John 1:46 - “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
Today there are about 70 or 80 thousand people, all of them Arabian, living in Nazareth. When Jesus lived there you would have had to look hard to find 1,000.
Nazareth Village is a small area owned by a YMCA upon which has been constructed a re-creation of the community as it may have looked during Jesus’ time there. You will even have an opportunity to “pass through the eye of a needle.”
· Joseph, Mary, and Jesus moved to Nazareth, their home town, after returning from Egypt, Luke 2:39, Matthew 2:21-23.
· It was a simple village with fishing, vineyards, and olive groves.
· An interesting thought is that the word carpenter is an English translation for the Greek word tekton meaning an artificer, a fashioner, or builder; it means to fabricate something. Used in scripture of wood, brass, iron, and stone.
· Many of Jesus’s teaching used stone or rock. Rarely, if ever, did he refer to wood or metal. Example: the wise man built his house upon the rock; upon this rock I will build my church; raise up stones to become children of Abraham; stones to become bread; the stones will cry out; father will not give his son a stone for food; the stone the builders rejected. At the very least it needs to be understood that the Greek word tekton doesn’t automatically mean carpenter.
· Grapes were crushed bare foot so as not to crush the seeds which would have made the wine bitter.
· Olive’s seeds or pits were crushed intentionally because the seeds contained up to 30% oil. The oil is what they were harvesting.
· Three pressings of the olives:
(1) First pressing was dedicated to the Temple, was taken to Jerusalem
(2) Second pressing for consumption, cooking, food, and medicines
(3) Third pressing, the weakest oil, was used in lamps, illumination
· Nazareth today is home to a small Church of Christ congregation made up of Arabian Christians.
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