‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ (John 1.46)
Nathaniel asked this question 2,000 years ago and many scholars have been asking it since.
Indeed, until recent times, the lack of any archaeological evidence for a first century settlement had been used by atheist sceptics to insinuate that Jesus was a figure of myth. James Randi, an American sceptic and illu-sionist, famous for debunking Uri Geller, has greatly embarrassed himself in his dismissal of the historic existence of Nazareth. Claiming that there is absolutely no evidence for a Jesus-period town of Nazareth he concluded a talk on the subject: ‘St Luke, and thus the inerrant Bible, was plainly, demonstrably, dead wrong.’ Many others have followed his lead and scorn the idea that the gospels are describing real people and places.
