"CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME OUT OF NAZARETH?" (JOHN 1:46)

This comment by Nathanael when he was told that the Messiah had been found has always confused me. I wondered what in the world was so bad about Nazareth anyway. But before giving some possible answers, here are some general comments first.

Riesner explains, “Since Nazareth is not mentioned in the OT, in the Apocrypha or in rabbinic literature, some during the nineteenth century disputed its existence in NT times. In addition to an inscription mentioned it as a settlement for priests in the third to fourth century, excavations of recent years have removed every doubt...ritually clean clay stone vessels were found pointing to pious Jewish inhabitants. As it expanded, Nazareth may have grown to a settlement of some 200 people.” This is yet another example of scholarly skepticism regarding details in the New Testament record being overturned by the plain facts.

“The reason for [this lack of mention] was first geographical and later theological. Lower Galilee remained outside the main stream of Israelite life until New Testament times, when Rom. rule first brought security.” (J.W. Charley)

In terms of literary features worth mentioning, most prominent is the fact that Nathanael's statement is a typical example of John's use of irony in his Gospel account. Nathanael's comment is partially based on his mistaken belief that Jesus was born in Nazareth when the fact is that he was born in Bethlehem but lived most of his life in Mary's hometown of Nazareth. Culpepper classes this reply among the several examples of the literary device of “the unanswered question, often based on a false assumption, in which the character suggests or prophesies the truth without knowing it.” This literary device also appears in passages such as John 4:12; 7:20; 7:48; 8:53; 18:38, etc. “By suggesting the truth in some of these questions, the interlocutors expose the error of their assumptions.”

Concerning a completely different literary device present here, Borchert explains that “Nathanael's response is a classic expression of doubt that in literary form provides the shadow image of Thomas's first response to the news of Jesus' resurrection in 20:25. Thus, the beginning and end of the book are coordinated.”

With those items out of the way, we can now look at why Nathanael said what he did. As usual, there is no one simple answer unless one wishes to just look at a single commentator's theory and ignore all others. But even there, it is quite likely that you will find that some scholars refuse to be pinned down to one possibility. Piecing it all together, there appear to be at least four competing theories as to why Nathanael was bad-mouthing Nazareth: the well-earned bad reputation of the inhabitants, their generally independent attitude, the insignificance of the city, or due to an intra-Galilean rivalry. Let me explain the last possibility first.

One thing that is necessary to note is that Nathanael himself was from Galilee, and so it is doubtful that he was making a generally derogatory comment regarding his own region of birth. However, Cana was located near Nazareth. Thus, Raymond Brown says, “The saying may be a local proverb reflecting jealousy between Nathanael's town of Cana and nearby Nazareth.” Leon Morris concurs: “Moreover, as Nathanael himself came from Cana, it is not at all improbable that we have here a trace of the rivalry that often grips small centres (and bigger ones!) not far from one another.”

If anyone thinks that explanation is improbable, I can offer at least three examples from personal experience as I was growing up in Culver City, California. It was an independently-incorporated city completely surrounded by Los Angeles, and so our high school took great pride in bragging about the superior quality of the education we were afforded compared to the L.A. school system, whether or not we were correct in our assessment. Our house was just two blocks away from the MGM Studios, and Culver City claimed (and rightly so) to be the real home of the movie industry in Southern California with roots going way back to the silent film days, certainly not the more famous Hollywood. I don't think Hollywood took our rivalry seriously at all, but we did. And then when I started attending UCLA, the standard taunt of rival USC was, “Those with money attend USC; those with brains attend UCLA.” GO BRUINS!

An alternative explanation for Nathanael's words is that perhaps Nazareth had really earned a reputation for the bad behavior of its inhabitants. Thus, Brown says that “it may be noted that Galilean 'prophets' had already caused trouble, e.g. Judas the Galilean of Acts v 37.” But that certainly doesn't explain why the Galilean Nathanael would defame his own region. However, Donald Guthrie explains, “It may at first seem strange that a Galilaean should repeat a saying derogatory to a Galilaean city. But Nazarenes appear to have had the type of character to give rise to such a proverb, if their treatment of Jesus is anything to go by.” But I think that Nazareth's rejection of Jesus' teaching is much better attributed to the factor Jesus himself points out. We can paraphrase it very roughly with the modern proverb “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Borchert weighs both of the above possibilities and concludes: “Whether Nathanael's prejudiced question...represents a rivalry between Cana and Nazareth or is merely a local maxim that categorized Nazareth as the wrong side of the track is here unclear.”

A somewhat related charge against the city is its standoffish attitude toward the rest of Israel. Charley provides a geographical explanation for that possibility: “Nazareth lay close enough to several main trade-routes for easy contact with the outside world, while at the same time her position as a frontier-town on the southern border of Zebulun overlooking the Esdraelon plain produced a certain aloofness. It was this independence of outlook in Lower Galilee which led to the scorn in which Nazareth was held by strict Jews.” It is an intriguing possibility, but the author does not give any concrete proof that this was indeed the case.

Finally, we come to the likely possibility that Jews of the time were certainly not expecting the Messiah to come from a lowly town such as Nazareth. The following scholars side with this explanation:

“Nathanael momentarily stumbled over the lowly origin of the Messiah...Nathanael knew of the poor reputation of Nazareth. Surely the Messiah would come from Jerusalem, Hebron, or some other prominent city. Jesus' condescension still remains a puzzle to many people.” (Blum) It is not quite clear what Blum means by Nazareth's “poor reputation” unless he is referring to the fact that it really had no reputation at all to speak of.

Morris: “Nathanael's skeptical question does not reflect as far as known, a widely held opinion of Nazareth. It was not a famous city, but we have no reason for thinking it was infamous. We should probably understand Nathanael's words as the utterance of a man who could not conceive of the Messiah as coming from such an insignificant place.”

Rengstorf: “At all events, for all the witnesses, Jesus' origins in Nazareth are a sign of his lowliness. Nobody understood this as well or emphasized it as unmistakably as Jn., when in his account the description of Jesus as Nazoraios found its place in the inscription for his cross on the initiative of the Roman procurator (19:19). Here finally, so to speak, the reader's attention is once again drawn to the fact that Jesus' origins in a place without status or prestige in the surrounding world formed a glaring contrast to the claim with which he had appeared before them.”