Nazareth

===Roman period===
[[File:Nazarene Fountain Reputed to be Mary & Jesus'.jpg|thumb|200px|Historic photo of [[Mary's Well]]]]
Archaeological evidence shows the Nazareth was occupied during the late Hellenistic period, through the Roman period and into the Byzantine period.<ref name="Atiqot98">{{cite journal | author = Yardenna Alexandre | title = The Settlement History of Nazareth in the Iron Age and Early Roman Period | journal = 'Atiqot | volume = 98 | year = 2020 | url = http://www.atiqot.org.il/download.ashx?id=1797 | access-date = 26 May 2020 | archive-date = 26 May 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200526102938/http://www.atiqot.org.il/download.ashx?id=1797 | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Archaeology of Jesus' Nazareth |last=Dark |first=Ken |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-19-268899-6 |pages=50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bpynEAAAQBAJ}}</ref>

According to the [[Gospel of Luke]], Nazareth was the home village of Mary as well as the site of the [[Annunciation]] (when the angel [[Gabriel]] informed Mary that she would give birth to Jesus). According to the [[Gospel of Matthew]], Joseph and Mary resettled in Nazareth after returning from the [[flight to Egypt|flight from Bethlehem to Egypt]]. According to the Bible, Jesus grew up in Nazareth from some point in his childhood. However, some modern scholars also regard Nazareth as the birthplace of the historical Jesus.<ref>[[John P. Meier]], ''A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: The Roots of the Problem and the Person,''Vol. 1, Doubleday 1991, p.216; [[Bart D. Ehrman]], ''Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium'', Oxford University Press, 1999, p.97; [[E. P. Sanders]], ''The Historical Figure of Jesus'', Penguin 1993, p.85.</ref>

A [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] inscription found in [[Caesarea Maritima|Caesarea]] dating to the late 3rd or early 4th century mentions Nazareth as the home of the [[kohen|priestly]] Hapizzez/Hafizaz family after the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]] (AD 132–135).<ref name="Emmett 1995, p. 17">Emmett 1995, p. 17.</ref><ref>The family is thought to have moved to Nazareth after the [[First Jewish Revolt]] (70 AD), although some speculate that the relocation may have been "well into the second (or even the third) century [AD]." ''History and Society in Galilee'', 1996, p. 110. In 131 AD, the Roman Emperor [[Hadrian]] forbade Jews to reside in Jerusalem, forcing Jewish residents to move elsewhere.</ref> From the three fragments that have been found, the inscription seems to be a list of the twenty-four priestly courses,<ref>cf. [[Books of Chronicles]] - {{bibleverse|1 Chronicles|24:7–19}} and Book of [[Nehemiah]] - {{bibleverse|Nehemiah 11;12|multi=yes}}</ref> with each course (or family) assigned its proper order and the name of each town or village in [[Galilee]] where it settled. Nazareth is not spelled with the "z" sound but with the Hebrew [[tsade]] (thus "Nasareth" or "Natsareth").<ref>{{cite journal |last= Avi-Yonah |first= M. |year= 1962 |title= A List of Priestly Courses from Caesarea |journal= Israel Exploration Journal |volume= 12 |page= 138 }}</ref> [[Eleazar Kalir]] (a Hebrew Galilean poet variously dated from the 6th to 10th century) mentions a locality clearly in the Nazareth region bearing the name Nazareth נצרת (in this case vocalized "Nitzrat"), which was home to the descendants of the 18th [[Kohen]] family Happitzetz (הפצץ), for at least several centuries after the [[Simon bar Kokhba|Bar Kochva]] revolt.{{citation needed|date=August 2018}}

Although it is mentioned in the New Testament gospels, there are no extant non-biblical references to Nazareth until around AD 200, when [[Sextus Julius Africanus]], cited by Eusebius (''Church History'' 1.7.14), speaks of Nazara as a village in Judea and locates it near Cochaba (modern-day [[Kaukab Abu al-Hija|Kaukab]]).<ref>"A few of the careful, however, having obtained private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting them in some other way from the registers, pride themselves on preserving the memory of their noble extraction. Among these are those already mentioned, called Desposyni, on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour. Coming from Nazara and Cochaba, villages of Judea, into other parts of the world, they drew the aforesaid genealogy from memory and from the book of daily records as faithfully as possible." (Eusebius, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vi.vii.html ''Church History'', Book I, Chapter VII] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509055028/http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vi.vii.html |date=9 May 2019 }},§ 14)</ref> In the same passage Africanus writes of ''[[desposyni|desposunoi]]'' – relatives of Jesus – who he claims ''kept the records of their descent with great care''. [[Ken Dark]] describes the view that Nazareth did not exist in Jesus's time as "archaeologically unsupportable".<ref>Ken Dark, "Book review of ''The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus''", ''STRATA: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society'', vol. 26 (2008), pp. 140–146; cf. Stephen J. Pfann & Yehudah Rapuano, "On the Nazareth Village Farm Report: A Reply to Salm", ''STRATA: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society'', vol. 26 (2008), pp. 105–112.</ref>

[[File:Nazareth the magical city 111.jpg|thumb|200px|The [[Basilica of the Annunciation]]]]
James F. Strange, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida,<ref>{{cite web |title=Excavating a Lasting Legacy |website=University of South Florida |url=https://giving.usf.edu/impact/excavating-lasting-legacy }}</ref> notes: "Nazareth is not mentioned in ancient Jewish sources earlier than the third century AD. This likely reflects its lack of prominence both in Galilee and in Judaea."<ref>Article "Nazareth" in the ''Anchor Bible Dictionary.'' New York: Doubleday, 1992.</ref> Strange originally calculated the population of Nazareth at the time of Christ as "roughly 1,600 to 2,000 people" but, in a subsequent publication that followed more than a decade of additional research, revised this figure down to "a maximum of about 480."<ref>E. Meyers & J. Strange, ''Archaeology, the Rabbis, & Early Christianity'' Nashville: Abingdon, 1981; Article "Nazareth" in the ''Anchor Bible Dictionary.'' New York: Doubleday, 1992.</ref> In 2009, Israeli archaeologist Yardenna Alexandre excavated archaeological remains in Nazareth that date to the time of Jesus in the early Roman period. Alexandre told reporters, "The discovery is of the utmost importance since it reveals for the very first time a house from the Jewish village of Nazareth."<ref>[http://israel21c.org/news/house-from-jesus-time-excavated/ House from Jesus' time excavated] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130706141709/http://israel21c.org/news/house-from-jesus-time-excavated/ |date=6 July 2013 }} (23 December 2009) in [http://www.israel21c.org/ ''Israel 21c Innovation News Service''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120229170256/http://www.israel21c.org/briefs/israels-gelfand-wins-chess-world-cup |date=29 February 2012 }} Retrieved 5 January 2010</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.antiquities.org.il/article_eng.aspx?sec_id=25&subj_id=240&id=1638|title=For the Very First Time: A Residential Building from the Time of Jesus was Exposed in the Heart of Nazareth (12/21/09)|website=Israel Antiquities Authority|access-date=7 January 2017|archive-date=21 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221022914/http://www.antiquities.org.il/article_eng.aspx?sec_id=25&subj_id=240&id=1638|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Atiqot98"/>

Other sources state that during Jesus' time, Nazareth had a population of 400 and one public bath, which was important for civic and religious purposes, as a ''[[mikva]]''.<ref>Korb, Scott. ''Life in Year One.'' New York: Riverhead books, 2010. print, 109. {{ISBN|978-1-59448-899-3}}.</ref>

[[File:Nazareth Church Crusaders1.jpg|thumb|200px|Crusader-era carving in Nazareth]]
A tablet at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, dating to AD 50, was sent from Nazareth to Paris in 1878. It contains an inscription known as the "Ordinance of Caesar" that outlines the penalty of death for those who violate tombs or graves. However, it is suspected that this inscription came to Nazareth from somewhere else (possibly [[Sepphoris]]). Bagatti writes: "we are not certain that it was found in Nazareth, even though it came from Nazareth to Paris. At Nazareth there lived various vendors of antiquities who got ancient material from several places."<ref>Bagatti, B. ''Excavations in Nazareth,'' vol. 1 (1969), p. 249.</ref> C. Kopp is more definite: "It must be accepted with certainty that [the Ordinance of Caesar]… was brought to the Nazareth market by outside merchants."<ref>C. Kopp, "Beiträge zur Geschichte Nazareths." ''Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society'', vol. 18 (1938), p. 206, n.1.</ref> [[Princeton University]] archaeologist Jack Finnegan describes additional archaeological evidence related to settlement in the Nazareth basin during the [[Bronze Age|Bronze]] and [[Iron Age]]s, and states that "Nazareth was a strongly [[Jew]]ish settlement in the [[Roman Empire|Roman]] period."<ref>Jack Finnegan, ''The Archaeology of the New Testament'', [[Princeton University]] Press: Princeton, 1992, pp. 44–46.</ref>

In 2020, Yardenna Alexandre confirmed that Jews from Judea migrated to Galilee and settled in new villages and settlements, including Nazareth, since the late Hellenistic-Hasmonean period ({{Circa|late 2nd century }}). Under the leadership of priestly families, the Jewish inhabitants observed ritual purity laws. Previously, most of Galiee, except for minor short-lived Israelite settlements in the Naḥal Ẓippori basin, had an occupational gap for about 5 centuries because of the [[Assyrian captivity|Assyrian conquest in 732 BCE]].<ref name="Atiqot98" /> However, there is strong evidence for Assyrian presence in Galilee, based on artefacts in [[Cana]], which was north of Nazareth.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Skinner |first=Andrew C. |date=1996–1997 |title=A Historical Sketch of Galilee |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43044121 |journal=Brigham Young University Studies |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=113–125 |jstor=43044121 |via=JSTOR}}</ref> Konrad Schmid and Jens Schroter note that Assyrians were typically relocated to conquered territories, which most likely included Israel.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schmid |first=Konrad |title=The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture |last2=Schroter |first2=Jens |publisher=Belknap Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0674248380}}</ref> 

Some scholars believed [[Jesus]], a native of Nazareth, was influenced by [[Cynicism (philosophy)|Cynicism]],<ref>Quoted in R. Ostling, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080401050600/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,968139,00.html "Who was Jesus?", ''Time'', August 15, 1988, pp. 37–42].</ref><ref>John Dominic Crossan, (1991), ''The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant'', {{ISBN|0-06-061629-6}}</ref> which was popular in Hellenized Galilean cities such as [[Gadara]].<ref>In particular, [[Menippus]] (3rd century BC), [[Meleager of Gadara|Meleager]] (1st century BC), and [[Oenomaus of Gadara|Oenomaus]] (2nd century CE), all came from Gadara.</ref>