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Chapter 2-The Nazarenes  
     
1.
 If it wasn’t for a few unfortunate buried texts and missed Gnostic plants in various manuscripts, the Christian church would have succeeded in completely wiping the words, beliefs, and true objectives of Jesus and his disciples from history.
  
2.
 When most people hear the word Nazarene, they think of a “resident of Nazareth”, a small town in Northern Israel nestled in a hollow plateau some 1,200 feet (350m) above sea level, located between 1,600 foot high hills to the South and East that form the most southerly points of the Lebanon mountain range while protected from the West by Mt Carmel and mountains.
  
3.
 Nazareth is less than 10 Miles to the North East of the slopes of Mt Carmel and around the same distance to the North of the slopes of Mt Tabor, both historic Biblical locations. The main ancient road for traffic between Egypt and the interior of Asia passes by Nazareth near the foot of Tabor, and then northward to Damascus
  
4.
 In recent years, archeologists have used the find of Neolithic graves within a few miles of Nazareth to assume that the site of Nazareth was probably occupied many years prior to the Birth of Jesus. However, excavations conducted prior to 1931 revealed no trace of a Greek or Roman settlement there, and according to studies written between 1955 and 1990, no archaeological evidence from Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic or Early Roman times have been found.
  
5.
 Without question that the age of structures and therefore the town is no older than 10 BCE.
  
6.
 This is supported by the complete absence of any historic record of the town of Nazareth existing anywhere in the Old Testament stories, nor in any other text prior to the 3rd Century in any Jewish texts with the total population of Nazareth at the time of the birth of Jesus being no more than 500 to 600 at most.
  
7.
 As a result of these clear anomalies, some have even suggested that Nazareth didn’t even exist at the time of Jesus. However, this is a conclusion that ignores the obvious clue of the name Nazareth itself.
  
8.
 The word Nazareth comes from a corruption of the original name of the settlement “Nazara” meaning “city of the holly/holy” or simply “city of the consecrated of God”.
  
9.
 Nazara is an invented word just before the birth of Jesus coming from the Hebrew title of nazorite, nazarite (in Hebrew: nazir), refering to a Jew who took an ascetic vow of self discipline and purity. The term "nazirite" comes from the Hebrew word nazir meaning "consecrated" or "separated".
  
10.
 The term Nazarite is frequently used within the Old Testament and many of the prophets were respectfully known as Nazarites such as Elijah and even John the Baptist from Qumran.
  
11.
 However, it is wrong to directly assume a Nazarene, a member of the community of Nazareth and later a term assigned to all true followers of Jesus is the same thing.
  
12.
 There is no evidence that the Nazarenes enforced the strict codes of self denial considered necessary to be known as a Nazarite. Yet the confusion still exists today.
  

 
 
 

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