The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (24 page)

The Hellenistic renaissance myth

We have seen that Alt and more recent scholars have delineated two settlement patterns in pre-Hasmonean Galilee. On the one hand, a number of
poleis
existed on the periphery of the region, namely, on the Mediterranean coast and in the Jordan Valley. On the other hand, the hilly interior, including the Nazareth range, was notably bereft of settlement (above, p. 5). In apparent conflict with this consensus, however, in the later twentieth century two American scholars—Eric M. Meyers and James F. Strange—proposed that the inland village of Nazareth emerged in early Hellenistic times and grew into a thriving settlement already in that era.

This is, in fact, the case with Sepphoris, approximately 7 km (4.3 mi) north of Nazareth. Interestingly, both Meyers and Strange excavated extensively at Sepphoris and have published widely on that town. They jointly led the Meiron Excavation Project in 1976, which “recognized the importance of Sepphoris for further work in Galilee.”
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In 1983 Strange organized a Sepphoris survey team under the sponsorship of the University of South Florida (USF), where since 1972 he has been a professor of Religious Studies. From 1983–1989 Strange directed annual excavations at Sepphoris, and he has returned to the site more recently to continue excavations. Concurrently, Eric Meyers and others organized a bi-national project sponsored by Duke University of North Carolina and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which sponsored five campaigns at Sepphoris beginning in 1985.

Besides his writings on Sepphoris, Strange has authored scores of archaeological reference articles on many ancient sites in Palestine—indeed, so many that his contributions read like a gazeteer of ancient Palestine.
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He has published extensively on Nazareth, perhaps most noteworthy being two articles entitled “Nazareth”: one in the
Anchor Bible Dictionary
(1992), the other in the
Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East
(1997).
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Other than Bagatti, Strange is arguably the most cited scholar on Nazareth. This is curious for two reasons: (a) unlike Bagatti, Strange received no academic degree in the field of archaeology. His training includes a B.A. in Philosophy (Rice University), a Master of Divinity (Yale Divinity School), and a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies (Drew University); and (b) Strange himself has never dug at Nazareth, nor has he authored a report dealing with material remains from the Nazareth basin.
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Though very influential, Strange’s contributions to the scholarly Nazareth literature are limited to brief summaries of the site’s archaeology and history in reference articles and books. He is not in a position to offer us any new material evidence, and thus his opinions lie entirely within the range of the secondary Nazareth literature. Nevertheless, his views have radically departed from those of Bagatti and the Church, and have moulded the prevailing attitude in non-Catholic circles regarding Nazareth. The alleged link between early Sepphoris and Nazareth has led to avenues of inquiry recently explored in print, such as the possibility that Jesus and/or Joseph may have worked at Sepphoris, that Jesus may have become acquainted there with urban Greek and Roman ways, and even that Jesus may have frequented the theater at Sepphoris, influencing his use, for example, of the word
hypocrite
, so frequently encountered in the gospels.
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Perhaps the first expression of the Hellenistic renaissance doctrine at Nazareth is found in the 1981 book of Strange and Eric Meyers,
Archaeology, the Rabbis, & Early Christianity
. It devotes a mere one and one-half pages to Nazareth, and in that brief space we read the following remarkable statement:

It is in the second century B.C.E. that extensive remains [in Nazareth] are to be found, which suggests that this is the period of the refounding of the village.
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The claim of “extensive remains” from Hellenistic Nazareth is nothing less than amazing. We have scoured the literature and the material evidence from the basin in the preceding pages, and have found a total of fourteen oil lamps and shards claimed as Hellenistic, of which none in fact came from that era. The originality of the above citation is breathtaking.

It is also unusual in a number of respects. We should note, first of all, that the view of a Hellenistic “refounding” does not accord with the Catholic doctrine of continuous habitation (see Chapter Two). Officially, at least, Catholicism asserts that Nazareth has existed continuously since the Bronze Age.
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Secondly, the chronology of this “refounding”-
cum
-“extensive remains” is contrary to what we know of the Galilee in Hellenistic times. As we have noted, surveys show a marked
decrease
in the number of sites from the Persian to the Hellenistic eras, as well as the abandonment and decline of many sites. The period III–II BCE was a low point in the region (above, pp. 5-6). Paul Lapp writes: “a number of major sites were abandoned or substantially declined in the last half of the second century B.C. or shortly thereafter.”
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He adds that almost constant warfare and unsettled conditions in Hellenistic times led to a decline in prosperity, reflected in the poor quality of the pottery.
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Thirdly, the claim of “extensive remains” flatly contradicts the archaeological results of Bagatti, who concludes his
Excavations in Nazareth
with the statement: “We have met with only few traces of the Hellenistic period.”
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Certainly, “extensive remains” would leave ample traces, both in the ground and in the published literature. Wall foundations, hearths, pottery, coins, tombs, agricultural installations—these are the sorts of evidence that attest to a flourishing settlement in Hellenistic times. It would be impossible that such a village left no archaeological trace of its existence over many generations and centuries.

For the purposes of comparison, we may consider the town of  Marisa, a thriving settlement in the Hellenistic era—the same town that Kopp supposed to be contemporary with the kokh tombs at Nazareth (above, p. 15). Located in southern Judea, Marisa was a Canaanite city already in Biblical times (Jos 15:44). Excavations there have demonstrated the following:

Within the inner wall [Marisa] is roughly divided into blocks by streets, and the houses and buildings are built on the streets and around open courts within the blocks. The relatively regular plan and also the objects found, including pottery, coins, and Greek inscriptions, indicate a town of the Hellenistic period. The middle stratum of the excavations may be assigned to the third and second centuries BC, the upper stratum to the first century BC and later.
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This is precisely the era for which Meyers and Strange claim extensive remains at Nazareth. But nowhere at Nazareth has such Hellenistic evidence been reported, neither streets, nor houses, nor courts, and so on. There are no archaeological strata, inscriptions, or coins, as we find in the Judean town. Such Hellenistic evidence from Nazareth has never been published. We have only the “few traces of the Hellenistic period” reported by Bagatti, traces we have invalidated. Indeed, the general lack of Hellenistic evidence has been keenly felt by the tradition for a long time. Fathers Bagatti and Kopp suggested that man-made wall foundations and other domestic structural evidence have long since disappeared, and have pointed to the fact that the Nazareth basin has been built over, thus rendering the necessary evidence unavailable. Yet such a convenient explanation cannot be claimed at the venerated area, which has been intensively excavated. Bagatti cleared away the later structures and excavated far into the ground, sometimes down to solid bedrock.
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But where he dug, no remains such as we read above at Hellenistic Marisa were found.
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Interestingly, though the Hellenistic renaissance thesis has no applicability to the Nazareth basin, it has every relevance for nearby Sepphoris, so well known to both Strange and Meyers.
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Strange has asserted that Nazareth “was surely a dependency of ancient Sepphoris, the capital of Lower Galilee in the Roman period.”
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Given this attitude, and firmly convinced that Nazareth existed in both Hellenistic and Early Roman times, it may be understandable that with the rise of Sepphoris he might also suppose that Nazareth came into being and flourished during those eras. Unfortunately, the lack of evidence from the basin has not impacted his judgment.

A close connection between Nazareth and Sepphoris is unlikely for another reason: Nazareth and Sepphoris are on different sides of the east-west ridge which forms a divide in Lower Galilee.
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When it finally came into being, Nazareth was naturally oriented to the southwest towards Japhia (which once was in the basin itself), not to the north.

Even given the belief in a close connection between Nazareth and Sepphoris (a belief generally held in Christian circles today), it is surprising that archaeologists of the stature of Meyers and Strange would take a position in diametric opposition to the conclusion of the principal archaeologist at Nazareth, B. Bagatti. A remarkable feature of the Nazareth literature is that it has accommodated strikingly varied positions, none of which are dependent upon the archaeological record at all.

Roughly a decade after the publication of
Archaeology, the Rabbis, & Early Christianity
, the six-volume
Anchor Bible Dictionary
(
ABD
) appeared. This standard reference work in American biblical scholarship contains a two-page article entitled “Nazareth,” authored by James Strange. Its conclusion is as follows:

The general archeological picture is of a small village, devoted wholly to agriculture, that came into being in the course of the 3d century B.C. Although there are traces of earlier Bronze Age or Iron Age occupation, none of these suggests a continuity of more than a generation at a time. It is the late Hellenistic period that gives life to Nazareth, as it does with many other sites which have been surveyed or excavated in the Galilee. People have continued to live in Nazareth from the 3d century B.C. to the present day.
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Several aspects of this passage are notably in error. Strange asserts the existence merely of “traces” of a Bronze or Iron Age settlement. He apparently does not realize that over one hundred artefacts have been identified in the basin from those early periods, itemized by Bagatti in 14 pages of his
Excavations in Nazareth
.
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The Bronze-Iron evidence has been comprehensively reviewed in Chapter One and attests to a “substantial settlement,” one I have suggested was in fact the town of biblical Japhia.
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Nevertheless, Strange’s minimalist view is mirrored in other secondary literature. Regarding the Bronze and Iron Ages at Nazareth, J.D. Crossan writes: “The remnants from those earlier occupations are, however, quite limited…”
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Elsewhere, Crossan and J. Reed write: “There is some evidence, mostly ceramic, not architectural, for [Nazareth’s] occupation in the Middle Bronze and Iron Age…”
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All this is rather curious, particularly the assertion of no “architectural” remains, for in Chapter One we discussed no less than six substantial Bronze-Iron Age tombs.
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Perhaps Crossan and Reed do not consider tombs to be “architectural” remains. It matters little, for the material from those early periods is not scant, and suggests that the American scholars have not bothered to familiarize themselves with the primary literature, or have chosen to ignore its findings.

In the above citation, Strange asserts that “It is the late Hellenistic period that gives life to Nazareth, as it does with many other sites which have been surveyed or excavated in the Galilee.” Typically, “late Hellenistic” refers to early II BCE (pre-Hasmonean), in which case this view coheres with Meyers’ and Strange’s earlier opinion of a II BCE “refounding” of the town. In fact, the archaeological evidence points to a burgeoning of settlement in the Galilee a century later, i.e., during the time of Alexander Janneus.
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Sometimes the Hasmonean era is included in the “Hellenistic period,” in which case Strange’s view would have more support from the surrounding region. A migration of Jews northwards from Judea accompanied and followed the expansion under Hyrcanus and his sons, Antigonus and Aristobulus. Aviam writes that “By the time of King Janneus [
c
. 100 BCE], the Galilee was almost fully inhabited by Jews.”
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This contrasts with the situation that obtained in Galilee in earlier Hellenistic times, when the region was sparsely populated.
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Nevertheless, since no I BCE evidence has been discovered in the Nazareth basin, it would appear that Strange’s position is at best an extrapolation from the general situation in the Galilee. In addition, the view of a Nazareth renaissance in Hellenistic times coheres only with what is known from nearby Sepphoris, a town the American has extensively excavated. We have already noted that he views ancient Nazareth as having been a dependency of Sepphoris.