Can Jesus "Mythers" Read?

Excavation at Nazareth
Bastement to "non existant" houses



The atheist, and the "Jesus Myther" (those who believe Jesus didn't really exist even as a man in history) are so unconcerned with facts or truth, this came out so clearly in a debate recently. This will probably be about the last debate I have on a message board. These people are so frantic in their hatred of Christianity they are willing to let ordinary language go and to read as they wish it read rather than look clearly at the words to see what they communicate.

consider this statement:

After the Jewish war with the Romans from AD 66-70 it was necessary to re-settle Jewish priests and their families

Don't you think that says that the Priests and their families needed resettling? Here's the full context of the quotation:

"Despite the Hellenization of the general region and the probability that Greek was known to many people it seems likely that Nazareth remained a conservative Jewish village. After the Jewish war with the Romans from AD 66-70 it was necessary to re-settle Jewish priests and their families. Such groups would only settle in unmixed towns, that is towns without Gentile inhabitants. According to an inscription discovered in 1962 in Caesarea Maritima the priests of the order of Elkalir made their home in Nazareth. This, by the way, is the sole known reference to Nazareth in antiquity, apart from written Christian sources... (next paragraph) Some scholars had even believed that Nazareth was a fictitious invention of the early Christians; the inscription from Caesarea Maritima proves otherwise." Paul Barnett[BSNT], Behind the Scenes of the New Testament, IVP:1990, p.42:

These Jesus mythers were so anxious to prove that Nazareth didn't exist in Jesus day, (and by association then Jesus didn't either) they were actually reading this quote to say that Nazareth was re-settled in AD 70. The quote clearly said the priests need resettling, it says nothing bout Nazareth needing to be resettled it says they were sent to Nazareth as part of their own resettlement. How this works into the top and how it came about will soon be disclosed.
This business that Nazareth didn't exist in the first century has been floating around the "myther" camp for some time. Like all Jesus-myth arguments it is merely argument from silence. There is no actual evidence that Nazareth didn't exist, No one in the first century, or any subsequent century, ever claimed that Jesus came from a fictiscious town. But according to myther lore no one mentions Nazareth either. Josephus doesn't mention it, so it must not have existed. Funny, he does mention Jesus but that doesn't prove anything! Be that as it may, the myther camp is wrong, there is an extra biblical mention of Nazareth from the first century, we quoted it above.Of course this meant nothing to those on the message board. They also calim there is archaeological evidence, no ruins have ever been found, no evidence of habitation in the first century.

This is blatantly false. There have three major excavations:

Bagatti, 1955:

In the late Nineeth and early 20th centuries there were excavations of the chruch at Nazareth, but in 1955 major excavation of the general area beban.

The late Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti, O.F.M., professor at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum at Flagellation, Jerusalem, was entrusted with this work. Study began in 1955 immediately after the demolition of the church of 1730. The examination was so thorough that not one square centimetre of the ground or the ruins was left unexplored. Flooring, mosaics and pieces of plaster were removed to allow full examination and the reconstruction of the archaeological picture of the place. Operations continued from 1955 to 1968 and yielded data of great scientific importance, so much so that it is quite true to say that this shrine at Nazareth is one of the most completely documented of all the sanctuaries of the Holy Land.
("Nazareth:Villiage of Mary and Joseph, Francisan Cybrespot)

By comparison, Nazareth was tiny, with two or three clans living in 35 homes spread over 2.5 hectares, Pfann said. The homes later were razed by invaders: What remains are several basement caves, cisterns and silos excavated in the late 1950s during reconstruction of the Church of the Annunciation. by Karin Laub*,http://www.csec.ac.uk/nazareth.html



Misleading Jesus mythers try to argue that the houses were destroyed so they can't excavated and therefore, they have not yeilded any evidence. But this is just a matter of not reading carefully. The houses themselves have been destoryed, but Bagatti found the basements. The basements show where the houses used to be. These were not offices buildings that people went to the monring and left and went home at night, so the basements are obvious evidence of habitation.


Pfann, 1996

Late in 1996, an ancient wine press was discovered among rock terraces on a hilltop over-looking modern-day Nazareth. An archaeological survey of the area was conducted and excavation of the site began in April 1997 under the direction of Ross Voss and Stephen Pfann. Initial finds included the wine press, agricultural terraces, stone irrigation channels, bases of five watchtowers, and pottery sherds dating the site to the first century of the common era-about the time of Jesus. Evidence suggests that the first-century residents of this village made their living growing grapes, olives, and grain on terraces cut into the limestone hills. At harvest time, all of the estimated 300 villagers would have gathered to stomp grapes to extract the juice or to huddle in watchtowers at night guarding their produce against thieves. While little is known about the early life of Jesus, Biblical texts indicate that he worked with his father, Joseph, as a carpenter, which probably included work with both wood and stone. The Nazareth village farm was within easy walking distance of Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee, which at that time was being completely rebuilt following destruction by the Romans. Even if Jesus and his father were kept busy with construction work at Sepphoris, they likely would have joined the villagers (probably extended family members) at harvest time.(foundaton for Biblical Archaeology, Nazareth Village, visted Jan 10, 2007)

More about the Pfann excavation:

On a visit to Nazareth Hospital in November 1996 CSEC's director Stephen Pfann identified an ancient winepress associated with agriculatural terraces on the hospital grounds and the adjacent land. Potsherds found on the surface of the terraceds dated from various periods beginning with the early-to-late Roman Period.

A survey of the area was conducted in February 1997 by CSEC's archaeological staff. Four seasons of excavation, licensed by the Israel Antiquities Authority and under the joint direction of Ross Voss and S. Pfann have been carried out by CSEC, with the help of students and local volunteers. These excavations have confirmed the land to be a complete Roman Period terrace farm with a winepress, watchtowers, olive crushing stones, irrigation systems, and an ancient quarry, and have illuminated previously unknown aspects of terrace farming in the Galilee.

Dr. Nakhle Bishara, Medical Director of Nazareth Hospital, had long hoped to build a visitor's center in Nazareth focusing on the life of Jesus. In light of the archaeological profile of the site, Dr. Bishara invited CSEC to incorporate its vision for an authentic first-century 'model village' with the proposed visitors' center. CSEC was thus contracted to be the academic consultants for the project and to provide the foundational research necessary for recreating a picture of Galilean town life in the first century A.D. Hence the Nazareth Village farm and visitor's center, developed under the direction of Michael Hostetler, was born.(Nazareth Village Farm, University of the Holy Land.

Baggatti and Pfann they just dismissed competley. Baggatti they said was "biased" (the ultimate sin for these guys) because he's religous. So any religious person, espeically a priest, is just no damn good doesn't deserve a hearing. One of the main champions of the myther view on this board, the anaynomous in the post on this blog who attacks me about Helmutt Koester, kept arguing "especially the Fransicians." He doesn't even know the franciscans are respected and have produced fine archaeologists in the past. He can't give spcific indicment or even an example of bias on Baggatti's part, just because he's religoius. So this is just blatant poisoning the well. With this kind of attitude there is no choice but shut down dialuge. If truth doesn't matter, and facts don't matter, and the evidence is frong of your face in three studies but you just refuse to accept it, then I supposse diolauge means prescious little either.


Jol, Bode, et al 2004

Jol and Bode, University of Wisconsin-Eau Clarie

Freund and Darawsha University of Hartford, Savage Drew University and others using high resolution ground penitrating radar under the Cactus house at Nazareth and other locations in the area found evidence of first century habitation. The "cactus house" is a shop located near the "well of Mary" a local landmark the water of which is said to have extensive healing powers. This is near the Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. The owners of the Cactus house dug out a basement to expand storage space and found the ruins of an ancient bathhouse dating to the crusader period. but there is also evidence of a bath house under that (third stata of bath house) dating back to the first cnetur, 2000 years.

It is not easy to reconstruct the history of Nazareth during this time period (1st century CE) because structures have been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times. The place where we have beeninvestigating is significant because it is an original archaeological site, never excavated, and occupies a portion of a much larger structure located in close proximity to Mary’s Well and the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. Elias and Martina Shama-Sostar who operate the Cactus House becamesuspicious when they started to dig out the basement of their shop to add new storage space. Their excavations revealed a portion of a hypocaust and furnace of a bath house of an unfixed age as well as other finds (Figure 2). Radiocarbon results now date the excavated bath house to the Crusader period. It is below this floor that there may be preserved a former Roman period bath house and associated artifacts of visitors that go back 2,000 years. One theory suggests that this lower bathhouse would likely be the place where Mary and her family would have come to bath and draw water and therefore indeed the place where the Angel Gabriel spoke to Mary. The objective of the Nazareth Excavation Project is to gather as much information as possible about underlying features of the excavated portion of the bath house. The initial investigations are to be carried out in a non-intrusive and non-destructive manner with results suggesting locations to excavate. This paper will report on the high resolution ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys that have been conducted within and adjacent to the Cactus House.(Jol, Bode)

Here we have a secular source that conducted an excavation but of course they skpetics argued that ground penitrating radiar isn't good enough and they dig up the ground. But we have to assume thsoe square shapes under the soil are not perfectly square boulders, nor should we believe that shouses and squre shaped artifcts grew naturally. The argument finally came down to a mysterious quote to which they kept refurring they called it "the strange quote." At one point they cliamed that Strange,a man's name, conducted a study, an excavation (one I had not heard of) and found evidence of a mysterious resetlement in AD70.

So the issue was PFann and Baggatti show that the community exist from 700BC to some time in the second century when it was disrupted by invasion. The houses could not be found because they had been destroyed by this upheval. The mythers concluded they were never there, but totally Baggatti's evidence that he found the basements of the houses, proving they had been there. This they refussed to believe. He's relgious, we can just ignore anything he says out of hand. I argued that the upheval and resettlement was in the second century, well after the time of Christ...

ah but there is that srange STrange quote that there was a resettlement in 70. So they assume wiht no evidence at all that some previous upheaval was before the time of Christ and the place was unhabited untl AD 70. Upon what did they base that? Nothing just that that's what they want. I kept putshing them to show the documents, show the evidence, then they finally came up with the amzing Strange quote, that's that first quote at the top:

"Despite the Hellenization of the general region and the probability that Greek was known to many people it seems likely that Nazareth remained a conservative Jewish village. After the Jewish war with the Romans from AD 66-70 it was necessary to re-settle Jewish priests and their families. Such groups would only settle in unmixed towns, that is towns without Gentile inhabitants. According to an inscription discovered in 1962 in Caesarea Maritima the priests of the order of Elkalir made their home in Nazareth. This, by the way, is the sole known reference to Nazareth in antiquity, apart from written Christian sources... (next paragraph) Some scholars had even believed that Nazareth was a fictitious invention of the early Christians; the inscription from Caesarea Maritima proves otherwise." Paul Barnett[BSNT], Behind the Scenes of the New Testament, IVP:1990, p.42:

I'm not sure why they call it "the strange quote." But I realized at once this quote is on my site. They got it from Glenn Miller's Christian Think Tank. I'm pretty sure Miller copied it from my page where it's been on Doxa for about 10 years. There's no problem if the did, I've swiped many a quote from him, and it is an honor if he thought one of my quote worth cropping. So I don't care, and he knows I use his quotes and he has told me he doesn't care. But the fact is I researched that quote and It has nothing to do with a resettlement of Nazareth, the only thing being resettaled were the Priests. In fact the quote proves Nazareth was inhabited in the frist century and it takes away the entire myther argument from silence. There is no silence, Naz is mentioned in first century lit, they do no have a case.

But I am left wondering what is with their reading skills? Are they so baised they just see in quotes what they want to see and are blind to what is actually said?

The attitude toward reigious people with credentials and scholarship is just horrendous. It's like the attitude of white peole toward blacks in the nineteeth century. If I were an end times kind of guy I would say that atitude is the prelude the great tributation because I can easily see these people putting men in a concentration and camp and gassing me if I don't accept their mark. Like all hypocrites they have the gaul to reject others for their bias!

I fear what is ahead for us when dialogue is shut down so and when people are so intent on their view that they just don't even accept the evidence when it front of their faces.