Monday, December 21, 2009

House of Jesus Himself Discovered in Nazareth . . . sort of . . . well, not really

Just in time for Christmas (coincidence?), the Israel Antiquities Authority has announced the discovery a house in ancient Nazareth dating to the first century CE, the time of Jesus. Here is an excerpt from the IAA press release.
According to Yardenna Alexandre, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The discovery is of the utmost importance since it reveals for the very first time a house from the Jewish village of Nazareth and thereby sheds light on the way of life at the time of Jesus. The building that we found is small and modest and it is most likely typical of the dwellings in Nazareth in that period. From the few written sources that there are, we know that in the first century CE Nazareth was a small Jewish village, located inside a valley. Until now a number of tombs from the time of Jesus were found in Nazareth; however, no settlement remains have been discovered that are attributed to this period”.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has this photo:



It is nice to see that, so far, none of the news stories are connecting this story to a specific person or family (as my headline does in an intentionally facetious way). Now if they'd found a tunnel in the city of David, I'm sure they would have quickly speculated a connection to David's conquest of the city.  Oh, wait . . .

HT: Wild Wild West, Todd Bolen

6 comments:

  1. glad you approve, Jim. I was shocked that no one else had jumped to the obvious conclusion based on the available evidence.

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  2. Douglas, your scholarship is impeccable as always.

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  3. Thank you, Brandon.

    I started writing a book on the find this morning. After all, more has been written with less evidence. I mean, how is Knohl getting a whole book out of his Gabriel's Vision thesis? His article was terrible. But I digress.

    I'm working on an angle where we can have a small group of Essenes nearby so Jesus can be the Teacher of Righteousness, too. I'm sure Barbara Thiering would approve.

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  4. In fact, when I first saw the title in the news a few days ago, I thought the same: "Just in time for Christmas." Ha!

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  5. The first time I saw the headline in the news I thought the same thing: "Just in time for Christmas."

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