HE CAME TO NAZARETH

 HE CAME TO NAZARETH
-  Luke 4:16-17 : “When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.”

Once upon a time, according to Josephus the historian writer, when Herod the child killer was himself just a child,somebody patted his shoulder in Jerusalem. He was Menachem the Essene, or as he was called Menachem the Seer.

Menachem greeted him, saying that may the king of the Jews be hailed. At that time Judea became a Roman protectorate under Pompeius Magnus, who was one of the first Triumvirate, together with Crassus and Julius Caesar.
The nominal ruler was the Jewish High Priest and King, Hyrcanus II, but executive power was in the hand of Herod's father, Antipater, who was a full-fledged Arab by ethnic origins, and he governed Judea on behalf of the Romans.

Indeed Menachem the Essene needed some remarkable prophesying skills to see in the Arabic young child Herod, the future Jewish King.
However, it came to pass, some twenty years later, and the time came, when Herod became a Roman puppet king, he remembered Menachem the Essene, how he foretold his fortune, and he sent for him, demanding that how long will he be King over Jerusalem.

But Menachem didn't want to answer, and stayed silent. But as Herod kept pushing his question, that maybe for ten years? Menachem reluctantly told him, that not ten but thirty years.
Herod was very pleased with the answer, and he, the mass murderer Machiavellian cruel tyrant, let the Essene communities in Judea, Galilee and Samaria, including the famous Qumran settlement live, moreover live in peace and unmolested.

Meanwhile Josephus, the first century historian and Philo, the first century Philosopher and author from Egypt gave extensive accounts and descriptions of the Essene communities in the Jesus contemporary Holy Land and also in Egypt, it is quite talkative that the Bible is almost completely silent about the Essenes. Or is it?

The Gospel of Matthew tells us the story that Jesus preached the Gospel in Nazareth, on the Sabbath day, when he went into the synagogue, as was his custom, announcing it to the congregation there, after reading the book of the prophet Isaiah that the prophecies of Isaiah about the Messiah came into fulfillment in him, in Jesus.

The people there who knew him personally and his family, asked that “isn’t this carpenter Joseph’s son?”
They got agitated and aggravated and drove him out of the town, trying to grab him and to throw him down from the nearby cliff in order to kill him for the assumed blasphemy. He also had to sigh almost quite bitterly that “Most certainly I tell you,” he said, “no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.”

However and actually, we do not know with scientific certainty the historic accuracy of this story, because according to the archaeological findings even the very town of Nazareth did not exist until the 2nd century AD. It was never mentioned anywhere in any contemporary sources, including tax assessments and private letters.

Nonetheless, there is a town, which had not ever been mentioned in the Bible, and it had the status of being one of the bigger cities in Galilee, and it was called Sepphoris. It is even more strange, that this that time vibrant and vivid city was literally only 6km from Nazareth, like Nazareth could have been a suburb of Sepphoris, if Nazareth would have existed in the first century.

It looks like , it did not, but Sepphoris did, as Sepphoris was rebuilt by Herodes Antipas, who sentenced John the Baptist to death. Still Sepphoris has never been mentioned in the Bible, while Nazareth was mentioned a dozen times in the New Testament.

However, a small settlement, like an Essene Nazarene camp, like an exclusive suburbish or gated community could have existed in the close vicinity of Sepphoris, comprised of mostly Kohen and Levite priests and their families, who belonged to a sectarian Jewish group,  the Nazarenes, an offshoot of the Essenes. Around this camp a small hamlet and later a small town may have developed, which later may have received its name exactly from its significant sectarian Jewish dwellers, from the Nazarene sect.

Thus, not the group around Jesus and Jesus himself was named after the town of Nazareth, but the town received its name from the group, when it became a real town in the second century. The town of Nazareth simply did not exist in the first century, but the sectarian group of the Nazarenes did exist. However, very likely, the author of the Gospel also wished to be rather silent about the Nazarenes, as a group, to protect them from imperial presecution.

The group around Jesus was called the Nazarenes, but they had two other names. The movement was called simply, ‘The Way’. The group’s nickname was ‘The Poor’. That is why Jesus said in the Sermon of the Mount that “Blessed are the Poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  
The Nazarene Poor,as a sectarian movement were an identifiable segment of the contemporar society.

It was not that Jesus would have applauded poverty, quite the opposite. The members of the society of the Nazarene Poor, had all their possessions in common and there was not needy among them. Exactly, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles about the Jerusalem congregation, chapter two and four reflectively.

That is why Jesus told the rich young men that "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

However, ultimately, it was not required from the young man to throw away his wealth into the ocean, but to share it with the community, which was called the POOR. It is obvious that one major part of the original message of the Gospel of John the Baptist and Jesus the Nazarene was toward men and women that they have to renounce greed and have to share their wealth with all in the community, otherwise it will be very difficult to enter Heaven.

The Nazarenes, who were called the Poor, left the regular society, abandoning greed and hypocrisy, leading a community life of piety and prayer.

They gained the respect of the general population too as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter two that “All who believed were together, and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need. Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people.”

This type of pre-Christianity piety has been almost forgotten for the last two thousands of years, and one important feature of following Jesus looks lost in the modern society of bank accounts and electricity bills.

Still Jesus and the Gospel message reminds us that our faith must not be and can not be fulfilled by external rituals only, but we have to receive and accept the gift of the Holy Spirit in our hearts in order to renounce the systematized and imperial order of this world for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the sake of GOD, Amen.