To Dbates: Most of us have been busy SHOOTING DOWN the use of TDC. It does obviously come up because it is a work of fiction which has incorporated
some rather obscure facts and ideas about the grail, which although not gospel, may provoke thought about the grail. It's not as if any of us is
suggesting that we start shadowing members of Opus Dei to find the cryptex that contains the map to the grail. (if you dont understand that it's
because you haven't read TDC).
To Leveller:
There is no documentation of Nazareth existing in Jesus' time. The Romans were extensive and thorough map-makers and if the town had existed
back then, it would have been referenced.
This doesn't mean that the apostles didn't write the Gospels though. Like so many other words in the Bible, it's meaning probably became corrupted
and mistranslated over time so that the inference of Jesus coming from Nazareth was just automatically accepted.
Matthew 2:23 "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets 'he shall be called a
Nazarene'.
-unfortunately, Stong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible shows that no such prophecy exists in the bible.
The concordance shows 6 old testament verses about Nazarites in Numbers which describe the law of the Nazarites and 3 in Judges which describe Samson.
There isn't even a prophecy that the messiah would be a Nazarite.
IF it is true that Nazareth did not exist in the time of Christ, then an apostle could not have written the Gospel of Matthew. That verse had to be
added later, and that opens the entire book to question.
Mark 1:9 "It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan."
Mark also says Nazareth is a place. I guess that means Mark is unreliable as well. ARE YOU SURE that Nazareth didn't exist?
Luke 1:26 "Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth"
Eh too Luke?
John is a little harder, because I am not using references in the context of "Jesus of Nazareth" so that the "Jesus the Nazarite" explanation is
not possible.
John 1:46 "And Nathaniel said to him, 'can anything good come out of Nazareth?'"
You could argue that this verse refers to Nazarites, so John may be uncorrupted, if in fact Nazareth did not exist at the time.
John 19:19 "Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the corss and the writing was "Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews". "
I don't really understand why pilate would bother to specifiy that Jesus was a Nazarite. That's not really important to a gentile is it?
I still haven't found my copy of Evidence That Demands a Verdict. I might have thrown it away at some point since it was full of places where I had
highlighted McDowell's circular logic and flawed assumptions. I hope not.