Because Nazareth is absent from the Old Testament, Josephus and the early rabbis, a fringe claim holds that it did not exist in Jesus' day. The spade says otherwise: excavations have found a modest first-century Jewish farming village — house walls, storage caves, cisterns, wine and olive presses — right where tradition places it. A later Hebrew inscription from Caesarea, listing where priestly families resettled after AD 70, even spells out the name “Nazareth.”
- What it is
- Remains of a small first-century farming village — houses, cisterns, terraces and presses — plus a later inscription that names the town
- Date of artifact
- 1st century AD (village); the priestly-course inscription is 3rd–4th century AD
- Discovered
- Nazareth, Lower Galilee (village remains under and around the Church of the Annunciation); the inscription at Caesarea (excavations by Bagatti, Strange and others)
- Where it is now
- Nazareth, Israel; inscription from Caesarea
- Related to
- The hometown of Jesus
- Scripture
- Matthew 2:23 · Luke 4:16 · John 1:46
What this find showsThat Nazareth was a real, inhabited Jewish village in the first century — and that its name is attested in Jewish records independent of the Gospels.
What it does not proveNo house can be identified as Mary and Joseph's; the finds establish the town, not any specific Gospel event.
Contested: Mainstream archaeology (and Craig Evans) firmly reject the “Nazareth never existed” claim; the older popular image of an isolated backwater is also outdated, given Nazareth's closeness to the city of Sepphoris.
Sources & further reading