Mark Goodacre has argued on his recent podcast that Jesus was likely born and raised in Nazareth (listen here). It is his contention that it makes more historical sense. The authors of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke read in the prophet Micah (5:2) that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. This was the motivation for creating the birth narratives about Jesus being born in Bethlehem.
N.T. Wright is quoted in the podcast as arguing that we have two independent traditions in Matthew and Luke and therefore we have no reason to think that the tradition is not historical. This is dependent on the theory that Matthew and Luke are dependent on Mark. If Mark is not the earliest gospel, but rather Matthew it is possible that we do not have two independent traditions for Jesus being born in Bethlehem, but rather one (Luke being dependent on Matthew).
In addition, Goodacre notes that in the Gospel of John the author is concerned with Jesus coming from heaven. Therefore, he does not really care if Jesus came from Bethlehem or Nazareth. This is why the author can note that some did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah without being defensive. The author writes that some were troubled because Jesus came from Galilee when these people believed the Messiah had to come from Bethlehem (see John 7:42).
The Bethlehem tradition would have been a major hurdle for some Jews. If Jesus was born elsewhere he could not be Messiah. For these people Matthew and Luke present a story that has Jesus being born in Bethlehem before being moved to Nazareth later.
Doug Chaplin responds with reasons for why he thinks Jesus was born in Bethlehem (read here). He does not think that Luke is dependent on Matthew, so this would revive the two independent traditions argument. Also, he points out that there was no clear “Bethlehem tradition” in Second Temple Judaism messianic expectations. Finally, he provided some further points regarding The Infancy Gospel of James as well as the Pauline tradition (see Romans 1:3-4).
I’d encourage anyone interested to listen to Mark’s podcast as well as read Doug’s response. Each give good arguments for believing that Jesus was born in Nazareth and Bethlehem, respectively.
Update: NT Wrong chimes in here.
December 10, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Thanks for mentioning the podcast, Brian, and for your helpful comments.
December 10, 2009 at 7:49 pm
No problem, thanks for the great podcast.
December 11, 2009 at 2:44 am
Thanks Brian for the interaction. I too thought Mark did a great podcast.
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December 12, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I have two posts on this:
1) He himself says he was NOT born of a woman and
2) The confusion over what his hometown was proves that he wasn’t born just like he says he wasn’t.
Both the Bethlehem and Nazareth traditions are merely Catholic editing to make a connection between Jesus and the Old Testament that did not exist in pre-Catholic Christianity which very much rejected the Old Testament and saw Jesus as a totally different God coming to redeem us from the god of this world (the god of the Old Testament) and bring us to the knowledge of the Ultra Transcendent God, his Heavenly Father.
December 12, 2009 at 5:48 pm
rey,
In regard to your first point, I don’t see where Jesus says “he was NOT born of a woman.” Jesus’ coming down from heaven does not necessarily mean he wasn’t born of a woman. Since this is your claim – and it is against explicit statements that Jesus was born of Mary (Matthew 1:16) – it up to you to provide more than assertions with biblical verses attached.
In regard to your second point, I think it’s stronger than your first. But again, you are in contradiction to statements that Jesus was born of Mary. The argument about his birthplace need not mean more than that: they argued about where he was born. The way I read the Bible, it tells us where Jesus was born – and my conclusion would be pretty much the same as Doug Chapin’s.
December 12, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Rey,
As I read Jn. 6:51 I do not think that you are reading this correctly. The first chapter of John sets the tone for this entire book and it does not indicate that Jesus came down in some heavenly flesh. Rather, this point of this text appears to be comparing Jesus to manna as the one who sustains. It appears you are taking the statement further than it was intended to go.
Equally, your reading of Mt. 11:11 is incorrect. The one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist but you do not suppose that Jesus was saying that those who are least in the kingdom are not born of women (or that Jesus was speaking of himself), do you?
Jn 2:4, Lk 11:28, and Mk 3:32-35 hardly prove the point you are trying to make. These texts only indicate Jesus saw his “spiritual family” as being more important than his natural one.
1 Jn 4:2 also does not say “Jesus came in the flesh from heaven”. It is a testimony to the incarnation.
You reading of Acts 12:12 ignores how common the name Mary was amongst first century Jews.
I could go on and on but this seems to be an apology for the Gnostic Jesus. At least be true to your forbears and get your own text (or you are trying to follow Valentinus’ model in abusing the text of John).
December 13, 2009 at 10:55 pm
I see the canonical gospels as redactions of an original Marcionite gospel which explains why we find Jesus claiming to not be born and saying things like the Jews never heard or saw his Father.
Regardless, you offer no explanation of why in when John has Jesus leave Samaria for Galilee in John 4:43-44 he gives the reason for Jesus leaving Samaria as “for Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.” Is John expecting us to know from Matthew and Luke that Nazareth is Jesus’ hometown? If so, how do you inject Nazareth in here where it clearly doesn’t fit?
December 13, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Rey,
Seriously? The canonicals are a redaction of an original Marcionite gospel? First, I think you stand alone in this assumption (has any legitimate scholars every suggested such a theory or it this some wild theory you made up?). Second, it is agreed upon by most that Marcion was in the business of detracting from already existing traditions (I recommend the excellent essay “Marcion Revisted” by John Barton in Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders, eds.
The Canon Debate. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2002. 341-354.). Third, if the canonicals are a redaction it sure makes little sense to add all those Old Testament references. Fourth, Marcion’s work is known to be a hack job on Luke’s gospel and some of Paul’s epistles. He was dependent on existing sources, not a source himself.
As regards Jn 4:43-44 there is the opinion of Raymond Brown that v. 44 is a later addition. Or we can read v. 48 in the context of this passage that even though he was welcomed by the Galileans he was not really accepted for who he was as a prophet. Finally, if you mean to imply Samaria was Jesus’ “own country” you may want to do something with which you appear a bit unfamiliar: read the context. In v. 9 the Samaritan addresses Jesus as a Jew; in v. 20 Jesus is again lumped in with his fellow Jews in the discussion of where to worship. Finally, in v. 22 Jesus affirms his Jewish heritage and that the Jews know the correct God while the Samaritans seem a bit ignorant.
December 14, 2009 at 8:39 am
Ireneaus says Marcion subtracted from Luke. Tertullian follows him. Epiphanius follows Tertullian.
Hippolytus edited Ireneaus work to make it more accurate, explaining that Ireneaus made mistakes by writing against the heretics with to unrestrained of a spirit. Hippolytus claims that Marcion added the doctrines of the Greek philosopher Empedocles to the gospel of Mark and tells the orthodox to reply to Marcionites by saying that Mark didn’t write these things. This shows that in Hippolytus’s view (according to him more accurate than Ireneaus’), Marcion’s gospel was a longer gospel of Mark not a shorter gospel of Luke and that the Marcionites asserted it was the authentic gospel of Mark. (“To Theodore” anyone?) When, therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds barks against the Demiurge, and adduces reasons from a comparison of what is good and bad, we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such tenets. He says “When, therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds barks against the Demiurge, and adduces reasons from a comparison of what is good and bad, we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such tenets.”
Fortunatian in his preface to John tells us that Marcion was John’s scribe in writing the gospel of John: “The Gospel of John was revealed and given to the churches by John while still in the body, just as Papias of Hieropolis, the close disciple of John, related in the exoterics, that is, in the last five books. Indeed he who wrote down the gospel, while John was dictating carefully, was the heretic Marcion, who afterward being condemned by him because he was teaching the opposite of him, was expelled by John, although he had brought writings or letters to him from the brothers which were in Pontus.”
Add to that that Tertullian although subscribing to the theory that Marcion subtracted from Luke accuses him of removing things only found in Matthew, and in the end what you see is that Marcion’s gospel was a longer super gospel that contained some of the elements that Ireneaus would split apart into the canonical four while on the payroll of Commodus.
December 14, 2009 at 2:46 pm
rey,
I’m not following. You’re said previously that you “see the canonical gospels as redactions of an original Marcionite gospel.” But then you turn to the patristics who claim that Marcion either added to or subtracted the other gospels. I just don’t see how this can be discounted in favor of a “longer super [Marcion] gospel.”
December 14, 2009 at 4:36 pm
rey,
Jesus is already identified as being from Nazareth:
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” (John 1:45; NRSV)
and
They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus replied, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. (John 18:5; NRSV)
In response to your thought on John 4:43-44, it need not be that Jesus’ testimony about a prophet not having honor in one’s own country is the reason for Jesus’ departure. It could be that Jesus’ testimony is an explanation for why they went to Galilee. John’s use of Galilee by itself seems to say Jesus went into the general region. There isn’t any reason why John had to include Nazareth when he uses Galilee as a general term. In other words, for Jesus to go into Galilee need not mean that Jesus went into Nazareth. Usually, when John wants to include specifics, he will mention a city, like Cana or Bethsaida.
Does this make sense?
December 14, 2009 at 6:21 pm
If one father looks at the document and says “a mutilated Luke.” Then another looks at it and says “an interpolated Mark.” Then another looks at it and says “a corrupted John.” What is it? It is clearly a gospel that contains verses that we now associate with all of these.
Also, of course, Tertullian who calls it a mutilated Luke can be found very often when quoting Marcion’s gospel to e quoting a text from Mark or Matthew not Luke. In other words, each father labels it as an edited X because he finds a lot of X material in it on a light cursory inspection and ignores all the Y and Z material. That’s why some say its Luke, some Mark, some John. And even those who say Luke quote Mark and Matthew from it.
It is impossible for the evidence, when taken as a whole, to support anything but that Marcion’s gospel was a super-gospel containing elements of all four of what later became the canonicals. Those ‘scholars’ who stick with Ireneaus and Tertullian and stand by the ‘mutilated Luke’ claim while ignoring Hippolytus and Fortunatian, are not honest nor scholarly.
Then there is also Tatian’s relationship to Marcion. Eusebius tells us that Tatian fell into the error of Marcion, yet he did not become a mere Marcionite follower but began his own offshoot sect, the Encratites. Even so, it is likely that having fallen into the error of Marcion he would begin with Marcion’s gospel. It is well-known that the real original ‘Diatessaron’ was condemned as heretical and that what we now have in the Arabic Diatessaron has been heavily edited to bring it up to orthodox standards. I see it as likely that Tatian’s ‘Diatessaron’ was nothing more than his personal redaction of Marcion’s gospel, and was not a harmony of the four canonicals at all. Rather, Marcion must be placed much earlier in time, even in the first century, and Tatian much earlier in the 2nd, and the four gospels came out of Tatian’s redaction of Marcion’s gospel. Marcion’s gospel was first. Tatian’s redaction was intermediary. Then the four gospels were creating by splitting Tatian’s redaction.
Recall that Polycarp saw Marcion rebuked by John the apostle, which means that the beginning of Marcion’s ‘heretical’ preaching can be no more recent than 90 AD. Marcion is therefore both a first and second century character. Clement of Alexandria (in Miscellanies 7.17) witnesses to a tradition that Marcion was an old man when Valentinus and Basilides were young, and that Marcion had already begun his preaching before Simon Magus heard Peter preach. Marcion did NOT begin in 140 AD! If the venerable ‘fathers’ Ireneaus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius are lying and trying to push Marcion’s beginning into the mid 2nd century (while themselves destroying their own lie by admitting the truth that Polycarp saw him rebuked by John the Apostle) then they also undoubtedly are lying about Tatian and pushing him further forward to, and are lying about Tatian himself naming his composition ‘Diatessaron’ which is clearly not what he himself called it.
Marcion was first. Tatian’s redaction intermediary. The canonicals last.
December 14, 2009 at 6:29 pm
In other words, Marcion and Tatian are Q.
December 15, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I read an interesting discussion in portuguese here:
Bethlehem
http://defideorthodoxa-informadordeopiniao.blogspot.com/2009/12/belem-ele-veio-pequeno-dos-pequenos.html
http://defideorthodoxa-informadordeopiniao.blogspot.com/2009/05/o-messias-vem-ao-mundo.html
December 17, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Thanks, Fred. Now I have a reason to learn Portuguese.
April 1, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Jesus was neither born in Bethlehem which was a defunct community during his lifetime, nor Nazareth which recent archaeological excavations and lack of epigraphic evidence confirm did not exist till centuries later. Jesus was not a Pharicaic Jew, but a member of the Essene Nazorean sect. He was born at the Nazorean enclave, on Mt. Carmel, several miles south of modern day Nazareth. To learn more on how the Romans usurped the scriptures of the ancient Nazorean religion of Yeshu and proclaimed it the revelation of their godman Jesus Christ visit: http://www.nazoreans.com. A god born in flesh, miracles? Anathema to the Jews! Not true!
April 1, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Um, yeah.
July 22, 2012 at 7:25 am
Joseph and Mary were originally from Nazareth.
• They went to Bethlehem for the census. Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
• After Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath.
• When King Herod died, they returned to Nazareth.
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