The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus
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Authors: Rene Salm
THE MYTH OF NAZARETH
THE MYTH OF NAZARETH
The Invented Town of Jesus
Scholar’s Edition
René Salm
2008
American Atheist Press
Cranford, New Jersey
American Atheist Press
P. O. Box 5733
Cranford, NJ 07016
www.atheists.org
Print ISBN-10: 1-57884-003-1
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-57884-003-8
E-Book
ISBN-10:
1-57884-023-6
E-Book
ISBN-13: 978-1-57884-023-6
Scholar’s Edition Copyright © 2006, 2007 by René Salm
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published February, 2008
Printed in the United States of America
E-Book Edition Published May, 2013
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 of the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved. Photograph of Nazareth from the SE © BibleWalks.com, used by permission. Photograph of Church of the Annunciation courtesy of gallery.tourism.gov.il.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Salm, René.
The myth of Nazareth : the invented town of Jesus / René Salm. -- Scholar’s ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-57884-003-8
1. Nazareth (Israel)--History. 2. Excavations (Archaeology)--Israel--Galilee.
3. Galilee (Israel)--Antiquities. 4. Jews--History--168 B.C.-135 A.D.
5. Jews--History--70-638. I. Title.
DS110.N3S35 2008
933--dc22
2008004416
Chapter One
:
The Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages
The Nazareth basin
The Stone Age
The Cave of the Leap
The Bronze Age
The Early Bronze Age
The demise of cities
The Intermediate Period
The earliest Nazareth evidence
The Middle and Late Bronze Ages
The general evidence
The Bronze Age tombs at Nazareth
Historical considerations
The Iron Age
The end of settlement in the basin
The Iron Age evidence
Summary of the Iron Age evidence
Excursus
: The Bronze Age location of Japhia
Chapter Two
:
The Myth of Continuous Habitation
The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods
The end of habitation in the Nazareth basin
The Babylonian period
The Persian period
The Question of Continuous Habitation
The early archaeologists
Father Clemens Kopp and the new evidence
A changing landscape
Father Bellarmino Bagatti
Ritrovamenti nella Nazaret Evangelica (1955)
The Shrine of the Annunciation
The Dictionnaire de la Bible (1960)
The silos and cisterns
Continuous habitation since the dawn of history?
Excavations in Nazareth (1967/69)
Secondary References to Continuous Habitation
Chapter Three
:
The Hellenistic Renaissance Myth
The Hellenistic Period
Ptolemaic times
The Seleucids and the Maccabean revolt
The Hasmonean Age
Claims of Specific Hellenistic Finds
The Richmond report
The kokh tomb
The infamous “Hellenistic” nozzle
The Galilee boat
The Church of St. Joseph material
Remaining material represented as Hellenistic
Unsubstantiated Hellenistic claims
Summary
General Hellenistic Claims
The Hellenistic renaissance myth
Point-by-point
Sepphoris
Chapter Four
:
The Time of Christ
The Time of Christ
A note on method
Roman burial customs in Palestine
The kokh tomb
The so-called “Herodian” tomb
The earliest Nazareth evidence
The ancient oil lamp
The bow-spouted (“Herodian”) oil lamp
“Herodian”
Other alleged evidence from the first century CE
Pottery
Stone vessels
Roman oil lamps
“Rolling stones”
Ossuaries
Sarcophagi
Inscriptions
Graffiti
“Domestic installations”
Basins
Coins
Representative passages from the secondary literature
Other considerations
The site of the “casting down”
A synagaogue of the first century CE?
The neighborhood of Nazareth
Conclusions
The location and size of the ancient village
Competing literary traditions
The tombs of the Roman era
The size of the village
The venerated area
The slope
The cavities in the ground
The question of habitations
The home of the Blessed Virgin
The Church of St. Joseph
The tombs under the Church of the Annunciation
Artefacts and tombs
Tomb 27
Tomb 29
Graves o/p
Conclusions
Chapter Six
:
Nazareth and Nazara
Between the Revolts
The Roman Evidence
The structural evidence
The movable finds from Roman-Byzantine Nazareth
Evidence from the tombs
Non-funerary finds
The Hapizzez and the Caesarea Inscription
Count Joseph of Tiberias
The narrative of Epiphanius
Did Count Joseph build a church in Nazareth?
Who was buried where?
The Secondary Literature
A characteristic passage
