This article is filled with so many false hoods, intended to refute the existence of Jesus and decieve the gullible ones. but I will just address one.

fabrepass: The Church fathers claim that Jesus was born in Nazareth, a place that did not exist anywhere in the world until 300 years after the alleged birth of Jesus. There is no official or church record of his place and date of birth, date and place of death, or even what he looked like physically for over three hundred years. There is no evidence or record of anything directly written down by him until the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE.

What nonsense!! What bald faced lie!

The Religious A priori


Historical Jesus


Nazareth in the Time of Christ



For Some reason Many skeptics have taken to the notion, one laid to rest long ago, that Nazareth never existed as an inhabited city in the time of Jesus. They point to a website which claims that the author has excavated the stie of ancient Nazareth and found it to be a mere single family farm.
Basically this is an argument from silence, there are four major points

Josephus never mentions Nazareth, and apparently it isn't mentioned in any other records of the day. Josephus even documents a military campaign that the Romans into the very vicinity of Nazareth and yet no mention of it.
Apparently some claim that the only evidence of human habitation from Christ's time would have been caves in the area, but Jews would never live in caves because they used caves to bury people, and as there are graves near by they would never live in graves or near dead bodies
The geography is wrong. Apparently there is no cliff near the Synagogue which Jesus might be thrown off of as is seen in Luke.
It is always pointed out that a popular website of an excavation of Nazareth calls it a "single family farm."

I. The Argument from Silence

A Argument from silence is never proof of anything.

An argument form silence is no proof at all. Yet this is the basis of the first Skeptical argument. Josephus doesn't mention Nazareth. But that's because he was not writting a travel logue. He had no reason to mention it, it was a very small and unimportant village; almost a bump in the road, that does not prove that it didn't exist.

Nazareth was a tiny bump on the road. It was only four miles form a major city (Sarapis) but it was so small only about 35 families lived there and shared a single family farm, a dray farm, subsisting on only rain water. It was a tiny insignificant place so there is no reason why it should be mentioned.
B Josephus doesn't' mention it, but it is mentioned in Antiquity.
Two mentions in antiquity

"Despite the Hellenization of the general region and the probability that Greek was known to many people it seems likely that Nazareth remained a conservative Jewish village. After the Jewish war with the Romans from AD 66-70 it was necessary to re-settle Jewish priests and their families. Such groups would only settle in unmixed towns, that is towns without Gentile inhabitants. According to an inscription discovered in 1962 in Caesarea Maritima the priests of the order of Elkalir made their home in Nazareth. This, by the way, is the sole known reference to Nazareth in antiquity, apart from written Christian sources... (next paragraph) Some scholars had even believed that Nazareth was a fictitious invention of the early Christians; the inscription from Caesarea Maritima proves otherwise." Paul Barnett[BSNT], Behind the Scenes of the New Testament, IVP:1990, p.42:

C Patristic Evidence

Franciscan cyberspot

http://christusrex.org/www1/ofm/san/TSnzarc2.html

Even the judeo-christian historian Hegesippus (late second century) gives witness to these next-of-kin of the Lord when speaking about a persecution of the Christians by Emperor Domiziano (81-96 AD) and whose writings are quoted by Eusebius (IV cent. AD) in his History of the Church (III,19.20,1-6). Jiulius the African (250 AD) mentions how the descendents of Jesus were jealous in keeping alive the memory of their forefathers (a passage quoted by Eusebius in his History of the Church I,7,13-14). During the persecution in Asia Minor of Emperor Decius (249-251) a christian maryr, Conon, is brought to trial and he proclaims in judgement: "I am from Nazareth of Galilee, I am descendent of Christ to whom I give worship since my forefathers". The Apochryphal writings too expand this vision about the next-of-kin of the Lord. They gather the oral traditions of the first Church about Jesus' family, especially his childhood years, Mary's and Joseph's daily life with Jesus amongst them.

It is because of Nazareth that "Christ is called the Nazarean and from which, we who today are called Christians, were called Nazareens" (Eusebius of Caesaria, early IV cent. AD).

Joesephus it seems reocords a military campaing that went through that area and never mentioned this little bump on the road that wasn't important to the opporation. That is hardly proof of anything.

II. Cave dwellings in the area disprove Bible story because Jews would not live in Caves.

Apparently caves were too much like graves, and since they burried in caves they would be living among the dead.

A The Caves around Nazareth were not used for dwellings.

Letter from Mayer of Nazareth

http://www.answering-islam.org/Bible/nazareth.html

"Down the road in the center of town the huge Basilica to the Annunciation built by the Roman Catholics preserves as its altar the first Century cave home of the Virgin Mary and its foundations are built over numerous cave dwellings. They have a little archeological museum with artifacts found during this period. Up the hill is the Church of Joseph built over caves which they claim were used as carpenter shops. Across the street the Sister's of Nazareth Hospice is built over an ancient first century or earlier grave with the huge rolling stone door still in place. A block away (modern term!) the Greek Catholic Church in the market is built next to the ancient synagogue that Jesus read the Torah in and the people took him out to throw him off the hill the city was built on"
B Caves from Basements to homes which were destroyed by invaders

University of the Holy land

New Archaeological Dig shed's Light on Jesus' Boyhood

AP, Dec. 97

by Karin Laub

http://www.csec.ac.uk/nazareth.html

By comparison, Nazareth was tiny, with two or three clans living in 35 homes spread over 2.5 hectares, Pfann said. The homes later were razed by invaders: What remains are several basement caves, cisterns and silos excavated in the late 1950s during reconstruction of the Church of the Annunciation.

While walking along the terraced slopes of the Nazareth Hospital grounds earlier this year, Pfann stumbled across an ancient man-made basin used for making wine&emdash;a bed-sized level area cut into the limestone for squashing grapes&emdash;and a vat below for collecting the runoff juice.


[that's why the archeaologists found only caves, not that people lived in them, they were basements and workshops and storage areas.]



III. Geography is Wrong.
This is merely because they couldn't find a cliff high enough to through Jesus off of as in Matt 15. The closes one to the ruins of the synagogue was 2.5 miles away. I dont' have a good asnwer for this, except that they still could have carried him 2.5 miles. It's not that far.


IV. It's only a single family farm


This is based upon a website, probably the one I quote from. Too bad they didnt' read the whole thing, because even though they say it's a single family farm they also say:

"Nazareth was tiny, with two or three clans living in 35 homes spread over 2.5 hectares..."

--Dr. Pfann
Very small, but not non-existent, not uninhabited, and not merely one family.

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Excavations Prove Nazareth Existed

(in the time Christ)

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occupied since 7th century BC

"Despite Nazareth's obscurity (which had led some critics to suggest that it was a relatively recent foundation), archeology indicates that the village has been occupied since the 7th century B.C., although it may have experienced a 'refounding' in the 2d century b.c. " ([MJ]A Marginal Jew--Rethinking the Historical Jesus, (vol 1), p.300-301)...cites Meyers and Strange, Archeology, the Rabbis, and Early Christianity, Abingdon:1981. pp.56-57

Galyaah Cornfeld, Archaeology of The Bible Book by Book .(NY: Harper and Row 1976) p. 284 "What concretely about first century Nazereth? In the first two centuries AD it was a modest village built on Rocky soil in a valley far from the main trade routes [this was before Sarapis was discovered]...Two excavations, one led by Fther P. Viaud the other by Bagatti led to the discovery of the traditional site of the annunciation to Mary and the place which Jesus frequented as a growing lad...excavations of inscriptions there bear witness to a Jewish Christian cult of Mary from the very earliest times..." Some of those inscriptions also go back to the middle of the first century and identfy the place as the that of Jesus' boyhood home!

Excavations of Naz
Nazaraeth The Village of Jessu, Mary and Joseph
http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/Nazareth1.html