Macarena.....
https://youtu.be/elPlcVOby-8
Now we must deal with another phase of the history of the parents,
and of Jesus himself. In much of the Christian literature Jesus is referred
to as the Nazarene, and it is commonly believed that this means to
indicate that Jesus was born, or spent most of his lifetime, in Nazareth.
It is strange how students of biblical literature, and especially those
who have written so exhaustively on the life of Jesus, and who have
presented in their teachings and preachments the picturesque details
of his life, have never given proper thought to the title Nazarene, or
investigated its real meaning. It is assumed by all of these authorities,
writers, and teachers, that if Jesus was a Nazarene, he must have been
of the city called Nazareth, and since he and his parents lived in Galilee,
the city of Nazareth must have been in that locality. On the basis of
such reasoning, it is generally proclaimed that Nazareth was the home
town of the parents of Jesus, and that Nazareth in Galilee was the
place where Jesus spent his childhood.
Probably most of my readers will be surprised to
learn that at the time Jesus was born there was no city or town in the
whole of Galilee known as Nazareth, and that the city in Galilee which
now bears that name is not only a city of more recent years, but was
named and came into existence because of the demand on the part
of investigators to find some place that would answer to the name of
Nazareth in Galilee.
First of all, we must make plain that the title Nazarene did not imply
that the person who bore that title was of a city called Nazareth.
Rather, the title was given by the Jews to those strange people outside
of their own religion who seemed to belong to some secret sect or cult
that had existed in northern Palestine for many centuries. We find in
the Christian Bible that even John the Baptist was called the Nazarene.
We also find many other references to persons who were known as
Nazarenes. In Acts 24:5, we find some man being condemned as a
mover of sedition among the Jews throughout the world and being
called a “ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” Whenever the Jews
came in contact with one in their country who had a different religion,
and especially a mystical understanding of the things of life, and who
was living in accordance with some code of philosophical or moral
ethics that was different from those of the Jews, he or she was called a
Nazarene for the want of a better name.
There was a definite sect called the Nazarenes, and we find them
referred to in the Jewish records as a sect of primitive Christians, or
in other words, those who were essentially prepared for and ready to
accept the Christian doctrines. In fact, the Jewish encyclopedias and
authorities seem to agree that the term Nazarene embraced all those
Christians who had originally been both Jews, and who neither would
nor could give up their original mode of life, but who attempted to
adjust the new doctrines with the old. The Jewish encyclopedias also
state that it is quite evident that the Nazarenes and the Essenes had
many characteristics in common and were therefore of a mystical
tendency. In fact, the Essenes and the Nazarenes were considered
heretics by the learned Jews, but there is this difference or distinction
in the use of the two terms: the Essenes were not as well known to
the populace of Palestine as were the Nazarenes, and seldom was
someone called an Essene unless the person was well informed and
knew the difference between the Essenes and the Nazarenes; whereas
many Essenes and even those of other sects who lived an atypical life
or who did not accept the Jewish religion were called Nazarenes.
Jerome, the famous biblical authority, refers to the fact that in his
day there still existed among the Jews, in all the synagogues of the
East, a heresy condemned by the Pharisees, and the followers of it
were called Nazarenes. He said that they believed that Christ, the Son
of God, was born of the Virgin Mary, and they held Christ to be the
one who suffered under Pontius Pilate and ascended to heaven. “But,”
said Jerome, “while they pretended to be both Jewish and Christian,
they were neither.”
Turning to the highest Roman Catholic authorities, we find that the
title Nazarene, as applied to Christ, occurs only once in the Douai version
of the Bible, and this authority states that the term Jesus Nazarenus
is uniformly translated “Jesus of Nazareth,” but this is a mistake in
translation, for it should read “Jesus the Nazarene.” Nowhere in the Old
Testament do we find the word Nazareth as referring to a city existing
anywhere in Palestine, but we do find in the New Testament references
to Jesus returning to a city called Nazareth. These references are a
result of translating the phrase, “Jesus returning to the Nazarenes”
to read, “Jesus returning to Nazareth.” The interesting point here is
emphasized by the Roman Catholic authorities, for they show that
whereas Jesus was commonly referred to as the Nazarene, he was not
of that sect at all.
Taking the Jewish and Roman Catholic records together, and
comparing them with the information contained in our own records,
we find that the Nazarenes constituted a sect of Jews who, while
attempting to adhere to the ancient Jewish teachings, did believe in
the coming of a Messiah who would be born in an unusual manner
and who would become the Savior of their race. After the ministry of
Jesus began, these Nazarenes accepted Jesus as the Messiah and even
accepted the doctrines he taught while still trying to adhere to many
of the fundamentals of their Jewish religion. The Jewish records state
that the Nazarenes rejected Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and that
some of the Nazarenes exalted Jesus only as a just person.
There was another term for such heretics among the Jews, and this
was Nazarite. According to the Jewish authorities, the term was applied
to those who lived apart or separate from the Jewish race, because of
some distinctive religious, moral, or ethical belief. The Jewish records
state that such persons were often those who would not take wine or
drink anything made from grapes, or those who would not cut a hair
of their heads, or who would not touch the dead during any funeral
ceremony.
These same records state that the history or origin of Nazariteship in
ancient Israel is obscure. They state that Samson was a Nazarite, as was
his mother, and that Samuel’s mother promised to dedicate him to the
sect of Nazarites. The Jewish records state also that it was common
for parents to dedicate their minor children to the Nazarite sect, and
they distinctly say that there are references to the fact that Jesus was
said to have been dedicated to the Nazarites while still in the womb.
The Jewish records say that Luke 1:15 refers to this dedication. Helena,
the Queen, and Miryam of Palmyra are mentioned as Nazarites in the
Jewish records, and many other persons famous in sacred literature
were known to be Nazarites.
That the terms Nazarite and Nazarene had naught to do with a city
or town called Nazareth is plainly indicated by many historical records.
We have said that the present town of Nazareth in Galilee received
its name because a place had to be found that would fit the common
understanding in regard to the village in which the parents of Jesus
lived and where he spent his boyhood. During the first few centuries
after Christ, when the Christian doctrines were in the making and the
founders of the Roman Catholic Church and religious students in
general were searching for every historical site connected with the life
of Jesus, each spot, place, and incident in the career of this great person
was eagerly tabulated and glorified. My recent visit through Palestine
made plain to me that this desire to find historical, sacred sites and
glorify them has not ended and will probably continue for hundreds
of years. The absurdity of most of this becomes apparent when even
the casual tourist discovers that three, four, and five different places
are pointed out as being the spot where some particular incident in the
life of Jesus occurred.
In searching for a place that would answer to the name of Nazareth
in Galilee, great difficulty was experienced, since no such city was
mentioned in the Old Testament, and none of the ancient maps of the
time of Christ revealed such a site. A very small settlement, however,
called En Nasira was found far from the Sea of Galilee, and this was
immediately renamed Nazareth and associated with the early life of
the child Jesus. This discovery of the town of En Nasira was made in
the third century after Christ, and since then has been known as the town
of Nazareth, but even today it is lacking in any of the evidences which
would warrant the use of that name.
In Mark 6:1,2, the statements are made that Jesus went back to his
own country and his disciples followed him, and when the sabbath day
was come, he began to teach in the synagogue. In the fourth verse of
that chapter, Jesus referred to the fact that he was a prophet in his own
country, among his own kin, and in his own house. These statements
have been taken to refer to Nazareth, the town in which many biblical
students believe Jesus was born and in which he spent his childhood.
Now, if Jesus did return to his home town and did preach in a
synagogue to great multitudes, it could not have been at En Nasira, or
the so-called town of Nazareth; for even in the second and third centuries
after the birth of Jesus, En Nasira or Nazareth had no synagogue and
was not large enough to have any building in which multitudes could
have listened to Jesus, nor were there multitudes in that vicinity to hear
him. So the references in Mark to his hometown could not refer to En
Nasira. En Nasira was only a settlement around a spring which was
at that time called the “Spring of the Guard House,” but I find that
now in recent years it has been changed and is called “St. Mary’s Well.”
This change of name and the giving of a religious significance to some
unimportant site in Palestine is typical of the changes that are being
rapidly made in that country for the benefit of tourists.
Turning to the old Jewish records, we find these state that only in the
books of the New Testament, written long after the lifetime of Jesus, is
the town of Nazareth mentioned as a village in Galilee, and that such a
place is not mentioned in the Old Testament, in the historical writings
of Josephus, nor in the Talmud. During the lifetime of Jesus, the town
of Joppa was the important city in the locality of Galilee. It was the one
which attracted all tourists and is referred to most often in historical
writings.
In the Roman Catholic records and in their encyclopedias, we find
that the town of En Nasira was known as a strictly Jewish village up to
the time of Constantine and is referred to as one being inhabited wholly
by Jews. Therefore, this little village surrounding a well could not have
been the center of the Gentile population of Galilee. At the present
time, there is a small church or chapel in Nazareth which I visited, and
it is supposed to stand above the grotto where Mary and Joseph lived at
the time that the archangel announced to Mary the forthcoming birth
of the incarnation of the Logos.
All of the foregoing facts point out very clearly that Mary and Joseph
and the child born to them were considered, along with many others
in their locality, as Nazarenes, Nazarites, or people of a non-Jewish
sect. And the many other references to this sect clearly show that it
was one which held such religious and mystical views as permitted
the acceptance of the fundamentals of the Christian doctrine. Taking
this into consideration, we have at once an interesting picture of the
conditions existing in and around Palestine just prior to the Christian
era.
We have, first of all, a large number of men and women, even
children, who were either Jewish by birth, Gentile by birth, or of various
races and bloods, but who had refused to adopt wholly or completely
the Mosaic law and were Jewish only because the laws of the land
forced them to adopt circumcision, to appear in the synagogue when
twelve years of age, and to be enrolled as Jews. Yet these persons were
mystically inclined in their beliefs and followed the Jewish teachings
only so far as they revealed God and God’s laws and served them in
their study of divine principles. They were prepared by some school
or some system which made them ready to accept the higher mystical
teachings as they were revealed from time to time by the progressive
minds or by the teachings of avatars.
On the other hand, there was the one definite organization of mystics
known as the Essenes, which conducted many forms of humanitarian
activities, including hospices, rescue homes, and places for the care of
the poor and needy. The Essenes had their northern center in Galilee,
among the Aryans, because they had been directed to this locality by
the center of their organization in Egypt, known as the G.W.B. The
Essenes were not popularly known, were quiet and unostentatious in
their activities, and were distinguished by the populace only by their
white raiment. The Nazarites, the Nazarenes, and the Essenes mingled
freely and undoubtedly sought to carry on their independent activities
without interference one with the other, although they unquestionably
had many ideals and purposes in common. But the Nazarites and
Nazarenes were popularly recognized and known to the populace,
and for this reason all who did not accept the Jewish faith, or who
were heretical in their Jewish beliefs, were classified as Nazarenes and
Nazarites, not as Essenes.
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