Nazarene, alternatively Nazorean, is a demonym for the people of the Biblical city of Nazareth, a title of Jesus as the Messiah, and a term for Christians as followers of Jesus."Jesus was a Galilean from Nazareth, a village near Sepphoris, one of the two major cities of Galilee." ("Jesus Christ". Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago. 2009.)"[Jesus] spent His boyhood in the Galilean town of Nazareth." (Bromiley, Geoffrey W., "Nazarene", The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: K-P, pp. 499–500.) The intended Biblical significance of Nazareth is debated, with some analyzing "Nazarene" or "Nazorean" as mistranslations of a pre-Christian religious title without a geographic association.
The word is used to translate two related terms that appear in the Greek New Testament: ('Nazarene') and ('Nazorean'). The phrases traditionally rendered as "Jesus of Nazareth" can also be translated as "Jesus the Nazarene" or "Jesus the Nazorean".See Luke 18:37 Both Nazarene and Nazorean are irregular in Greek and the additional vowel in Nazorean complicates any derivation from Nazareth.Bromiley, Geoffrey W., "Nazarene", The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: K-P, pp. 499–500. The Gospel of Matthew explains that the title Nazarene is derived from the prophecy "He will be called a Nazorean", but this has no obvious Old Testament source. Some scholars argue that it refers to a passage in the Book of Isaiah, with Nazarene a Greek reading of the Hebrew ('branch'), understood as a messianic title.Miller, Fred P., "Isaiah's Use of the word 'Branch' or "Nazarene" 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.France, R. T., The Gospel of Matthew, pp. 92–93. See . The Septuagint gives "Nazirite" as ναζιραῖον, while Matthew gives Nazorean as Ναζωραῖος. It is also possible that Nazorean signs Jesus as a ruler.Berghorn, M., Die Genesis Jesu Christi aber war so. Die Herkunft Jesu nach dem matthäischen Prolog (Mt 1,1–4,16), Göttingen 2019
The Greek New Testament uses Nazarene six times (Mark, Luke), while Nazorean is used 13 times (Matthew, Mark in some manuscripts, Luke, John, Acts). In the Book of Acts, Nazorean is used to refer to a follower of Jesus, i.e. a Christian, rather than an inhabitant of a town. is the modern Hebrew word for Christians (, ) and one of two words commonly used to mean 'Christian' in Syriac (Nasrani) and Arabic (, ).
Etymology Nazarene is anglicized from Greek (), a word applied to Jesus in the New Testament.See , , , and , . Several Hebrew words have been suggested as roots:Stephen Goranson, "Nazarenes", Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4: 1049–1050; James F. Strange, "Nazareth", Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4: 1050–1051
Nazareth
The traditional view is that this word's derived from the Hebrew word for Nazareth () that was used in ancient times."The name has obvious reference to Nazareth", ("Nazarene", The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911.)Schaeder, H., "Nazarenos, Nazoraios" in G. Kittel, Theological Dict. of the New Testament. p. 874.Albright, W., "Nazareth and Nazoraean", Journal of Biblical Literature 65:2 (June 1946), pp.397–401. Nazareth, in turn, may be derived from either , , meaning 'to watch',The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (1906/2003), p. 665."Some, however, think that the name of the city must be connected with the name of the hill behind it, from which one of the finest prospects in Palestine is obtained, and accordingly they derive it from the Hebrew notserah, i.e., one guarding or watching." (Easton's Bible Dictionary, (1897))."... if the word Nazareth is be derived from Hebrew at all, it must come from this root [i.e. נֹצְרִ, nostri, to watch]" (Merrill, Selah, (1881) Galilee in the Time of Christ, p. 116. or from , , meaning 'branch'."The etymology of Nazara is neser" ("Nazareth", The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911.)"NAZARETH, NAZARENE - Place name meaning, 'branch'." (Holman's Bible Dictionary, 1994.)"Generally supposed to be the Greek form of the Hebrew netser, a "shoot" or "sprout". (Easton's Bible Dictionary, (1897)).
The common Greek structure () 'Jesus the Nazarene/of Nazareth' is traditionally considered as one of several geographical names in the New Testament such as () 'Lucius the Cyrenian/Lucius of Cyrene', ('Trophimus the Ephesian', ), ('Mary the woman of Magdala'), ('Saul the Tarsian'), or many classical examples such as Athenagoras the Athenian ().
The Greek phrase usually translated as Jesus of Nazareth () can be compared with three other places in the New Testament where the construction of Nazareth is used:
Jesus is also referred to as "from Nazareth of Galilee":
Similar is found in :
Some consider Jesus the Nazarene more common in the Greek."Although modern NT translations repeated references to 'Jesus of Nazareth', 'Jesus the Nazarene' is the more common form of words in the original Greek version." (Wilson, Ian, (1984) Jesus: The Evidence, p. 67.) See, for example, Luke 18:37. The name "of Nazareth" is not used of anyone else, and outside the New Testament there is no 1st-century reference to Nazareth.
Nazareth and Nazarene are complementary only in Greek, where they possess the "z", or voiced alveolar fricative. In Semitic languages, Nazarene and its cognates Nazareth, Nazara, and Nazorean/Nazaraean possess the voiceless alveolar fricative corresponding to the "s" or "ts" sound. Voiced and voiceless sounds follow separate linguistic pathways. The Greek forms referring to Nazareth should therefore be , , and . The additional vowel () in Nazorean makes this variation more difficult to derive, although a weak Aramaic vowel in Nazareth has been suggested as a possible source.
(, n-ts-r), pronounced nay'·tser, meaning 'branch', 'flower', or 'offshoot'. Derived from . (See below.)Strong number 5342. Brown, Michael L., Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Volume 4, Baker Books, 2006.
Jerome (c. 347 – 420) linked Nazarene to a verse in the Book of Isaiah, claiming that Nazarene was the Hebrew reading of a word scholars read as ('branch')."For in the place where we read and translate, 'There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots` in the Hebrew idiom it is written thus, 'here shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a Nazarene shall grow from his root. (Jerome, Letter 57:7). The text from Isaiah is:
In ancient Hebrew texts, vowels were not indicated, so a wider variety of readings was possible in Jerome's time. Here branch/Nazarene is metaphorically "descendant" (of Jesse, father of King David). Eusebius, a 4th-century Christian polemicist, also argued that Isaiah was the source of Nazarene. This prophecy by Isaiah was extremely popular in New Testament times and is also referred to in Romans and Revelation.Bauckham, Richard, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church, p. 65. See and .
The singular and plural forms and nasāra have puzzled modern scholars because they cannot be derived from any known Aramaic, Hebrew or Greek forms. They are speculated to be re-etymologizations made by ancient Arab Christians, derived from the Semitic root n-S-r, meaning "to save", or "to deliver, to help" (and also "victory").Bloise notes that such a re-etmologization process occurred with the name of Johanna for example, which is Yahya in Arabic, based on the root meaning "to live". The Arabic name for the city of Nazareth, al-Nasira is also traceable to this same root. Nasrani is used in Arabic to refer to a Christian in general terms, as well as historically, more specifically to Nazoreans and also as a nisbah for a person from Nazareth. In modern Arabic though, the more common nisbah form for someone from Nazareth is Nasrawi.
Ancient usage The term Nazarene (Nazorean or Nazaraean) has been referred to in the Jewish Gospels, particularly the Hebrew Gospel, the Gospel of the Nazarenes and the Gospel of Matthew. It is also referred to in the Gospel of Mark.The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 4. New York.: Doubleday, 1992. pp. 1049–1052
Matthew Matthew consistently uses the variant Nazorean. A link between Nazorean and Nazareth is found in Matthew:
The passage presents difficulties; no prophecy such as "He shall be called a Nazorean" is known in Jewish scripture, and Nazorean is a new term, appearing here for the first time in association with Nazareth and, indeed, for the first time anywhere.
Matthew's prophecy is often linked to Isaiah's. Although only Isaiah's prophecy gives 'branch' as , there are four other messianic prophecies where the word for branch is given as ., , , and . Matthew's phrase "spoken through the prophets" may suggest that these passages are being referred to collectively. In contrast, the phrase "through the prophet", used a few verses above the Nazorean prophecy, refers to a specific Old Testament passage.Namely
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. Nazirite is only one letter off from Nazorean in Greek. But the characterization of Jesus in the New Testament is not that of a typical Nazirite, and it is doubtful that Matthew intended a comparison between Jesus and the amoral Samson. But Nazorean can be a transliteration of the NZR, which also means 'ruler' (s. Gen 49,26), referring to Jesus as the new ruler of Israel.Berghorn, M., Genesis Jesu Christi.
Mark
The Gospel of Mark, considered the oldest gospel, consistently uses Nazarene, while scripture written later generally uses Nazorean. This suggests that the form more closely tied to Nazareth came first. Another possibility is that Mark used this form because the more explicitly messianic form was still controversial when he was writing. Before he was baptized, Mark refers to Jesus as "from Nazareth of Galilee", whereas afterwards he is "the Nazarene". In a similar fashion, second century messianic claimant Simon bar Kokhba (Aramaic for 'Simon, son of a star'), changed his name from Simon bar Kosiba to add a reference to the Star Prophecy.Bauckham, Jude, Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church, p. 64. The prophecy may be found at
Patristic works After Tertullus (Acts 24:5), the second reference to Nazarenes (plural) comes from Tertullian (208), the third reference from Eusebius (before 324), then extensive references in Epiphanius of Salamis (375) and Jerome (circa 390).
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: Panarion 18). Epiphanius clearly distinguishes this group from the Christian Nazarenes as a separate and different "pre-Christian" Jewish sect.Antti Marjanen, Petri Luomanen. Companion to Second Century Christian Heretics. 2008. Page 282. "Who Were Called Nazarenes? Epiphanius discusses the correct spelling of the term Nazarenes (Nazòraioi) in Pan. 29.5.6–29.6.1, emphasizing that the name does not refer to nazirites or to the pre-Christian heresy of the Nasarenes (cf. Pan)." 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.Pritz, R., Nazarene Jewish Christianity (Brill 1988) Page 45 "Among scholars the Nasarenes often enjoy the position of a kind of passepartout. They are an obscure entity with ... Many scholars, of course, simply dismiss them as unhistorical, a confusion of Epiphanius. Among these are some who say that ..."
Gnostic works The Gospel of Philip, a third-century Gnostic work, claims that the word Nazarene signifies 'the truth':
Historicity