(July 5, 2011 at 8:15 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Actually, Nazareth does not seem to have existed in the beginning of the first century, either. And even if it did, it was part of the kingdom of Herod Antipas a client king of the Romans who paid tribute to them which was set by treaty not by direct taxation to Rome.
By the time this bullshit was written down the authors had forgotten the partitioning of Herod the Great's kingdom.
True. According to the archaeological evidence, it (or Kfar HaHoresh - about 2 miles away) was inhabited from about 7000 BCE until 720 BC, when it was apparently destroyed by the Assyrians. At the beginning of the Christian Era, it appears to have been nothing more than a tiny village with a few houses - similar to what are commonly called "settlements" or "communities" in rural America. "James Strange, an American archaeologist, notes: “Nazareth is not mentioned in ancient Jewish sources earlier than the third century AD.", according to Wikipedia. James Strange is connected with the University of South Florida. Interestingly, in another paper http://www.afglc.org/Hellenistic_Sepphor...m_2010.pdf , indicates that Nazareth, at the beginning of the CE, was administered by another city Sepphoris, which was an Hellenistic Greek city. He shows that some of the ideas espoused in the gospels were Greek ideas.
Why is it that the closer you look at any of this the more it crumbles before your eyes? _Gullivers Travels_ seems to have more historical accuracy!