From time to time (and twice in the past couple of weeks) I am asked about the idea that Jesus may have been part of a casual workforce from Nazareth employed on the rebuilding of Sepphoris prior to commencing his public activity as a prophet of the basileia tou theou (the empire of God).
This is often linked with the idea that Jesus would have been exposed to Hellenistic cultural influence through this connection to Sepphoris, and specifically may have had some contact with Stoic ideas.
The underlying historical realities behind this question include:
proximity (ca 6km by foot)
prominence (Sepphoris was the capital for Herod Antipas)
opportunity (the city was rebuilt by Antipas after being destroyed by Roman forces in response to a rebellion by th city after the death of Herod)
cultural diversity (Sepphoris was a diverse city, with evidence of Greek theatre and Jewish synagogues)
parallels (some aspects of Jesus’ teaching and practice are similar to those of the Stoics)
What follow here is a recent response I made by email to one such query.
Attempting to identify any particular influences on Jesus during his formative years is a very difficult task.
We have no direct evidence, and can only work from more general models (eg, Jewish kinship systems and domestic religious practices), informed—if we are fortunate—by archaeological insights.
The information we have about Nazareth around the turn of the eras, does not support the suggestion—proposed, or at least made popular, by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor—that Jesus may have been engaged in the workforce at Sepphoris.
It is true that Sepphoris was not far from Nazareth and was the dominant city in that area. It was destroyed by the Romans after an uprising that followed the death of Herod, and Antipas did engage in a rebuilding project. However, his rebuild was pretty modest, and short-lived. It would have ended by 18 CE (if not sooner) once he began the new city project at Tiberius and switched all his funds across to that project.
The short-lived rebuilding project at Sepphsois was between, say, 6 BCE and 16 CE.
The interpretation of tekton in Mark 6:3 is problematic. A single reference is not sufficient to establish the occupation of Jesus’ father, and in any case “carpenter” is not a good translation. “Construction worker” would be a better way to translate that term, and it could mean little more than handyman.
Jospeh may have been the local maker and fixer of agricultural tools, but we cannot tell from this one passing reference and we certainly cannot speculate about any details of Joseph’s life. Tekton is more likely to have been a generic indicator of Jesus’ social status, than a formal classification of his father’s skills.
More than that, Dennis R. Macdonald has suggested that the reference to tekton/carpenter may be a deliberate Homeric allusion by Mark and have no historical value.
However, the crunch factor is that the most recent archaeological work done in the area between Sepphoris and Nazareth has demonstrated that the Torah-observant Jews in the small village of Nazareth would have been most unlikely ever to have any contact with the non-observant population at Sepphoris and at the villages that lay within its orbit.
In summary, Nazareth was a kosher community while Sepphoris was not. The key research here is by Ken Dark:
Dark, Ken. Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and Its Hinterland. The Palestine Exploration Fund Annual XV, edited by Chiara Fiaccavento, XV. Routledge, 2020.
For a brief summary of what we know about Nazareth in the Roman and Byzantine periods, see Nazareth Then and Now.
All things considered—and allowing for all the things we do not know, such as when Jesus was born—there is not much likelihood that he would ever have visited Sepphoris, let alone been influenced by any hypothetical Stoics based there. Of course, we have no evidence for Stoics (or Pharisees for that matter) being in the rather modest and only partly-rebuilt city of Sepphoris during the first two decades of the first century.
Finally, most of the impressive Hellenistic features of Sepphoris are from the second century CE or later. As such, they are irrelevant to the question of any cultural influences on Jesus.
It may be significant that Sepphoris is never mentioned in the Gospels.
It seems more likely that his formative experience was grounded in village Judaism with a strong attachment to Jerusalem and its temple.
Ancient Nazareth lacked the critical advantages for its development as a significant settlement: abundant water supply, an elevated site for defensive purposes, and strategic location adjacent to a major highway. The most comprehensive recent study of the archeology of ancient Nazareth and its local region was completed by Ken Dark over several seasons between 2004 and 2008.[2]
The earliest permanent settlement at Nazareth seems to have been established as an agricultural village populated byJews who had relocated from Judea during the Hasmonean and Herodian period.[3] The village occupied an area around half of one square kilometer and was located about 500m southwest of a perennial spring, traditionally known as Mary’s Well. That spring was sufficient to sustain a population of up to 1,000 people, which was the maximum size of the village until the 1850s when it increased to around 5,000 people,[4] before rising to 7,424 at the time of the first census undertaken during the British Mandate government in 1922.[5]
British archeologist Ken Dark proposes that Nazareth was a small town serving a “distinctive Roman-period settlement system” in the Nahal Zippori area and extending to nearby Yafia.[6] Dark suggests an economy that included agricultural and quarrying activities. The most plausible explanation for the extensive quarrying activity is to provide materials for substantial buildings within Nazareth itself, and that suggests a transition from the earliest phase of settlement when caves provided the nucleus of the housing structures to a more established settlement with solid houses.
Byzantine Nazareth
Subsequent to his comprehensive study of Nazareth and its hinterland from the Roman period through until the Byzantine period, Ken Dark has published a second volume on the evidence for Byzantine Nazareth from the excavations at the Sisters of Nazareth Convent, which lies between Christ Church and the Basilica.[7] During the Byzantine period, Dark describes Nazareth with an emerging set of monumental sacred architecture, including at least the Church of the Nutrition (on the site of the Sisters of Nazareth Convent), the Church of the Annunciation (the present Franciscan site with its modern basilica), a third church understood by pilgrims as the synagogue from the time of Jesus, and another church where the current Greek Orthodox Church of St. Gabriel stands at Mary’s Well.
This complex of Christian pilgrimage structures, located above venerated caves, seems to have continued after the Muslim conquest in the seventh century, although they may have gradually fallen into disuse as the number of pilgrims diminished.[8] There is some evidence to suggest these Christian sites were abandoned prior to the Crusader period. Dark notes this may have happened in 1010 CE when the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction ofthe Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, following his order for the destruction of the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem the previous year.[9]
Crusader Nazareth
There was brief revival of Christian presence in Nazareth during the Crusader period (1099–1187 CE). Dark suggests that the rebuilding process was intentionally rapid and indicative of the priorities of Tancred and his successors. We know from textual sources that the rebuilt Nazareth included churches and monasteries, a hospital for pilgrims and a library.[10] Dark notes that Nazareth was also an administrative center of the principality, implying a palace or fortress, and the settlement was walled.
Islamic Nazareth
During the thirteenth century control of Nazareth fluctuated between the Ayyubid dynasty and the Frankish Crusaders, culminating in the capture of Nazareth by Sultan Baybars and his emir, Ala al-Din Taybars in April 1263. At that time the Church of the Annunciation was razed and the site remained a ruin for the next 400 years.[11] The occasional pilgrim reaching Nazareth was only able to visit the Annunciation Cave below the ruins of the Crusader church and needed to pay a fee to the local Muslims.[12]
Following the defeat of the Mamluks by the Ottoman empire in 1516, Christian pilgrims were banned from the key holy sites in the ancient village center. A sixteenth-century Ottoman financial record lists 253 Muslim households and 17 Christian households.[13]
In 1620 the Franciscans were given permission by Fakr al-Din II, the Druze emir of Sidon, to repair the church above the Annunciation Cave. Friar Francisco Quaresmius described the initial repairs but also noted that they were again expelled from Nazareth in 1630 after the Bedouin emir, Tarabei, sacked the village and forced the Franciscans to leave.[14] Only in 1730 were the Franciscans given permission by Daher al-‘Umar, the Bedouin ruler of Galilee, to reestablish themselves in Nazareth and rebuild the Church of the Annunciation. Twenty years later in 1750, the Greek Orthodox were able to build a new church above the ancient Crusader crypt at Mary’s Well.[15]
This re-establishment of a permanent Christian presence in Nazareth was only one hundred years before a major transformation would occur as Nazareth transitioned from a remote village into a major town of interest to the European powers. Those foreign powers included the British who established an Anglican mission there in 1851.
Nazareth Today
The current population of Nazareth is estimated to be around 80,000 people, according to data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).[16] The population is evenly divided by gender and is almost 100% Arab. The age distribution is skewed towards a youthful profile, with almost half of the population aged below 30 years of age and only 9% aged over 65 years.
The population increased from 5,000 in the late 1800s, to 7,500 in 1922, 14,200 in 1945, and 20,300 in 1951 (reflecting an influx of internally displaced persons after 1948). The 1922 British census indicated 60% of the population were Christians. With the influx of displaced persons after 1948—partly offset by an exodus of around 20% of the nativeNazareth population during the war—there was a significant change in the religious profile of the city.
The adjacent city of Nof HaGalil (founded in 1959 as Nazrat Illit, or Upper Nazareth) occupies an elevated site overlooking the Arab city of Nazareth. It is built on land expropriated from Nazareth and surrounding villages by the Israeli government. Although designed as a Jewish city, it has attracted a significant number of Arabs from Nazareth. In 2021 its official population estimate was 42,657,[17] of which 32% were Arabs. Significantly, almost one quarter of its total population are Arab Christians.
The 2009 Israeli census data reported religious demographics of 69% Muslim and 31% Christian in Nazareth, but the 2025 annual Christmas media release on Christians in Israel indicates a Christian population of 18,900 in Nazareth as well as another 10,800 Christians in Nof HaGalil.[18] This suggests Nazareth is now 77% Muslim and just 23% Christian. Anglicans comprise 2% of the Nazareth Christian population (378 people).
Development of the Nazareth municipality has been restricted by the failure of any Israeli administration to approve changes to the city’s town plan since the previous approvals by the British Mandate authorities in 1942. The city infrastructure is notably inferior to the facilities available in Nof HaGalil, and the basic operations of the municipality are problematic. There are major problems with garbage collection, road maintenance, and general civic services. Violent crime is a serious issue in Nazareth as it is in many Arab communities across Israel due to systemic discrimination against Palestinian citizens. In mid-2025, the Council was dismissed and an Israeli administrator appointed.[19]
Alexandré, Yardenna. Mary’s Well, Nazareth: The Late Hellenistic to the Ottoman Periods. IAA Reports, 49. Israel Antiquities Authority, 2012.
Bagatti, Bellarmino. Excavations in Nazareth. I: From the Beginning till the XII Century. II: From the XII Century until Today. Translated by E. Hoade. 2 vols. Franciscan Printing Press, 1969.
Dark, Ken. Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and Its Hinterland. The Palestine Exploration Fund Annual XV, edited by Chiara Fiaccavento, XV. Routledge, 2020.
Dark, Ken. The Sisters of Nazareth Convent: A Roman-Period, Byzantine, and Crusader Site in Central Nazareth. The Palestine Exploration Fund Annual XVI, edited by Chiara Fiaccavento. Routledge, 2021.
Fiensy, David A., and James Riley Strange. Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods: 2. The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns and Villages. Fortress Press, 2015.
Jenks, Gregory C. “The Quest for the Historical Nazareth.” In Bethsaida in Archaeology, History and Ancient Culture. A Festschrift in Honor of John T. Greene, edited by J. Harold Ellens. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.
Mansur, Asaad Al She’aeri. The History of Nazareth from its Earliest Times to our Present Days (Arabic). Al Hilal Press, 1924.
Strange, James F. “Nazareth.” In Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, vol. 4. Doubleday, 1992.
[1] This material was initially prepared for a chapter on Nazareth Anglicans in the book, The Anglican Church and Palestine, edited by Kwok Pui Lan (Church Publishing, 2026). As it could not be included in the final edited form of that chapter, it is published here for anyone who may be interested in a brief summary of current research on Nazareth prior to the Late Ottoman period.
[2] Ken Dark, Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and Its Hinterland, The Palestine Exploration Fund Annual XV, ed. Chiara Fiaccavento, XV (Routledge, 2020). For other significant recent studies see Yardenna Alexandré, Mary’s Well, Nazareth: The Late Hellenistic to the Ottoman Periods, IAA Reports, 49 (Israel Antiquities Authority, 2012); Bellarmino Bagatti, Excavations in Nazareth. I: From the Beginning till the XII Century. II: From the XII Century until Today, trans. E. Hoade, 2 vols. (Franciscan Printing Press, 1969); and Gregory C. Jenks, “The Quest for the Historical Nazareth,” in Bethsaida in Archaeology, History and Ancient Culture. A Festschrift in Honor of John T. Greene, ed. J. Harold Ellens (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 252–67.
[3] David A. Fiensy and James Riley Strange, Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods: 2. The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns and Villages (Fortress Press, 2015), 5–6.
[5] James F. Strange, “Nazareth,” in Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman, vol. 4 (Doubleday, 1992) 1050–51) suggests a population of 480 in the time of Jesus. My own estimate suggests a figure closer to 250 people in the early decades of the first century.
[6] Dark, Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth, 87.
[7] Ken Dark, The Sisters of Nazareth Convent: A Roman-Period, Byzantine, and Crusader Site in Central Nazareth., The Palestine Exploration Fund Annual XVI, ed. Chiara Fiaccavento (Routledge, 2021).
[8] Asaad Al She’aeri Mansur, The History of Nazareth from its Earliest Times to our Present Days (Arabic) (Al Hilal Press, 1924), 44.
[9] Dark, Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth, 21.
Another week and another awesome set of biblical texts calling us to discern what the Spirit is saying to the church.
As mentioned in the bulletin, for me this is the time of year when I mark the anniversaries of my ordinations: first as a Deacon on 5 February 1978 and then as a Priest on 11 February 1979.
Let me save you the trouble of doing the maths. That is 47 and 46 years respectively.
The Spirit speaks to us—or maybe whispers to us—when we bring our own lived experience into conversation with the great story of faith found in the Bible.
So I engage with the story of Jeremiah in Jerusalem and the story of Jesus in Nazareth through the lens of my own experience as some called into prophetic and priestly ministry, and as someone who is familiar in the streets of both those ancient towns.
The call of Jeremiah is a powerful scene.
Let me paraphrase God’s words as follows:
Since before you were conceived I had a plan for you. Do not try to wriggle out of this calling. Do not claim a lack of experience. Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you to speak. You will sometimes pluck up and destroy, other times you will build and plant, but at all times you will speak my words.
Jeremiah’s vocation took him into a long journey of controversy, imprisonment, hardship and eventually exile. That is way too complex a story for one sermon, but perhaps we can tease it out over several weeks in the Tuesday Bible study group?
Meanwhile, in the Gospel today we have the second part of Luke’s story about Jesus visiting the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. What started so well had turned nasty. By this week’s episode the locals are ready to throw him of the hill on which their village was built. It is a tense scene as Jesus stares down his critics and almost dares them to try. It seems that they blinked. No one laid a hand on Jesus. He passed through their midst and went on his way.
So far as we know, Jesus never went back to Nazareth ever again.
Jesus utters one of those rare sayings found in all four gospels: Truly, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. (Compare: Mark 6:4 & Matthew 13:57; Luke 4:24; and John 4:44 as well as GThomas 31.)
The people who know us best are the toughest audience for our ministry.
That applies to us all, of course. Not just to clergy and messiahs!
Our faithfulness to God’s call may be patchy, but the crowd will never be happy.
You may recall that we saw another echo of that tough truth in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes last week:
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” [Luke 6:22 & 26]
With that grim reality always in mind, it remains true that a life spent in the ministry of the Church is a life of blessing and great privilege.
Sharing your faith journeys and being invited into your lives is a huge privilege. We dream dreams together, we shed tears together. We celebrate holy, moments, new life and fresh insights into the meaning of life.
The tough moments are transformed by our shared participation in the grace of God.
So I am glad that in between the tough readings from Jeremiah and Luke, the lectionary committee offers us the great Hymn to Love in 1 Corinthians 13.
That second reading is not just a respite from the challenges of embracing God’s call on our lives. It is also a reminder that even prophets and messiahs—not to mention regular priests—need to act in ways that are loving.
Prophetic speech and powerful actions and are worthless unless they are both motivated and implemented by love.
Now that is a reality check for anyone called into ministry.
Being (in the) right is not enough. We also need to be loving.
Maybe that is our homework this week: to read and reflect on this call to the one thing that matters: love.
St Paul knew a thing or two about tough times in ministry, but he ends with these words:
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. [1 Cor 13:13]
Friday, July 4. American Independence Day. The first Friday of Ramadan 2014. Heavy security presence in and around Jerusalem. A delayed funeral for the 16 year old, Mohammad Abu Khdair. More rockets and mortar fire from Gaza into the south of Israel. Shattered lives. Crushed dreams. Hatred and fear in the air.
There was a heavy police and military presence in East Jerusalem today, and this affected the transport arrangements as the Palestine of Jesus course followed its modified schedule for the day. Rather than travel to Bethany on the other side of Mt Olives, the group visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum here in Jerusalem.
This is always a powerful site to visit, and I vividly recall my first visit during a Palestine of Jesus course in June 1990. The current context of fear and violence will no doubt have resonated deeply with the course members as they worked their way through the exhibits that showcase the evils of Anti-Semitism as well as the courage of those who resisted.
For me it was a very different day as I prepared to leave my B&B in Kiryat Tivon and relocate to Nazareth for a night. In this part of the country life seems mostly untouched by the tensions in the south, and families were beginning their weekend with visits to the park and slow lunches in the restaurants.
Around midday I met with Ariel Berman, one of the preeminent authorities in Israel on coins from the Islamic period. I like to meet with him each time I am here, and I especially look forward to working closely with him as my own research on Mamluk coins develops during the next 18 months. Today, in addition to a social call, I was carrying two Islamic coins from the dig where his expertise would be helpful as we tried to decipher their significance. One of them was this late Ottoman coin.
It took Ariel just a few seconds to identify the coin and calculate the exact year of issue. This coin turned out to have been issued by Mehmed V (“Resad”), 1909–1918, and the 35th Ottoman Sultan. It was a 5 para coin, issued in his 5th regnal year (1327+5 = 1332 AH = 1913 CE). This was a year before WW1 erupted, 100 years ago this past week, and turned the world upside down for many people—including “Resad”, the conqueror!
The other coin was also Ottoman, but from 1790. Minted in Egypt, it had been used as an ornament long after its issue by Selim III.
I took careful note of the key reference works used by Ariel, and have already ordered the book that provides a ready index to the Muslim and Christian calendars. This saves a lot of time that otherwise needs to be spent to calculate the correlations.
By mid-afternoon I was settled into my hotel in Nazareth. Casa de Maria was my home for two weeks back in 2012, so I was welcomed back like the prodigal son—and given the best room in the house. It will be good to spend some time with the family tomorrow morning, before I head down to Tabgha to meet up with the Palestine of Jesus course that will be arriving tomorrow for three days in the Galilee.
As the sun was setting, I met up with two of my closest Nazareth friends for a lovely evening meal in the new Tishreen restaurant on the ridge between Nazrat Illit and Nazareth. The outdoor deck provided a lovely view of Nazareth as the daylight faded.
Finally, in view of the situation here right now, this anonymous prayer by a Palestinian Christian seems apt as I close this post:
Pray not for Arab or Jew,
for Palestinian or Israeli,
but pray rather for ourselves,
that we may not divide them in our prayers,
but keep them both together
in our hearts. Amen.
Today it was my delight to lead the course during our visit to Sepphoris and Nazareth.
We led the College around 8.00am and arrived in Sepphoris a little after 10.00am. After a brief orientation talk based around the scale model of the site and watching a 10 minute multi-media presentation, we went off to explore the site.
The highlights included the “Nile House” with its mosaics that feature scenes from the Nile, the large wealthy house with the Dionysius mosaic (including the so-called ‘Mona Lisa of the Galilee’), the Ottoman fortress, and the small Roman theatre. We then headed to Nazareth where we enjoyed lunch at the Holy Land Restaurant not far from the Basilica.
After lunch we went to the Basilica of the Annunciation to begin our walking tour of Nazareth.
From the Basilica we walked through the old market (the Souq), spending some time at the Synagogue Church and later the El Babour Galilee Mill, before arriving at the Greek Orthodox Church of St Gabriel that celebrates the Eastern tradition of the Annunciation taking place at Mary’s Well. The church features an ancient well even though the actual source of the water is a spring further up the slope.
We had about 45 minutes at the end of the day to relax and soak up the atmosphere before boarding the bus at 4.30pm for our return trip to Jerusalem. We had a good run with the traffic, arriving at the College just a few minutes before 6.30pm. After dinner, several of us gathered on the roof of the College to talk about this land, the conflict that is tearing at the heart and soul of both the communities, the meaning of life, our insights from the program so far, and much more. These are the moments that make our trips such a special time.
Most of the SGC Palestine of Jesus course attended the 9.30am service at St George’s cathedral, with its mix of Arabic and English. The place was packed as we had several international groups visiting at the one time. It was a great to have Naim Ateek, Founder of the Sabeel Centre, as our preacher.
It was also good to meet up again with Eric Funston from Ohio. After having been online friends for around twenty years, we finally got to met on Friday evening – but this time we took a photo to prove it!
After lunch we went to the Israel Museum, where I had the privilege of leading the group as we visited the large scale model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period, the Shrine of the Book (where we crossed paths with the group from Truman State University who had been on the dig at Bethsaida with us), and the archaeological hall.
Before dinner I presented a lecture on the archaeological evidence for Nazareth in the first century CE. This was in preparation for our visit there tomorrow. It was good to have yet another opportunity to present that material and address questions from the floor.
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