Joseph Francis Alward
January
4,
1998
"And he came and dwelt in a
city
called
Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken
by the
prophets, He shall be
called a Nazarene."
Matthew
2:23
| Nazarene Savior
Prophecy
"And he came and dwelt in a
city
called |
|
Matthew's Story
Matthew says that it was foretold
that the
savior would be from Nazareth and that he would be called a
Nazarene. This
is disputed by skeptics: there are no verses in the Old Testament
having
anything to do with Nazareth or Nazarenes, and no prophet ever
said that a
savior would be called a nazarene. Skeptics are quick to point to
this
omission as evidence that Matthew was just imagining that such a
prophecy
existed. Joseph Wheless, writing in "Is
It God's Word" (page 246), is one of the better-known of these
skeptics: "Jesus was, indeed, called a nazarene, which is
the
hellenized form of the Hebrew 'notsri', which means
'offshoot', or
'branch', referring to an offshoot of Judaism. He may also have
been
called a nazarene because the name "Nazareth" is arguably derived
from the
Hebrew word 'neser', which means 'sprout or descendant.' "
[1] We will show below,
however, that
there is weak evidence to support Matthew's contention. We begin
by
showing why Matthew thought that the prophets foretold that Jesus
would be
called a nazarene, branch, or offshoot.
Yariv Eyal [2] says
that
Nazarene was the Hellenized form of the word meaning branch, or
offshoot,
referring to a branch of Judaism: Jesus was widely known to the Israelites as Yeshu haNotsri in their language, which means Jesus the Notsri. He is called this to this day, and his followers are called Notsrim after him and his movement. The word nazarene is the Hellenized [3] form of notsri. Most of Yeshu's followers, either uneducated Jews or non-Jews, didn't know why he was called Notsri or what it meant. The word notsri, which is an adjective, comes from netser, which means sprout or branch or offshoot. (See also, Romans 11:20-23) [4] Since Jesus was a member, or perhaps the former member, of an offshoot group which sprouted off of mainstream Judaism, he was called Jesus the Notsri. The Hebrew word for Christian to this day is Notsri.
Nazarene and Nazareth are not mentioned in the Old Testament, which makes sense, since there was no city called Nazareth in the days of the prophets. There is, however, a reference to a class of people called nazarites (Hebrew: nazer, crown, referring a crown , the hair of a nazir), who made themselves separate from ordinary human beings and devoted themselves to the spiritual life [5]. Samson, whose long hair set him apart from others, was the earliest known Nazarite. The reference in question appears in Judges: "For, lo, thou shalt...bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." (Judges 13:5)
Lest there be any doubt that the
verses in
Judges refer to the legendary Samson, we hear the voice of a man
with a
special vulnerability: "There hath not come
a razor
upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my
mother's womb:
if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall
become weak,
and be like any other man." (Judges
16:17) Thus, we see that these nazarites had
nothing to
do with the town of Nazareth or the name
Nazarene. Did Matthew
Believe Judges
Referred to Nazarenes? Did Matthew believe that the Judges
verse was a
prophecy about the savior nazarene? If so, this is how his mind
might have
worked: Jesus was God, therefore his life is foretold in the Old
Testament. Jesus was from Nazareth (or so people believed),
therefore his
Nazareth residency must somewhere be mentioned in the Old
Testament.
Matthew scours the old scriptures for anything that looks like
Nazareth,
and finds the nazarite passage in Judges. That must be it, he
thinks.
Thus, according to this hypothetical scenario, a poorly-inspired
Matthew
believed that the prophets foresaw that the son of god would be a
called
Nazarene, which he thought meant "a resident of Nazareth". We
know, of
course, that the Judges verses speak of an angel who is telling a
women
she will bear a savior son, which turns out to be Samson the
Nazarite, not
Jesus the Nazarene. If Matthew wasn't referring to the
nazarite
verses in Judges, perhaps he was thinking of the following verses
in
Isaiah, which specifically refer to a person as a
branch: The Old Testament
Nazarene
Prophecy And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. .....for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. (Isaiah 11:1-11)
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as root out of a dry ground: he hath no form no comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief....he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows....he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities...the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all...he was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth...."(Isaiah 53:2-10)
This sound a lot more like
Jesus. Conclusions The author concludes that the Isaiah
branch
verses (Isaiah 11:1-11, 53:2-10) were somewhat more likely to have
been
the nazarene verses to which Matthew was referring than Judges'
nazarite
verses. The Isaiah verses seemed flawed because they refer to
deeds by the
savior which were not realized by Jesus, and the nazarite verses
are
clearly flawed in that they refer to Samson and a class of people
who were
more like latter-day hippies than saviors. We therefore believe that there is no
good
evidence to suggest that Matthew was clearly wrong when he said
that the
prophets foretold that the savior would be called a nazarene. It
is by no
means clear that the prophets had Jesus in mind, but until
skeptics find
convincing evidence against Isaiah and Matthew, they should give
them the
benefit of the doubt, in the author's
opinion. [5] The Nazarite in ancient Israel
has some of
the flavor of the monk in Christendom. (Asimov's Guide to
the Bible,
vol. I, pp. 248-249). |