Wednesday, December 23, 2009



Okay....Names...Meanings....I'm totally into this stuff. I love to research the meanings of words and names. So my ears and eyes lit up when I heard about Bethlehem meaning "house of bread." But then it occured to me, "What does Nazareth mean?" So I wento Wikipedia and looked it up:


Origin of name

One theory holds that "Nazareth" is derived from the Hebrew noun ne·tser, נֵ֫צֶר, meaning branch.[10] Ne·tser is not the common Hebrew word for "branch," but one understood as a messianic title based on a passage in the Book of Isaiah.[11] The negative references to Nazareth in the Gospel of John suggest that ancient Jews did not connect the town's name to prophecy.[12] Alternatively, the name may derive from the verb na·tsar, נָצַר, "to watch,"[13][14] possibly a reference to a nearby hill with an outstanding view.
Another theory holds that the Greek form Nazara, used in Matthew and Luke, may derive from an earlier Aramaic form of the name, or from another Semitic language form.[15] If there were a tsade in the original Semitic form, as in the later Hebrew forms, it would normally have been transcribed in Greek with a sigma instead of a zeta.[4] This has led some scholars to question whether "Nazareth" and its cognates in the New Testament actually refer to the settlement we know traditionally as Nazareth in Lower Galilee.[16] Such linguistic discrepancies may be explained, however, "by a peculiarity of the Palestinian Aramaic dialect wherein a sade (ṣ) between two voiced (sonant) consonants tended to be partially assimilated by taking on a zayin (z) sound."[4]
The Arabic name for Nazareth is an-Nāṣira, and Jesus (known as يسوع‎ ‘Yaso in Arabic) is also called an-nāṣirî, reflecting the Arab tradition of according people a nisba, a name denoting from whence a person comes in either geographical or tribal terms. In the Koran, Christians are referred to as nasara, meaning "followers of the Nasiri," or "those who follow Jesus."[17]
 
The most interesting thing that I realized apart from this etymology was that, in Spanish the word nacer means  "to be born." We all know that God watches over us from above. Jesus is from the branch and lineage of King David. Jesus is a historical factual figure, born in Bethlehem, grown to change the world. And there are definitely followers of Jesus.

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