Nazarene (title)

[3] The Gospel of Matthew explains that the title Nazarene is derived from the prophecy "He will be called a Nazorean",[4] but this has no obvious Old Testament source.

Some scholars argue that it refers to a passage in the Book of Isaiah,[5] with Nazarene a Greek reading of the Hebrew ne·tser ('branch'), understood as a messianic title.

[6] Others point to a passage in the Book of Judges which refers to Samson as a Nazirite, a word that is just one letter off from Nazarene in Greek.

(ho apo Nazaret tes Galilaias, ὁ ἀπὸ Ναζαρὲτ τῆς Γαλιλαίας) Matthew 21:11Similar is found in John 1:45–46: Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus, the son of Joseph, he from Nazareth (τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Ἰωσὴφ τὸν ἀπὸ Ναζαρέτ; Nominative case: ho uios tou Iosef ho apo Nazaret).

In Semitic languages, Nazarene and its cognates Nazareth, Nazara, and Nazorean/Nazaraean possess the voiceless alveolar fricative corresponding to the "s" or "ts" sound.

[5]In ancient Hebrew texts, vowels were not indicated, so a wider variety of readings was possible in Jerome's time.

[6] In contrast, the phrase "through the prophet", used a few verses above the Nazorean prophecy,[22] refers to a specific Old Testament passage.

[23] An alternative view suggests that a passage in the Book of Judges which refers to Samson as a Nazirite is the source for Matthew's prophecy.

Epiphanius additionally is the first and only source to write of another group with a similar name, the "Nasarenes" of Gilead and Bashan in Trans-Jordan (Greek: Nasaraioi Panarion 18).

Epiphanius clearly distinguishes this group from the Christian Nazarenes as a separate and different "pre-Christian" Jewish sect.

[28] Epiphanius' explanation is dismissed as a confusion by some scholars (Schoeps 1911, Schaeder 1942, Gaertner 1957), or a misidentification (Bugge).

Other scholars have seen some truth in Epiphanius' explanation and variously identified such a group with the Mandeans, Samaritans, or Rechabites.

[34] The earliest known reference to Nazareth outside the New Testament and as a contemporary town is by Sextus Julius Africanus, who wrote around AD 200.

[35] Writers who question the association of Nazareth with the life of Jesus suggest that Nazorean was originally a religious title and was later reinterpreted as referring to a town.

In the Qur'an however Nasrani is used as a verb, not a noun coming from the Arabic root n-ṣ-r, meaning champion, or supporter, the meaning is elucidated on in Surah Al-Imran, Aya 50-52 where the prophet Isa, asks who will become supporters of me (Ansar-i) for the sake of God, the Hawariyun (the Apostles\ Followers) answer that they will become the Ansar.

[51] Notzrim are not mentioned in older printed editions of the Talmud due to Christian censorship of Jewish presses.

[52] This includes passages in the Babylonian Talmud such as Sanhedrin 107b which states "Jesus the Nazarene practiced magic and led Israel astray" though scholars such as Bock (2002) consider the historicity of the event described is questionable.

Two fragments of the Birkat haMinim ('Curse on the heretics') in copies of the Amidah found in the Cairo Geniza include notzrim in the malediction against minim.

[67][68][69] Robert Herford (1903) concluded that minim in the Talmud and Midrash generally refers to Jewish Christians.

[70] The early medieval rabbinical text Toledoth Yeshu (History of Jesus) is a polemical account of the origins of Christianity which connects the notzrim ('Nazarenes') to the netzarim ('watchmen' Jeremiah 31:6) of Samaria.

[citation needed] This is generally seen as a continuation of references to Jesus in the Talmud[71] although the identification has been contested, as Yeshu ha-Notzri is depicted as living circa 100 BCE.

[72] According to the Toledot Yeshu the Notzrim flourished during the reign of the Hasmonean queen Alexandra Helene Salome among Hellenized supporters of Rome in Judea.

[79] Bernard Dubourg (1987) connects Pliny's Nazerini with early Christians, and Dubourg dates Pliny's source between 30 and 20 BCE and, accounting for the lapse of time required for the installation in Syria of a sect born in Israel/Judea, suggests the presence of a Nasoraean current around 50 BCE.

[80] Pliny the Elder indicates[81] that the Nazerini lived not far from Apamea, in Syria in a city called Bambyx, Hierapolis or Mabog.

[citation needed] The testimonies of Epiphanius, Philastrius, and Pseudo-Tertullian may all draw in part from the same lost anti-heretical works of Hippolytus of Rome, mentioned as the Syntagma by Photius, and Against all Heresies by Origen and Jerome.

[85] The sect was apparently centered in the areas of Coele-Syria, Galilee and Samaria, essentially corresponding to the long-defunct Kingdom of Israel.

Epiphanius' testimony was accepted as accurate by some 19th-century scholars, including Wilhelm Bousset, Richard Reitzenstein and Bultmann.

[citation needed] However Epiphanius testimony in this regard, which is second-hand, is in modern scholarship read with more awareness of his polemical objectives to show that the 4th century Nazarenes and Ebionites were not Christian.

[88] The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran use the term Nasoraean in their scroll, the Haran Gawaitha, to describe their origins in, and migration from Jerusalem: "And sixty thousand Nasoraeans abandoned the Sign of the Seven and entered the Median Hills, a place where we were free from domination by all other races."...

[92] They claim John the Baptist as a member (and onetime leader) of their sect; the River Jordan is a central feature of their doctrine of baptism.