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Judges 13:5, ". . . for the child shall be a Nazarite unto G-d from the womb. . ."
Matt 2:23 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. (KJV)
What are we coming to these days? Now we cannot even trust our Bibles, at least the Christian's Bible. Let me explain. As I hammer out the keys on my computer I have before me my old "trusted" The New Analytical Bible, American Standard Version, 1901 Bible that I used while in Seminary and during my many years of my Pastorate. On page 1090, when looking at the Matt. 2:23 passage, [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] you don't have to look hard to see that the reference given to the above "fulfilled" New Testament passage is Judg. 13:5 which is listed above. There it is. We have been told again that Jesus if fulfilling another prophecy and this all adds up to make the case that Jesus is without doubt the Jewish Messiah.
Answer for yourself: And can you believe that the Jews just cannot see this?
Needless to say but almost the entirety of Christendom looks as the above passage in Matt. 2:23 as a "Messianic fulfillment" by Jesus thereby confirming his Messiahship.
Answer for yourself: But is the Matt. 2:23 passage really a "Messianic prophecy" and did Jesus really fulfill any sort of Messianic passage by being called a "Nazarene" and is the Judg. 13:5 really a "Messianic prophecy" in the first place?
Now it is obvious to most Christians when reading the New Testament that Jesus is fulfilling prophecy after prophecy on page after page and you leave such a reading experience assured that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Prophets. You could not help but think such a thing since you have the assurance of one of the Apostles no less [his name in one the Gospel record] that what he is recording about Jesus "was spoken by the prophets." It is only natural to believe that "it was fulfilled" because one of Jesus' Apostles says it was.
Answer for yourself: Or did he?
But such a simple belief in the "Jesus of the New Testament" as held by millions today will not hold up under scrutiny and truthful and serious investigation. Such simplistic "beliefs" about Jesus are fine, that is, until you begin to do some personal study for yourself outside the "Christian box." I want the truth about Jesus and not some yarn or fictitious story that makes me feel good. I surely don't want to be misled in my worship of G-d because of some intentional "error" made by a scribe with a hidden agenda some 2000 years ago.
Answer for yourself: Does "Nazarite" means the same thing as "Nazarene" and is Jesus fulfilling some Messianic passage in Matt. 2:23 by being called a "Nazarene?" NO!
As hard as you might look there is no such statement as Matthew claims in not only the Jewish Scriptures but outside the Jewish Bible as well. If you will take the time to read Judges 13 you will find that the passage in question that many Christian Bibles reference as the "origin" for such a fulfilled Messianic prophecy concerning Jesus concerns a barren woman, who through G-d's intervention, will give birth. It is announced by an angel of the Lord that she will have a child, one who will one day come to belong to the Nazarite sect. In the original Hebrew the words Nazarite and Nazarene are not the same or even similar, being Nazir and the other Notsri. There is obviously a name mix up.
Answer for yourself: Did the Holy Spirit have an off-day in giving Revelation to these New Testament writers? Surely not! Any 5 year old Jewish child would know the difference between a "Nazir" and "Notsri." It muddles the mind of any thinking believer how a supposed "anointed" writer of these supposed "important" documents in the New Testament could get such a simple thing wrong.
But, more than this, the son is to "begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines," which Jesus never did.
There is no better source to consult to find out what a "NAZIRITE" means other than the Jewish Encyclopedia. When consulting such a work it is best to let it speak for itself and I present it's findings for you in the following excerpt.
A Nazirite is a person who vows for a specific period to abstain from partaking of grapes or any of its products whether intoxicating or not, cutting his hair, and touching a corpse (6:3–9). Such a person is called a Nazirite (Heb. nazir) from the root nzr (rzn), meaning to separate or dedicate oneself (e.g., nifal, Lev. 22:2; hifil, Lev. 15:31; Num. 6:2, 5, 12). The subject is dealt with in the Priestly Code (Num. 6:1–21) and the purpose of the law is to prescribe the proper ritual if the Nazirite period is aborted by corpse contamination (Num. 6:9–12) or if it is successfully completed (6:13–21). In the person of the Nazirite, the layman is given a status resembling that of the priest, as he now is "holy to the Lord" (Lev. 21:6; Num. 6:8; cf. Philo, I L.A., 249). Actually, in his taboos, he approximates more the higher sanctity of the high priest in that:
(1) he may not contaminate himself with the dead of his immediate family (Lev. 21:11; Num. 6:7; cf. the ordinary priest, Lev. 21:1–4);
(2) for him, as for the high priest, the head is the focus of sanctity (Ex. 29:7; Num. 6:11b. Note the same motive clauses, Lev. 21:12b; Num. 6:7b and compare the dedication of the ordinary priest, Ex. 29:21);
(3) he abstains from intoxicants during his term (Num. 6:4)—a more stringent requirement than that of the high priest, whose abstinence, like that of his fellow priests, is limited to the time he is in the Sanctuary (Lev. 10:9).
When the period of the vow was not specified, it was understood to be 30 days (Naz. 1:3). The pious simply made a freewill vow of abstinence to afford them an opportunity to bring a sin-offering at its conclusion (Ned. 10a).
Answer for yourself: As a side-light what does the bringing of a "sin-offering" imply concerning the meaning of Jesus' death when Paul was ordered to take a Nazirite vow by James in Acts 21 some 25 years after Jesus' death? Did they not know what you and I have been taught that Jesus' death was the final sin offering? Yet we find them continuing to bring sin offerings? What's up?
Answer for yourself: Did the early church believe the same "atonement" message that we have been taught today as connected to Jesus' death or did their actions reveal to us that they did not? Man this opens a can of worms! But that is a study for another day as true atonement is not yet understood properly or taught correctly by the Christian Church. That is one major reason why I had to resign my successful Pastorate as my studies progressed.
Ironically the Nazirite was severely discouraged by the rabbis since asceticism was against the spirit of Judaism (Ned. 77b; Naz. 19a; Ta'an. 11a).
Answer for yourself: What does any of these various methods of "sanctification" have to do with being called a "Nazarene" or with the city of "Nazareth?" In case you don't know the answer is "nothing."
If one was to consult Baker's Dictionary of Theology, by E.F. Harrison, one will find that the term "Nazarene" is applied in the NT both to Jesus and to his followers. The Jews needed some sobriquet by which to identify disciples of Jesus and they chose "the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts 24:5; cf. 28:22). Whatever dishonor adhered to the use of this epithet derived from the crucifixion and the breach within Judaism for which Jesus was held responsible. It is not evident that the general use of the word with reference to Jesus in his lifetime as a means of identification or address carried any adverse connotation. John 1:46 is quite indecisive as affording ground for the opinion that Nazareth had an evil reputation. More likely the passage means that since Galilee as a whole was not expected to produce the Messiah (cf. John 7:41, 52), much less could one of its minor communities do so (such as Nazareth).
The word occurs in two forms, as Nazarenos (six times) and as Nazoraios (thirteen times). But both are probably derived from the place-name Nazareth. The claim that the second word points to a pre-Christian sect to which Jesus belonged is ill-founded. Those who propose it usually doubt the Christian tradition about Nazareth as the boyhood home of Jesus, looking on it as a deliberate attempt to divert attention from Jesus' original connection with the "Nazarenes" by associating him with a place dubbed Nazareth.
Now here is where the writer of the Gospel of Matthew shows us his complete lack of understanding of the Jewish Scriptures and definitely shows us that the Holy Spirit was not leading this man to write "anything." The writer of the Gospel of Matthew explains the residence at Nazareth was the occurrence of the fulfillment of the Judges passage, as necessitated by prophecy (2:23), but this is only because of his unfamiliarity with the Jewish and Hebrew word "nazir" for "Nazirite." But I will give him this; one thing he gets right. Both words begin with the initial "N." Such is the hard facts of the matter and they betray the non-Jewish authorship of not only this Gospel, but such inaccuracies that line the pages of the New Testament and few know of them let alone that they are there. That is why we must begin our own personal study to find the truth within our faith!
Answer for yourself: Was Nazareth even a city when Jesus was a child?
You might think I am crazy but before you do maybe we should listen to the archeologists and authorities which know a lot more than some misguided non-Jew who penned these documents in the early second century or the zealous Christian pastors who preach this stuff (the first quote for a recognized "Gospel" cannot be found in any Christian literature until 200 A.D.).
The following is taken from The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception by Baigent and Leigh. On page 174 it is recorded for us:
"Among the terms by which the Qumran community referred to themselves was "Keepers of the Covenant", which appears in the original Hebrew as "Nozrei ha-Brit". From this term derives the word "Nozrim", one of the earliest Hebrew designations for the sect subsequently known as "Christians". The modern Arabic word for Christians, "Nasrani", derives from the same source.So, too, does the word "Nazorean" or "Nazarene", which, of course, was the name by which the "early Christians" referred to themselves in both the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Contrary to the assumptions of later tradition, it has nothing whatever to do with Jesus' alleged upbringing in Nazareth, which, the evidence (or lack of it) suggests, did not even exist at the time. Indeed, it seems to have been the very perplexity of early commentators encountering the unfamiliar term "Nazorean" that led them to conclude Jesus' family came from Nazareth, which by then had appeared on the map. In other words the city was not known to exist when Jesus was a child and he could not have lived there!"
Answer for yourself: What are we to make of all the references to Nazareth as the childhood home of Jesus let alone his appellation "Jesus of Nazareth" since the city is known to not have existed when he was a child?
Isa. 11:1 describes Messiah as a netser (branch, sprout).
Isa 11:1 1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: (KJV)
Answer for yourself: What is the Hebrew meaning of the word "branch?"
When we consult Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon we find: 5342 netser-a sprout, a shoot, a branch (always used figuratively)
When we consult Strong's Concordance we find: 5342 netser (nay'-tser); from 5341 in the sense of greenness as a striking color; a shoot; figuratively, a descendant: KJV-- branch.
Answer for yourself: If we cannot honestly connect Jesus with Nazareth, and cannot connect him with being a Nazirite, should we not call him "Jesus the Netser" instead of "Jesus of Nazareth?"
Answer for yourself: Is it truthful to have Jesus "fulfilling this" and "fulfilling that" when concerted analysis of the Jewish passages, both linguistically and contextually, reveal that he was not fulfilling anything of the like?
Answer for yourself: Does believing an "untruth" or a lie about Jesus honor his name or his memory? Is G-d pleased we believe a lie about Jesus?
Answer for yourself: Is it acceptable with G-d that our "Christian theological agendas" override common sense and proper Biblical interpretation, even to the point of referencing "fulfilled Jewish Scriptures" in error in the center columns of our Christian Bibles thereby misleading hundreds of thousands of people and causing them to both believe in error and conduct their lives in error?
As stated earlier we find in Judg. 13:5 "netser" in the Hebrew and in the Greek translation we find (LXX) naziraios (Nazarite) occurs with reference to Samson, who was a Nazirite. Again remember this has nothing to do whatsoever with the city of "Nazareth."
One Christian commentator remarked: "Granted that Jesus was not a Nazarite in the strict sense, yet his situation was so akin to that of Samson as the one who would save Israel (Judg. 13:5; Matt. 1:21) that the technicalities of circumstantial description and of philological requirement are brushed aside in the rabbinic word play which relates Jesus to the OT."
Answer for yourself: So considering the Christian reasoning above, do you think it is proper to relate Jesus to being a "nazirite" in Judges 13:5, or to Nazareth? I don't and truth demands we don't. We can emotionally reason anything but truth should be our goal. Let our emotions be attached to truths for a change instead of untruth. Such is not only honor to truth but the G-d of truth!
Answer for yourself: Was Jesus fulfilling anything in reference to being a "nazirtie" or to being from the city of "Nazareth?" Who is writing this gobbly-gook? What ever you do please don't blame it on G-d!
Answer for yourself:Would any Biblically knowledgeable Jew agree with the Christian commentator above? I can assure you they don't. Can you now?
Deut 4:2 2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your G-d which I command you. (KJV)
Deut 12:32 32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. (KJV)