline to
make straw man arguments to attack their opponents.
The historicist position on Nazareth does not require that it was at any specific location
though it's obviously easiest to extrapolate the location of the current Nazareth backwards
in time.
It does however require that wherever it was, it was called Nazareth at the time of Jesus.
The mythicist position holds that at the time of Jesus there was nowhere called Nazareth.
To maintain this position they need to explain the origin of the current town of Nazareth
but they do not need to establish that there was no settlement in the area in Jesus' time,
just that it was not called Nazareth then.
The two lines of relevant evidence are the historical record and archaeology.
Dealing first with the historical record.
There is no mention of Nazareth from any non-Christian sources before the third or fourth centuries
A.D.
This includes the old Testament, all of the new Testament apart from the Gospels and Acts,
Josephus, the Jewish Talmud, and all other ancient writers.
This third or forth century reference is from the so called Caeserea Nazareth fragment found
in 1962.
Before it was found, the earliest known non-christian reference to Nazareth was by the 8th or 9th
century Jewish liturgical poet Eleazar ha-Kalir in his Lamentation for the 9th of Ab.
The Lamentation consists of 24 verses, one each on 24 priestly courses or families.
The verses refer to their names, where they lived and various other details, mainly on
their faithlessness and catastrophes that resulted from it.
The 19th century Rabbi Yehouda Shelomoh Rapoport (1790-1867), noticed that the Lamentation
were based on a list of priestly courses of the second temple period and where they lived.
Jewish scholar Samuel Klein developed a theory of the meaning and origin of liturgical poems,
including the Lamentation.
The lists of priestly families and where they lived must have been drawn up after the 70AD
destruction of the temple, and probably after the final defeat of Bar Kochba in 135 AD because
it was only then that the Jews were scattered beyond Judea and settled in Galilee.
The list was made to preserve the identities and Judean origins of the priestly families
in the belief that the Temple would soon be rebuilt and the families return to Jerusalem.
Also the priestly course that read the scriptures cycled throughout the year so such inscriptions
may have directed this cycle of worship.
So if Klein was right, ha-Kalir's mention of Nazareth in Lamentation means it existed
in the mid second century AD.
Klein tried to reconstruct synagogue inscription based on several sources.
1.
The Ascalon fragment in about 1920 a piece of stone bearing an
inscription was discovered in Ascalon.
The text is more complete but similar to Caesarea fragment B found in 1962.
It implies the existence of priestly lists possibly mounted in synagogues.
A passage from the Jerusalem Talmud (Taanit 4.6.68d) that appears to be taken from such
a list ha-Kalir's Lamentation and one other poem.
Cairo geniza Manuscripts which include further liturgical poems referring to priestly families,
including the 4 that appear on the Caesarea inscription:
Klein published his reconstruction of the list in 1939.
He also identified the site in Caesarea where he thought a second century synagogue had
stood.
Klein's list had the word Nazareth on its 18th line but for all Klein's skill this was
still a theoretical and somewhat tenuous assertion.
Hence the importance from a Christian perspective of finding a piece of this inscribed list
containing the word Nazareth.
Israeli archaeologist professor Avi-Yonah directed digs at the Caesarea synagogue site
in 1956 and 1962.
In 1958 a photograph of a piece of a marble slab found on the surface at Caeserea was
published.
The fragment itself was lost and has never reappeared.
This piece bore an inscription that appeared to be part of Klein's list.
This find came to be called Fragment C.
At the 1962 dig, two pieces of marble bearing inscriptions were found, dubbed Caesarea fragments
A and B. Fragment A contained the word “Nazareth”.
Avi-Yonah associated these fragments with a synagogue wall plaque inscribed with Klein's
putative list.
Here is his reconstruction.
Comparing Klein's reconstruction with the Caesarea fragments, fragment A covers 4 lines.
It is an exact match.
So fragment A proved that Klein's putative list was uncannily accurate and that Nazareth
existed in the mid second century AD.
The most complete example of the list of priestly courses was found in the 1970s on a column
at Bait al-Hadir in Yemen.
The differences between that and Klein's list are numerous and in some cases substantial.
With that in mind the perfect match with the Caesarea inscriptions is impressive.
Perhaps too impressive.
Italian Scholar Enrico Tuccinardi published a paper in 2010 questioning the authenticity
of this find.
His article was translated into English by Rene Salm, author of the book “The Myth
of Nazareth”.
This is what Tuccinardi found.
Such an important discovery would normally appear in a high impact archaeological Journal
but instead it appeared in a 1964 minor parochial publication from a Baylor University, a private's
Christian school in Waco Texas called The Teachers Yoke.
This was edited by Prof Jerry Vardaman who wrote an introduction to the article in which
he explains that he himself had discovered fragment A.
Jerry Vardaman was an ordained Baptist minister and professor of biblical archeology at Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary at Fort Worth in Texas, the institution that part funded
both the 1956 and 1962 digs.
Vardaman believed in the literal truth of the Bible was keen to find evidence for the
existence of Nazareth.
Furthermore he was aware of Klein's work.
The 1958 photograph indicated the likely presence of a synagogue list.
Vardaman suspected this list could contain proof of an early date for Nazareth.
This probably prompted South-western Baptist Theological Seminary to fund the 1962 dig
at which Vardaman was present for 2 months.
Vardaman supervised the dig in the area where fragment A was found on August 14, 1962.
It was found in waste soil before it was carted to the dump rather than being identified during
excavation.
The wheelbarrow man was specifically instructed to look for artefacts in the discarded soil
and duly found it.
The significance of the word Nazareth was recognised at once.
Vardaman had been due to stay on site for a further week but left on the day of the
find.
Vardaman's archaeological credibility was later damaged by his involvement in the laughable
micro letters fiasco.
He attempted to reconcile the dates of birth of Jesus from Luke and Matthew.
Luke takes the birth to coincide with a census of Quirinus of 6 AD.
Matthew dates it during the reign of Herod who died in 4 BC.
Vardaman wanted to show that Jesus was born in 12 BC, after an earlier census by Quirinus.
Vardaman claimed that he had discovered Roman coins in the British Museum on which were
written letters so small that they could only be read with magnification.
They refer to Jesus and from them he inferred that Jesus was born in 12 BC.
Among the many reasons for dismissing this claim are that these microletters simply are
not on the coins, that such letters could not have been stamped with 1st century technology,
and that even if they had been the coin details were worn off.
Further the coin text was greek but the letters were latin and included J and W that were
not part of ancient latin.
So that is one side of the story.
An argument countering Tuccinardi's analysis has yet to appear but the situation is suspicious.
Vardaman had the motive, means, opportunity and maybe the inclination to perpetrate a
forgery.
It seems credible that the possibility of finding a fragment bearing the word Nazareth
was what motivated the funding of the 1962 excavation.
Furthermore with the fragment c photograph and Klein's list in hand it would be a simple
matter to forge fragment A. It is possible that as the 1962 dig drew to an end without
finding the evidence Vardaman was looking for, he had the piece forged using Klein's
text.
It would of course be far easier to plant the forgery in waste soil and have it discovered
from there, than to plant it in the ground!
Furthermore you will note that we cannot place the finding of fragment c entirely above suspicion
either though this does not seem to have involved Vardaman.
On the other hand if it was a forgery it wasn't a very good one.
In this picture produce by Tuccinardi we can see the three fragments.
We have no scale for fragment c because only a photograph exists and that has no scale
information on it.
Never the less neither of the other fragments are a good match to the character spacing
to height ratio of fragment c.
They are not a great match to each other but this is more uncertain as fragment B contains
so little text.
If fragment A is genuine it does imply that Jews settled settled in a place called Nazareth
a round 140 AD and if so this was probably the Nazareth we know today.
If fragment A is a forgery then the same implication could still be drawn from Klein's list but
it would be much more tenuous, coming as it does from 1 word in a liturgical poem dating
from 600 years or so after the event.