No Carpenter from Nazareth?: The Nasorean Background of Gospel Lore

A unique, cross-cultural approach to long-standing problems of gospel interpretation. his book came about through challenging the accepted notions that Jesus was a carpenter who came from Nazareth town. It contends that the discipline of source criticism has not gone far enough to change the perception of gospel text as Greek adaptation of Hebrew lore. Thus, it is necessary to adopt an "Eastern" frame of reference, which exposes Mesopotamian and Iranian influence in the Levant of late antiquity -- in society in general and in gospel lore in particular. In doing so, one detects translation mistakes, which occurred as evangelists forged Aramaic source reports into Greek scripture. Jesus was not a nassâr, a sawyer or carpenter. He was not a "Nazarene" in the sense of being from Nazareth town. Jesus was a naṣṣâr, a holistic healer, who came from Naṣâra, the Nasorean community near Galilee. Such reverse translation leads to the central effort, which addresses the question: Who were the Nasoreans? That question is answered by venturing into aspects of history, source text interpretation, and anthropology. The book's final chapter examines clues that Mark's original message of good news was an appeal to those people. The overall cross-cultural approach has further implications in that it resolves a number of inconsistencies in the gospels, such as those concerning the concepts "Son of Man" and "kingdom of God."