Nazareth is the capital and largest city in the North District of Israel. It is the most important city for Israel's Arab citizens who make up the majority of Nazareth's population. In the New Testament, the city is described as the childhood home of Jesus, and as such is a center of Christian pilgrimage, with many shrines commemorating biblical associations.

Etymology

The etymology of Nazareth from as early as Eusebius up until the 20th century has been said to derive from the Hebrew word נצר netser, meaning a "shoot" or "sprout", while the apocryphal Gospel of Phillip derives the name from Nazara meaning "truth". There is speculation and biblical indication that Nazarene meaning "of the village of Nazareth", was confused with "Nazir," meaning a "separated" Jew who had taken an ascetic vow of holiness.

Geography and population

Modern-day Nazareth is nestled in a natural bowl which reaches from 1,050 feet (320 m) above sea level to the crest of the hills about 1,600 feet (490 m).It is located between hills that form the most southerly points of the Lebanon mountain range. Nazareth is about 25 kilometres (16 mi) from the Sea of Galilee (17 km as the crow flies) and about 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) west from Mount Tabor. The Nazareth Range, in which the town lies, is the southernmost of several parallel east-west hill ranges that characterize the elevated tableau of Lower Galilee.

History

Earliest history & archaeological evidence

Archaeological research has revealed a funerary and cult center at Kfar HaHoresh, about two miles (3 km) from Nazareth, dating back roughly 9000 years (to what is known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B era). The remains of some 65 individuals were found, buried under huge horizontal headstone structures, some of which consisted of up to 3 tons of locally-produced white plaster. Decorated human skulls uncovered there have led archaeologists to believe that Kfar HaHoresh was a major cult centre in that remote era.

Chad Emmet authored a sociological study on modern Nazareth entitled "Beyond the Basilica: Christians and Muslims in Nazareth." This book attempts to "better understand how Christians and Muslims have managed to live together for centuries in relative peace in a region known for its ethnic and religious conflicts, and to determine to what degree they have remained segregated in religious-based quarters." Emmett claims that archaeological excavations in the vicinity of the present-day Basilica of the Annunciation and St. Joseph have revealed pottery dating from the Middle Bronze Age (2200 to 1500 BC) and ceramics, silos and grinding mills from the Iron Age (1500 to 586 BC). However, excavations conducted prior to 1931 in the Franciscan venerated area revealed "no trace of a Greek or Roman settlement" there, and according to studies written between 1955 and 1990, no demonstrable archaeological evidence from Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic or Early Roman times have been found. Bagatti, the principal archaeologist at the venerated sites in Nazareth, unearthed quantities of later Roman and Byzantine artifacts, attesting to unambiguous human presence there from the 2nd century AD onward.

Emmett also claims that "homes and tombs built of stone masonry with back rooms of natural or rock-hewn caves were also found that date to the Roman era (63 BC to 324 AD)." However, this familiar claim that the Nazarenes were troglodytes (cave dwellers) seems improbable, for according to certain modern Jewish scholars "the caves of Galilee are wet or damp from December to May, and can only be used during the summer and autumn."

Finally, Emmett writes that "In light of the archaeological data, there is speculation that Nazareth's first inhabitants could have been Canaanites, then Israelites and Galilean Jews." Indeed, the Bronze-Iron Age inhabitants must have been Canaanites (pre-Israelite inhabitants of the land), but lack of archaeological evidence from Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic or Early Roman times (see above), at least in the major excavations between 1955 and 1990, shows that Israelite presence in the basin is unsubstantiated.

Many writers suppose that ancient Nazareth was built on the hillside, as required by scripture: [And they led Jesus] "to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong" (Gospel of Luke 4:29). However, the hill in question (the Nebi Sa'in) is far too steep for ancient dwellings and averages a 14% grade in the venerated area. Bagatti has shown that this area was, however, clearly used for tombs and agricultural work in the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as in Middle and Late Roman times.

In the mid-1990s, shopkeeper Elias Shama discovered tunnels under his shop near Mary's Well in Nazareth. The tunnels were eventually recognized as a hypocaust (a space below the floor into which warm air was pumped) for a bathhouse. The surrounding site was excavated in 1997-98 by Y. Alexandre, and the archaeological remains exposed were ascertained to date from the Roman, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.