Nazareth
No doubt Nazareth itself was wholly Jewish, but it was little more than a suburb of Sepphoris. Sepphoris was the largest city outside Jerusalem and like the other cities, Greek in culture and in language. It was an inland town, its people were not fishermen like the men of Capernaum and Bethsaida but for the most part craftsmen, tradesmen and farmers. There was but one synagogue in the little town.
The basin of the valley is divided by hedges of cactus into little fields and gardens, which, about the fall of the spring rains, wear an aspect of indescribable calm, and glow with a tint of the richest green. We still see houses built of white stone, a garden scattered among them, umbrageous with figs and olives, and rich with the white and scarlet blossoms of orange and pomegranate. In spring, at least, everything about the place looks indescribably bright and soft, doves murmur in the trees, the hoopoe flits about in ceaseless activity, the bright blue roller-bird, the commonest bird.
Nazareth is never mentioned in the Old Testament. In the first century it was so considerable that even Cana, only 4 miles away, could despise it and those wondered if any good could come from it. "That there might be fulfilled what was spoken through the prophets: He shall be called a Nazarene."
Jesus' home was Nazareth. This was his native village where he spent nearly all his life. Nazareth was a small town built on the side of a considerable mountain, a day's journey from Lake Galilee. One of the least considerable villages of Galilee just under 90 miles from Jerusalem.
[307, 309, 318, Matthew 2, 324, 352, 355]
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