The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (25 page)

Despite the claim of a thriving Hellenistic village at Nazareth, one scours Strange’s 1992
ABD
article in vain for Hellenistic evidence, whether structural or movable. The lack of any such evidence is confirmed by the stratigraphic trench which Bagatti cut to the East of the Church of the Annunciation. The trench, we recall, yielded no results of habitations or of any sign of human presence other than a few Byzantine shards.
^[316]
It might be objected that the trench was simply poorly positioned. But we must keep in mind that the burden of proof is on those who argue
against
the evidence (or lack thereof). Bagatti, Strange, and other exponents of the tradition argue the existence of a village when the ground is entirely mute in that regard. Such exponents ultimately have recourse to the doctrinal statements in the gospels, which mandate a village of Nazareth in the time of Jesus. But these canonical assertions can carry no weight
prima facie
, for they themselves require substantiation. Ultimately, the history of Nazareth devolves upon the material record in the ground, as revealed by the archaeology of the site.

One element of Strange’s 1992 article that could conceivably lend weight to a village at Nazareth in the Hellenistic era is the author’s mention (twice) of “Herodian” tombs. We shall consider the term “Herodian” carefully in the next chapter. Here, I wish merely to note that Strange uses it as evidence for a “pre-Herodian” (
i.e.
, Hellenistic) village:

   As inferred from the Herodian tombs in Nazareth, the maximum extent of the Herodian and pre-Herodian village measured about 900×200 m, for a total area just under 60 acres.

We shall see that there is no Herodian evidence at all from Nazareth. What Strange terms the “Herodian” tomb is the kokh-type tomb, discussed above (pp. 13–16). The type was in use as late as Byzantine times in Palestine and, on the basis of their form alone, there can be no justification for assuming that these tombs date as early as the Herodian or even pre-Herodian periods. That they date to the second, third, or fourth centuries after Christ is proven by the artefacts found in those tombs, as also by ancillary structural evidence (the presence of rolling stones, arcosolia, and trough graves in association with some of the Nazareth tombs) which we shall discuss when we take up the Roman period.

The ‘backdating’ of the kokh tombs at Nazareth to “pre-Herodian” (read: “Hellenistic”) times effectively makes the III CE necropolis appear III BCE—a difference of half a millennium. This recalls Kopp’s backdating of these same tombs to the time of their first appearance in Palestine.
^[317]

 From the foregoing discussion we can see that there is no basis to infer either a Hellenistic or Herodian dating from the kokh tombs at Nazareth. The artefacts found in them are Middle to Late Roman, the tombs sometimes have rolling stones, and no Hellenistic or clearly Herodian evidence has been found anywhere in the basin.
^[318]

Point-by-point

After the Strange-Meyers hypothesis in the early 1980s of a Hellenistic renaissance at Nazareth, two views came to dominate the literature: the continuous habitation doctrine espoused by the Church, and the Hellenistic renaissance doctrine adopted principally by American Protestant scholars. These contradictory views regarding the pre-Christian history of Nazareth led to some confusion in the literature. For example, the article “Nazareth” from
The
Dictionary of Judaism in the Biblical Period
(1996) presents both positions:

Excavations beneath the modern Church of Saint Joseph showed that there was village occupation at Nazareth from the period of the Israelite monarchy. Excavations beneath the Church of the Annunciation, however, showed that the period of continuous occupation began in the second century B.C.E.
^[319]

The attentive reader will be understandably perplexed by this passage,
for the two churches discussed are only 100 m apart
. If one locus showed habitation from II BCE, then it would seem curious that the other showed habitation from 700 BCE. The author of the
DJBP
article does not attempt to harmonize these two scenarios, and simply presents them side-by-side. We have seen that neither is correct. Yet, of these two theories, the conclusion cited above from Strange’s 1992 Nazareth article (
ABD
) encapsulates the prevailing view today regarding the ancient settlement, at least outside of Roman Catholic circles. It is sufficiently significant that we shall now consider it point-by-point:

A. The general archaeological picture is of a small village.

B. The village was devoted wholly to agriculture.

C. The village came into being in the course of the 3d century BC.

D. The traces of earlier Bronze Age or Iron Age occupation do not suggest a continuity of more than a generation at a time.

E. It is the late Hellenistic period that gives life to Nazareth, as it does with many other sites which have been surveyed or excavated in the Galilee.

F. People have continued to live in Nazareth from the 3d century BC to the present.

It may first be observed that each of these six statements requires a good deal of evidence in order to be substantiated. They are conclusions, not evidence. ‘Evidence’ and ‘conclusion’ are confounded in the Nazareth literature, as if a scholar’s opinion itself could stand in lieu of evidence. This is never the case, yet the evidence in the ground (or the lack thereof) at Nazareth is sometimes forgotten, sometimes suppressed, and sometimes simply ignored (as with the Great Hiatus), on the basis of statements similar to the six enumerated above. We have already noted that several American scholars writing about Nazareth seem unaware of the evidence unearthed by Bagatti, and have adopted conclusions contrary to his. Their statements often stand in lieu of evidence, despite evidence, or even contrary to the evidence. What they have to say is particularly dangerous because the average layperson and non-specialist scholar turns not to the primary literature for information about Nazareth, but to tendentious reference articles written by a very few scholars.

Fortunately, the reputation of even the greatest archaeologist does not remove the need for evidence. To state the obvious, archaeological evidence is of a material nature. Though indeed subject to interpretation regarding character, age, location, function, value, and other considerations, as a physical entity it is subject to description and categorization, itemization, and to being photographed or drawn. It is demonstrable, verifiable, and its existence provable. On the other hand, a conclusion does not lie in the ground but is entirely the opinion of the author. The determination whether that conclusion is correct or incorrect devolves upon a single question: does it demonstrably accord with the material evidence? In other words:
is it provable
?

We are now aware that the Nazareth literature is rife with unwarranted conclusions, many of which are not compatible with the material record. There is such great doctrinal pressure to validate the gospel message that even ludicrous conclusions in accord with that message have entered the literature. The evidence is, in fact, viewed with suspicion, for it often poses a threat to catholic doctrine. The result is a general downgrading of evidence and a concomitant upgrading of the messenger. Both laypersons and scholars tend to forget that the messenger is only that: one who brings
evidence
. It is the evidence that properly determines the message, not the other way around.

We will begin with Strange’s point D, that “The traces of earlier Bronze Age or Iron Age occupation do not suggest a continuity of more than a generation at a time.” In Chapter One we determined the contrary: there was continuity in settlement for hundreds of years during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The 117+ artefacts schematized in
Illus
.
1.5
showed only two apparent dislocations in settlement. The first was towards the end of the Middle Bronze Period (
c
. 1500 BCE), when the Egyptians invaded Palestine following the expulsion of the Hyksos from their country. The use of Tombs 7 and 80 ceased about this time, while the evidence from Tomb 1 is scant. A second dislocation in settlement may have occurred between the Late Bronze and the Iron Age (twelfth century BCE). At that time Tomb 1 ceased to be used. Other than these two instances, there appears to have been continuity of settlement for lengthy periods within the Middle Bronze, Late Bronze, and Iron Period.

As for Strange’s point C—perhaps the most egregious of all—we have seen that his backdating of the kokh tombs to Hellenistic times effectively turns III
CE
evidence into III
BCE
evidence. How much difference a single letter makes! We are speaking here of an error of five hundred years. Such gross distortion of chronology is already familiar to us from the writings of Kopp and Bagatti.
^[320]
Strange now joins their company, so that in every generation the scholarly Nazareth literature is marred by wholesale chronological misinformation.

Of course, there is no published evidence to substantiate the assertion that a village came into being at Nazareth in the course of the third century BCE. If true, that Ptolemaic refounding would be authenticated in some way, whether by coins, pottery, habitations, tombs, or other evidence. As already shown, no such evidence exists in the Nazareth basin, as it does at Marisa, for example. We have also noted that archaeological surveys show a marked decline in the number of settlements in Lower East Galilee from the Persian to the Hellenistic period.
^[321]
Finally, we recall that “The interior of the Galilee… was still relatively sparsely populated on the eve of the Maccabean campaigns.”
^[322]
In sum, contrary to the situation in Lower Galilee, and lacking any evidence at all from the ground at Nazareth dating to Hellenistic times, it is preposterous to suppose that a village came into being there in III BCE.

Strange’s chronological error cannot be imputed to mere imprecision, to an error of one or two generations, for we cannot suppose that the Seleucids, a century later, were any more aggressive than the Ptolemies in colonizing Galilee:

Seleucid colonists, typically consisted of Greeks, Macedonians, people from Asia Minor, and locals, but we have no indication that any such colonists were ever brought to Galilee. The Seleucid foundations and colonies seem to have been limited to the surrounding territories...
^[323]

We now turn to Strange’s point E: “it is the late Hellenistic period that gives life to Nazareth.” This refers to Hasmonean times, but here again, the assertion is not substantiated by movable or structural finds in the ground. There are indeed a number of
claims
that such evidence exists (considered in the foregoing pages), but when these claims are checked they prove false, for the underlying data (when it exists) never proves to be Hellenistic.

Strange appears to be uncertain as to the exact Hellenistic century in which Nazareth was refounded. In 1992 he proposed III BCE (point C), while a decade earlier he and Meyers proposed II BCE (p. 138, above). At the conclusion of his ABD article, Strange writes that “It is the late Hellenistic period [
i.e
., I BCE] that gives life to Nazareth.” Many categories of evidence are notably lacking for any of these proposals. Coins are a case in point. “Hasmonean coins,” writes Chancey, “are ubiquitous in the Hellenistic and Roman strata of sites in both Lower and Upper Galilee.” He adds: “Numismatic finds shed some light on what occurred in Galilee after the Hasmonean conquest.”
^[324]
Chancey notes that such coins had a lengthy circulation stretching well into I CE. They are totally absent from the Nazareth basin even through Roman times. The earliest recovered coin is of the emperor Constantius, who ruled 337–361 CE.
^[325]

Strange’s points C and E assert that Nazareth came into existence in III BCE and was thriving
c
. 100 BCE, “the late Hellenistic period.” In 1997 the archaeologist had also modified this view, positing the highpoint of Nazareth a century later, that is, about the time of Christ: “Nazareth exhibits archaeological remains from the Middle Bronze II, Iron II, and late Hellenistic periods, but its heyday was in the Early Roman period.”
^[326]

The evidence Strange offers for an Early Roman “heyday” of Nazareth consists entirely of “Late Hellenistic to Early Roman caves with domestic installations, some used as late as the Byzantine period.”
^[327]
This is a reappearance of the discredited troglodyte theory that we first encountered with Kopp in the 1930s.
^[328]
It continues to be mooted in more recent literature,
^[329]
and has been reinforced by the discovery of part of a wall on the Franciscan property, as well as by “depressions” that Bagatti surmised were from erstwhile walls. We will consider the domestic cave theory more closely in Chapter Five.