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‘Nazareth’ and ‘Jerusalem’ in Luke Chs. i. and ii
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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page 137 note 1 … οί δεσπόσυνοι…άπό τε ναӡάρων κα⋯ in Sextus Julius Africanus’ Epistle to Aristides (Eusebius H.E. 1. vii. 14, M.P.G. x. 61 or M.P.G. xx. 97) gives a plural ending to the name.
page 137 note 2 The name is not found in the Hebrew Bible nor in Josephus nor the Mishnah nor the Talmudim. Possibly the earliest mention in Jewish writings of the place Nazareth occurs in Hedwatha's eighteenth geroōbah (III. 2; v. 16) where we read of members of the priestly clan of Hapises as being domiciled in Nazareth. See Kahle, Paul, Masoreten des Westens, 1 (Stuttgart, 1927) on p.of the Hebrew text.Google Scholar
page 137 note 3 γ⋯ρ ⋯ αίρεσιςνασαραίων πρ⋯κα⋯ ᾔδει, Pan. xxix. vi. 1, M.P.G. xli. 400.
page 137 note 4 Pan. XVIII, M.P.G. xli. 257 ff.
page 138 note 1 See Muss-Arnolt, W.: A Concise Dictionary of the Assyrian Language (Berlin, 1905), p. 714Google Scholar, and Brown-Driver-Briggs, : A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1906), p. 665.Google Scholar
page 138 note 2 Jer. xxxi. 6 uses the noun in the meaning watchers, vigilantes; so also the tower of the watchmen, in II Kings xvii. 9, xviii. 8; comp. watcher, in Job vii. 20. The verb occurs in the sense to keep, to observe in Ps. cxix. 2, 22, 33, 34, 56, 69, 100, 115, 129, 145. It is also conceivable that,the things that are hidden, δ μέλλει γίνεσθαι and will come forth in the future, of Isa. xlviii. 6 are etymologically and semantically connected with the word. Either of these meanings may be at the root of the names ol νασαραιōοι or οί ναӡαραίοι and nasorayyê, םירצנ, nosrim, the former of which appears in Epiphanius as the title of a pre-Christian sect and the latter of which (Acts xxiv. 5) was the oldest designation of the party of Jesus' Jewish disciples (κα⋯ πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοὺς χριστιανοὺς ναӡωραίους έκάλουν Epiphanius Pan. xxix. vi. 1, M.P.G. xli. 400). The possibility that the ναӡωραīοι were merely a splinter group of the ναӡαραρīοι and that Jesus himself during his lifetime had some connexion with a sect so called cannot be excluded. (Jesus himself is called όναӡωραīος in Matt. xxvi. 71; Luke xviii. 37; John xviii. 5, xix. 19 and Acts ii. 22, iii. 6, iv. 10, vi. 14, xxii. 8, xxvi. 9). Mark never has the form ναӡωραīος (except as a variant reading in x. 47 where it occurs in a few manuscripts) and never writes Ιερουσαλήμ (see below p. 141, n. 7). The Marcan preference for the ‘better Greek’ readings ναӡαρηνός and ἱεροσόλυμα does not, however, allow any conclusions as to the earliest forms used by followers of Jesus. The place where the Second Gospel was composed—probably Rome—and the the public for whom it was written must be considered. The fact that the First and the Third Evangelists in spite of being acquainted with the text of Mark occasionally reverted to the spellings ναӡωραīος and ἱερουσαλήμ indicates on the contrary that these forms approximated to living usage more closely than the forms which the Second Gospel gives. Compare: Mark Lidzbarski, Mandäische Liturgien (Abhandlungen der Kgl. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, N.F. vol. 17, no. 1, Berlin, 1920), pp. xvi–xix; id. ‘Nazoraios’, (in Zeitschr. d. Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete, 1 (Leipzig, 1922), 230–3. See further: Zimmern, Heinrich, ‘Nazoräer (Nazarener)’ in Zeitschr. d. Dtsch. Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Lxxiv (Leipzig, 1920), 429–38.Google Scholar Zimmern derives the name from the Babylonian word and says: ‘nasāru, nāiru [ist] im Babylonischen der technische Ausdruck für das Hüten göttlichen Geheimwissens durch the dafhr Berufenen’ (p. 435). See also Richard Reitzenstein, ‘Iranischer Erlösungsglaube’, in Zeitschr. fd. neutest. Wiss. xx (Giessen, 1921), 1–23, on p. 3, and Gustav Holscher in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1935), vol. 32, col. 2097. Wilhelm Caspari, in an article ‘NAZωPAIOΣ, Mt 223 nach alttestamentlichen Voraussetzungen’ (Zeitschr. fd. neutest. Wiss. xxl (Giessen, 1922), 122–7), refrains from offering a definite explanation yet he says ‘[Es ist nicht gesagt,] daß Nαßωραīος aus dem Ortsnamen… gebildet sei’ (pp. 126–7); he accepts the derivation of the town's name from the root רצנ=to guard, and supposes that ‘die Bewohner von Nazaret liessen sich als “Geborgene”, der Ort als die “Gesamtheit der Geborgenen” auffassen’ (p. 126). Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus erläutert aus Talmud und Midrasch (München, 1922), also derive the place-name from רצנ (p. 92). Wilhelm Bauer, in his Griechisch-Deutsches Worterbuch zu den Schriften des, Neuen Testaments (Giessen, 1928), writes: ‘…die sprachliche Brücke von Ναӡαρέτ zu Ναӡωραīος [ist] schwer zu schlagen…und [es ist] damit zu rechnen, dass Ναӡωραīος etwas anderes bedeutet hat, bevor es zu Nazaret in Beziehung gesetzt worden ist’ (col. 839/40); further Kennard, J. Spencer Jun., ‘Was Capernaum the Home of Jesus?’ (J.B.L. lxv (Philadelphia, 1946), 131–41)Google Scholar suggests that the significance of the name ‘Nazorean’ ‘is religious rather than geographical’ (p. 132). He defended this view against , W. F. Albright's objections in a later article ‘Nazorean and Nazareth’ (J.B.L. lxvi (Philadelphia, 1947), 79–81)Google Scholar by stating that ‘the evidence seems to preclude connection [of the name ναӡωραīος] with Nazareth’ (p. 79). Schoeps, Hans-Joachim: Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (Tübingen, 1949)Google Scholar writes: ‘Der Nazoräername ist wahrscheinlich als Nominalbildung vom Stamme nsr= bewahren, beobachten abzuleiten’ (p. 10).
In opposition to Lidzbarski who ventured the opinion: ‘Es sieht…danach aus, daß man Jesu Eltern in Nazareth wohnen ließ, um damit den Namen Ναӡωραīος zu erklären’ (Mandäische Liturgien, p. xvii), George Foot Moore maintained: ‘There is no philological obstacle to deriving Ναӡωραīος, Ναӡαρηνός from the name of a town, Nazareth’ (‘Nazarene and Nazareth’, in The Beginnings of Christianity, i (London, 1920), 426–32, on p. 429)Google Scholar and he is followed by Foxwell, William Albright in ‘The Topography of the Tribe of Issachar’ (Zeitschr. f d. alttest. Wiss. xliv (Giessen, 1926), pp. 225–36), p. 230, n. 1Google Scholar. Albright reiterated his defence of the derivation of ναӡωραīος from against Kennard in a paper ‘The Names “Nazareth” and “Nazorean”’ (J.B.L. lxv (Philadelphia, 1946), 397–491). Harnack held the view that ‘⋯ Ναӡωραīος means one who was a native of Nazareth’ (The Acts of the Apostles, Engl. ed. (London, 1909), p. 73, n. 1).Google Scholar It is possible that both Lidzbarski and Harnack went too far in their assertions: the fact that Jesus hailed from Nazareth appears to be historical, yet it could not explain why the ‘sect’ of Jesus’ followers was called of οιναӡωραīοι—all Gospels record that the townspeople of Nazareth rejected Jesus in his lifetime and there is no record whatever of a circle of early messianist believers assembling after the death of Jesus at Nazareth. According to Epiphanius, Pan. xxx. xi. 9, 10 (M.P.G. xli. 425), there was no church in Nazareth and no Christians were living there before the time of Emperor Constantine. ‘Da…Ναӡωραīος von Nazareth nicht abgeleitet werden kann, so dürfte Jesus den Beinamen des Nazoräers…erhalten haben, well er aus dem Kreise der Observanten hervorgegangen ist‘, Bultmann, Rudolf, ‘Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen and manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums’ (Z.N.T.W. xxiv (Giessen, 1925), 100–46), on p. 144.Google Scholar But see also the different explanation given by Hans Heinrich Schaeder in his article ‘Ναӡαρηνός, Ναӡωσραīος’ (Th.W.B.N.T. iv, 879–84).
page 139 note 1 It is possible that Westcott and Hort were right in writing ἰερουσαλήμ and ἰεροσóλυμα with a spiritus lenis instead of the more frequently used spiritus asper. To persons who wrote and thought in Greek, the name of the Jewish city became associated with the meaning Ιερός (filled with divine power, supernatural, priestly, dedicated, hallowed)) which had nothing to do with the Semitic root of the town's name. Besides there occurs in the O.T. also the form (I Kings x. 2; Isa. xxxvi. 2; Ezek. viii. 3) and (II Kings ix. 28). Why and when the lengthening of the last syllable took place in Hebrew pronunciation is not exactly known. The Dead Sea Scrolls give the readings and promiscue. The latter occurs also in the Massoretic Text in Jer. xxvi. 18; Esther ii. 6; I Chron. iii. 5, and in the form in II Chron. xxxii. 9.
The most commonly used ‘modern’ Hebrew form is but this is not the original name. The oldest literary documents in which Jerusalem is mentioned are the Tell el-Amarna tablets which record that in the fourteenth century B.C.E. there were in Palestine a tribe called Yaaqobh and a tribe called Yosef and a city called U-ru-sha-lim. Amongst the discontented satellites of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty was Abdihiba, ‘king’ of Ú-ru-sa-lim (see: Die El-Amarna-Tafeln, mit Einleitung and Erlauterungen herausgegeben von J. A. Knudtzon, Erster Teil: Die Texte (Leipzig, 1915), Nos. 285–90, pp. 856–79, and Mercer, Samuel A. B. and Hallock, Frank Hudson, The Tell El-Amarna Tablets, vol. ii (Toronto, 1939), pp. 704–23).Google Scholar The language of the tablets is a neo-Babylonian dialect, and transcribed into Hebrew U-ru-sha-lim would become from which the connotation might have been obtained quite naturally. In the Assyrian Sennaherib inscription the name of the town is given as Ur-shalimmu. Gen. xiv. 18 and Ps. lxxvi. 3 (2) preserve the reading While the that is mentioned in Ps. lxxvi was certainly located in Judaea and might safely be identified with Jerusalem, we cannot be equally sure of the location of the in Gen. xiv. 18, of which Melkizedek was priest-king. Josephus, B.J.. vi. x. 1, actually speaks of ‘Jerusalem which was formerly called Salem’ (cf. Ant. 1. x. 2; vii. iii. 2), in reference to Gen. xiv. 8–20, yet the reliability of his information is not beyond doubt. There existed several localities in Palestine called Σαλήμ or similarly; one to the north of Shekhem (Judith iv. 4), and one east of Shekhem (LXX Gen. xxxiii. 18, Jeremiah Greek xxxviii. 5: Σαλήμ (B), Σαλώμ (A), Jubilees xxx. 1); the Σαλε⋯μ of John iii. 23 was also located in the vicinity of Shekhem. (Cf. Foxwell, William Albright, ‘Some Observations Favoring the Palestinian Origin of the Gospel of John’, H.T.R. xvii (Cambridge, Mass. 1924),189–95, on p. 193Google Scholar, and the same author's ‘Recent Discoveries in Palestine and the Gospel of St John’ in The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology (London, 1956), pp. 153–71, on p. 159Google Scholar). Mackay, Cameron, in an article ‘Salem’ (Palestine Exploration Quarterly, lxxx (London, 1948), 121–30)Google Scholar maintains that Melkizedek's city was identical with Shalem in Samaria. Abel, F.-M., Géographie de la Palestine (Paris, 1933–8)Google Scholar, identifies the Samarian Shalem (Sâlim) with present-day Šeth Nasrallah (vol. ii, p. 26). This view is not unopposed; Colunga, Alberto, in ‘Jerusalén, la ciudad del Gran Rey’ (Estudios Biblicos, xiv (Madrid, 1955), 255–79)Google Scholar, maintains the ‘traditional’ view of the identity of Melkizedek's kingdom with the city circuit of Jerusalem (p. 256).
An Egyptian inscription, several centuries older than the Amarna tablets, mentions the ‘land’ Urushalimum; see Sethe, Kurt Heinrich, Die Ächtung feindlicher Fürsten, Völkes und Dinge auf altägyptischen Tongefdäßscherben des Mittleren Reiches (Abhandlungen der Preuss. Akademie der Wiss., Jg. 1926, Phil.-Hist. Klasse Nr. 5, Berlin, 1926), p. 53.Google Scholar This might well be the same name as occurs later in Hebrew in un-mimmated form by dropping the final mem.
The semantic of the name is uncertain. Midrash Rabbah Gen. lvi. 10 records: ‘Abraham called the name of the place …. Shem called it Said the Holy One, blessed be He: “If I call it rireh as did Abraham, then Shem, a righteous man, will resent it; if I call it Shalem as did Shem, Abraham, the righteous man, will resent it. Hence I will call it Jerusalem, including both names, rireh Shalem”’ (Midrash Rabbah Genesis, Engl. ed. 1 (London, 1939), 500).Google Scholar Modern writers, less inclined to compromise, have given a more definite if equally subjective elucidation. William Whiston, in 1737, suggested that the name was compounded of (fear, foreboding, foresight, provision) and of (The Works of Flavius Josephus, 1, 276); H. F. Wilhelm Gesenius, in 1829, thought that (throw, cast, point out, set up, establish, lay foundation, institute) was a more likely root of the first part of the city's name (Thesaurus philologicus criticus linguae Hebraeae et Chaldaeae Veteris Testamenti); Krauss, Samuel, in ‘Zion and Jerusalem’ (Palestine Exploration Quarterly, lxxvii (London, 1945), 15–33, particularly pp. 21–33)Google Scholar, basically accepts Gesenius’ view, but takes the word as the name of the founder of the city and not as having the connotation ‘peace’. The same view is held by Kohler, Ludwig in his Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden, 1953), p. 404.Google Scholar See further Brown, F., Driver, S. R. and Briggs, Ch. A., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1906), p. 436 and The Jewish Encyclopedia, New Edition, vii (New York, 1925), 119.Google Scholar
Another possibility of explaining the etymological root of the first syllable in the word ‘ Jerusalem’ suggests itself if we derive it from the verb or which has the meaning to wake, to stir up, to rouse (oneself) but also to watch over, to guard, to preserve. In Job viii. 6 we find the verse
for now will he wake over thee (watch over thee, guard thee) and make prosperous (peaceful) the habitation of thy righteousness. ‘Jerusalem’ could thus mean: the watch of Shalem, or the maintenance (or preserve) of Shalem, the fortress of Shalem.
This etymological suggestion, as well as the explanations quoted above, is based on the assumption that ‘Jerusalem’ is an originally Semitic name. If the word goes back to a topographical designation of pre-Semitic (Hurrian?) origin, all attempts to explain the name by means of Hebrew etymology are doomed to failure. Cf. Kittel, Rudolf, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. i, Palastina in der Urzeit. Das Werden des Volkes, Quellenkunde and Geschichte der Zeit bis zum Tode Josuas (3rd ed., Gotha, 1916), p. 55Google Scholar: ‘…die Ableitung [ist] so dunkel and so wenig gesichert, daß man fragen darf, ob sie nicht etwa semitisierte Fremdworte darstellen, künstliche Angleichungen…an das Hebräische…,’
The Aramaic name is (Ezra iv. 8, 12, 20, 23, 24) and in Nabataean The Greek form ἰεροσόλυμα or ἰεροσόλυμα indicates that the pronunciation in non-Jewish Syriac might have been
Hort defended the use of the spirit us lenis in the Greek transcription of the name in his Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek (London, 1881) on p. 313Google Scholar by stating: ‘All names beginning with יּ (yodh) have received the smooth breathing.’ The possibility has to be considered, however, that the Greek transcription was based on a pronunciation that retained traces of the sound ('ayin) from the word If that were the case, the spelling with a spiritus asper would be fully justified.
page 141 note 1 The T.R. gives ἰεροσόλυμα.
page 141 note 2 Codices A D, ψ, ⋯, Γ, Δ Π and the T.R. read ἰερουσαλήμ.
page 141 note 3 Codex D reads ἰερουσαλήμ. The passage corresponds to Mark xi. 1 (Matt. xxi. 1) and it is feasible that the Third Evangelist substituted ἰερουσαλήμ for the Marcan ἰεροσάλυμα as he did in Luke vi. 17 and xviii. 31 for the form he found in Mark iii. 8 and x. 33.
page 141 note 4 Codices D, E, H, L, P read here ἰεροσάλυμα.
page 141 note 5 Codex D has the reading ἰεροσάλυμα.
page 141 note 6 Apart from these passages the reading ἰερουσαλήμ occurs for Acts viii. 14 in D, d; for viii. 25 in H, L, P; for xv. 4 in ℵ, C, D, E, H, L, P, e, d (ἰερουσαλήμ in B, A, 61, 133, 137); for xvi. 4 in E, H, L, P, and the T.R.
The reading ἰερουσαλήμ in Acts is established in i. 4; viii. 1; xiii. 13; xviii. 21; X. 21; xx. 16; xxi. 4, 15, 17; XXV. 1, 7, 9, 15, 20, 24; xxvi. 4, 10, 20 and xxviii. 17. It is of interest to note that in both Luke and Acts, when the name of the city appears for the first time, it is in the spelling ἰερουσαλήμ.
page 141 note 7 The T.R. has in Mark iii. 22 ἰερουσάλήμ which occurs also in codices A, X, Γ, Π in Mark xi. 1; codex Θ reads ἰερουσάλήμ in Mark xv. 41; codices D and 1 have ἰερουσάλήμ in John iv. 45, and codex D the same reading in John xii. 12.