The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (56 page)

The attempted casting down is a dramatic scene and presupposes a nearby cliff of considerable height. Such cliffs hardly exist in Lower Galilee, but are found in profusion in the immediate vicinity of Qumran, as anyone who has seen an aerial photo of the desolate area will attest. Precipitous ravines slice through the land on all sides of the ancient settlement, carving steep and forbidding cliffs hundreds of feet high. Here, the Nazarenes could easily have led someone to the brow of the hill on which their settlement was located, to cast him to his death.

The desolate cliffs near the Wadi Qumran offer a fitting setting for a prophet wont to go into deserted and solitary places to meditate.
^[795]
 
 All this is but circumstantial, were it not for the inevitable conclusion of our foregoing analysis: the earliest gospel tradition, Q, located Jesus’ home of
Nazara
not in Nazareth of Galilee, but in Judea.

(b) Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. Leaving Nazara he went and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled…   (Mt 4:12–14)

This Q passage supplies us with another significant insight: in the earliest gospel stratum,
Nazara
is none other than the field of activity of John the Baptist.

Epilogue

This book began by examining the archaeology of the Nazareth basin, and has ended far away among the desolate hills of Judea. We have been led inexorably, one step at a time, to the southern province, and it is there that we must find the continuation of our search into Christian origins. Galilee was a latecomer to the tradition, postdating the migration of Jesus-followers northwards to Pella before the First Jewish War. Surely, the activity of Jesus about the Sea of Galilee reflects the onwards migration of Jesus-followers to that region, and also reflects a situation contemporary with the activity of the evangelists. For reasons yet to be explored, the canonical tradition found it necessary to divorce Jesus from Judean roots. But the gospels preserve unmistakable signs of an earlier tradition, one firmly rooted in Judean soil.

The myth of Nazareth, taken together with evidence from early Christian writings, witnesses to a deliberate, systematic, and calculated obliteration of the southern tradition from the Jesus story, one already effected at the earliest stage of the canonical gospel tradition. Indeed, the southern tradition was not entirely excised—it survives in certain elements, most notably being Jesus’ activities and death in Jerusalem. But already in the Gospel of Mark, the Jesus story opens and closes not with Judea, but with Galilee:

Mk. 1.9 [
pre-redaction stage
]: In those days Jesus came from Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

Mk. 16.7: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.”

John was associated with Judea, and Jesus with the Galilee. Thus the evangelist Mark separated the Baptist and Jesus. That separation, however, may have been purely his invention.

__________

This work has not presented new material, but has brought a radically new analysis to material long known. The archaeology of Nazareth—based on tombs and oil lamps, pottery, graffiti, and so forth—has been in the public domain for decades. One might think that the march of time and the assiduous work of thousands of scholars would long ago have corrected the gross errors regarding this evidence. Such has not been the case. The scholarly world, despite a profusion of professors, is plainly not self-correcting—unlike the stock market, for example, with its myriad counterbalancing participants, which some experts now claim is immune to the wild gyrations of the past. Rather, academe is congenitally addicted to the opium of an invented Jesus story, one now two thousand years old. 

We have removed one idol from the temple—Jesus of Nazareth. He—whoever he was (or wasn’t)—certainly was not Jesus “of Nazareth” in Lower Galilee. Of that we can now be quite confident. It remains to be determined why the evangelists found it necessary to invent such a Jesus.

When someone removes the idols from the temple, deep-seated resentment is likely to ensue. After all, mythology serves a purpose, and the Christian myth fabricated in late antiquity answers to basic human needs: the need to be watched over, protected, saved, loved—even the need to be immortal. The Christian faith, in its Pauline guise, has grown because ordinary people have sensed a profound affinity for its myths and have toiled untiringly, though misguidedly, on their behalf. It is to be hoped, however, that the human species is capable of taking thought, of looking squarely at the way things are, of removing myth and delusion, and of using the powers of reason that separate humanity from bestiality. In short, it is to be hoped that we are capable of living in a world which is not make-believe. That is what it really means to be human, and that is the challenge before us all.

Appendices to Chapter One

Appendix 1:
Itemization of the Bronze-Age Artefacts

from the Nazareth Basin

(
Excavations
pp. 258–268; 74–75)

        All the items for the Bronze Age given in
Excavations in Nazareth
are presented here, arranged chronologically. Bagatti does not date all finds, but when available his opinion is furnished in quotation marks. When a different dating is indicated in the literature, both opinions are given.
Re-datings
by Amiran and others appear in parentheses to the right, and are used as primary data in this book. Undatable shards are indicated in a section at the end of each division. Suggested but uncertain datings are given under the rubric “Putative,” and are not included in
Illus. 1.5
. Bronze Age finds at Nazareth have been discovered in five tombs (Nos. 1, 7, 8, 80, 81) “and partly on the surface” (
Exc.
258).

Artefacts from
Tomb 1

(Numbers to the left are from
Exc
. Figs. 208, 210, & 211:1–17.

Am = Amiran)

IP:

210:15   Jar with wide, flat base. For the form see Meyerhof Pl. 12.3:25; Pl. 13.3:47; Pl. 17.23:49; Pl. 20.33:14 (all with spouts or handles).

 “EB or MB”                                  (IP)

MB IIA:

208:2             
Pre-70
Am: 31:1, 4.                                                                                                                                             (MB IIA)

208:11           Jug fragment. Form: Am: 34:9 (
pre-70Exc
211:21).                                                                                                           MB II

208:17          
Pre-70
Arch
. 6.4.6                                                                                                                                                               (MB IIA)

208:18           Jug. Am: 33:10; 34:9.;
Arch
. 6.15.10.                                                                                                     (MB II A or B)

210:4              Double handle. Am: Phs. 106, 108.                                                                                                 (MB IIA)

210:5              Triple handle ‘characteristic of MB IIA.’ (
Arch
:164)                                                                                   MB (IIA)

210:6–8         Double handles.                                                                                                                                                  (MB IIA)

210:11           Carinated bowl with ring base. Parallels: Am: Ph. 97 & Pl. 27:11 (Megiddo XII).

The ring base was not conceived until the Middle Bronze period (Engberg:71).                 MB (IIA)

210:12           Chalice. Am: Pl. 27:21 (Megiddo XII).                                                                                                             MB (IIA)

210:16           Carinated bowl. Am: Pl. 27:1.                                                                                                                           MB (IIA)

210:31–32    Bowls. Am: 26:7–8                                                                                                                                        (MB II B–C)

211:1              Lamp.
Exc
:299. Am: Pl. 59:2                                                                                                                             (MB IIA)

211:8,9,11     Toggle pins.                                                                                                                                                                (MB)

211:10           Toggle pin with adorned handle.
Arch
:205–06.                                                                                           (MB IIC)

211:14           Scarab, 15
^th
–17
^th
dyns (
c
. 1670–1570).
Exc:
315                                                                                    MB II (B–C)

LB:

208:10             A handle of large jar with incised “X.” (See also 208:14.)                                                                                  LB

208:14           “Ribbon handle with incisions.” (
Pre-70
208:10.)                                                                                                LB

208:15            A jar with thick walls which Bagatti states “has no parallel and is entirely singular” (p. 268). The angularity of form is similar to some Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware (Am: Pl. 36:20). There is also resemblance to later imported Mycenaean vessels and local imitations (Am: Pl. 57:7). The base and angularity have parallels with Iron I–II Palestinian jars (Am: Pl. 78:11; 79:8)                                                                                                                                                                LB

208:1              A Palestinian commercial jar (Am:141). A similar jar was found in Tomb 7 (
Exc
:263). Bagatti notes that “many other ceramics” also date to LB, but does not itemize them (
Exc
:268).                                                                     LB (I)

208:12            “Medium vase” (
pre-70
208:13). The top half is missing and we do not know if this is a jar or a jug. Bagatti acknowledges (
Exc
:268) that both 208:12 & 13 have “points of contact” with Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware. We note the characteristic “punctured design arranged in geometric patterns” (Am::118). A potter’s kiln was excavated at nearby ‘Afula (in the Jezreel Valley ten kilometers south of Nazareth) in which many fragments of Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware were found (Am:120). Such ware dates to MB IIa (2000–1730), an era well represented at Nazareth. However, Bagatti’s opinion is that these vessels are in fact Black Impressed Ware dating to LB I (p. 268). This opinion needs to be revisited, and one wonders if the inventiveness of the MB IIA potters (Am:106) may not have extended to such vessels as these.                                                                                                                                                                                    “LB I”

208:13            Fragments of  either a jug or jar with some similarities to 208:12. See immediately preceding discussion.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               “LB I”

208:21           Jug with straight neck. Am: 46:8.                                                                                                                              (LB I)

210:10           “Jug of black clay.” Am: (p. 146) calls this type the “gray juglet” of N. Canaanite origin.                               LB (I)

210:17           Am: 38:1                                                                                                                                                                          (LB I)

210:18           Am: 39:6                                                                                                                                                                          (LB I)

211:2              Lamp.
Exc
:299.  [Like Fig. 235:1] Am: Pl. 59:11                                                                                                     (LB I)

208:16           Pilgrim Flask. Am: Pl. 51:3 & 8, Ph. 167.                                                                                         LB II (1410–1200)

208:20           Jug or juglet. Am: 46:14.                                                                                                                                           (LB II A)