Sunday, January 03, 2010

Nazareth Residence Found

There's no reason to think it was Jesus' residence, but if there were any skeptics out there who thought to themselves, "Nazareth wasn't inhabited in Jesus' day," (and I seem to recall one telling me that on a previous occasion) that excuse for not believing in Christ has been taken away (link). As we learn from Scripture, it was despised and unimportant village in those days, and it is not surprising to us that it took this long to find any archaeological evidence that it existed as a village in Jesus' day. We wouldn't have been surprised if no evidence had ever been found, and we weren't waiting for this evidence to believe.

Before posting this, I thought I'd try to find an example of the kind of skeptical comment I heard previously. The following is close:
There occurs not a shred of evidence for a city named Nazareth at the time of the alleged Jesus. [Leedom; Gauvin] Nazareth does not appear in the Old Testament, nor does it appear in the volumes of Josephus's writings (even though he provides a detailed list of the cities of Galilee). Oddly, none of the New Testament epistle writers ever mentions Nazareth or a Jesus of Nazareth even though most of the epistles got written before the gospels. In fact no one mentions Nazareth until the Gospels, where the first one didn't come into existence until about 40 years after the hypothetical death of Jesus. Apologists attempt to dismiss this by claiming that Nazareth existed as an insignificant and easily missed village (how would they know?), thus no one recorded it. However, whenever the Gospels speak of Nazareth, they always refer to it as a city, never a village, and a historian of that period would surely have noticed a city. (Note the New Testament uses the terms village, town, and city.) Nor can apologists fall on archeological evidence of preexisting artifacts for the simple reason that many cities get built on ancient sites. If a city named Nazareth existed during the 1st century, then we need at least one contemporary piece of evidence for the name, otherwise we cannot refer to it as historical.
(source)

Now, I'm not sure if they'll find any specific usages of the word "Nazareth" on the house, but that's not an especially reasonable request, so we'll leave the evidence where it stands.

-TurretinFan

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, from my experiences, I've learned atheists have very little concern for evidence; that's why they constantly blare on about it--it's overcompensation.

Really, just think about the grand empirical framework of data behind the theory communism. Yeah...

Hallmarks of classic (and modern) atheist literature are sparse footnotes and anorexic bibliographies.

Pilgrimsarbour said...

TurretinFan,

Sorry I have nothing substantial to add here other than to take this opportunity to thank you for your work. As I said over at BegAll, I read you every day and think over what has been said, including the exchanges in the combox.

Blessings in Christ for the New Year!

In Christ,

Pilgrimsarbour

Anonymous said...

I find it hard to believe that people cannot make any down to earth connection to present day life in local, insignificant ordinary communities.

I have been to a number of countries and to ordinary places in country. I can say I have seen and heard about "old" settlements or small, out of the way places that once were but are not now because of progress into modernity.

For instance, in my community, here on the North Coast of California, we have many such long forgotten, insignificant communities, that were of importance twenty and thirty years ago, because of fishing and timber industries, that at one time, but now are non existent. These are places long forgotten about and out of the public discourse because of progress and growth and people migrations away from here mostly for economic reasons. In fact, some people are surprised when I take them to old housing or business sites long forgotten about and tell them about buildings that were and have been demolished for some modern popular business or public interest or, or, or.

Even my Dad's office building was demolished about twenty years ago and now there is in place of it a modern gas station mini mart restuarant and car wash where it use to be. Why, in that greater area a hold community has been removed so that portions of the area modern strip malls could be built with other parts of the same area were turned back into a salt marsh and bird sanctuary.

People want Our Savior to be someone more than a humble joe who came on the scene and lived an ordinary life under the radar until the age of Thirty, just as the Prophets foretold; a guy, not so fanciful, loud or of any reputation:::>

Isa 53:1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
Isa 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Isa 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Apparently they still are finding it hard to believe! I think the devils have put souls up to this sort of belief. It's just plain foolishness. Anything, you know, they will say and do, to put in your mind to believe, just to distract you from the Truth!

Thank God God is mindful of all the schemes of the devil even when mankind is not!

Turretinfan said...

Good points NatAmLLC!

Thanks (And my pleasure!), Pilgrim's Arbour.

Mr. Miller, naturally some (perhaps most) aren't really interested in the evidence. Perhaps, however, the evidence will convict them of this fact and help them realize that their problem is not the evidence, but their own sinful rebellion against God.

Reformation said...

"Hallmarks of classic (and modern) atheist literature are sparse footnotes and anorexic bibliographies."

A classic sentence. Howling here.

Anonymous said...

Vridar beat you to posting on it, and he calls it into question based on the fact the guy who discovered it works for the Tourism Dept of Nazareth.

Turretinfan said...

Anyone who is looking for archaeological finds has the bias that they hope to discover what they are looking for.

Jnorm said...

Thanks for posting this. This was a good find.





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