The Identity of the Qur’anic Nazarenes: A Broken Off Branch
The term Naṣārā, which appears throughout the Qur’an to refer to followers of Jesus, is clearly distinguished from normative Christianity in our aforementioned Sassanid era inscription of Kirtir. The term is a variant pronunciation of the Aramaic ܢܳܨܪܳܝܶܐ, naṣraye(singular: ܢܳܨܪܳܝܳܐ, naṣraya), which as we will recalled was the lingua franca of the educated in the Middle East leading up to, and during the life of Muḥammad. Sidney Harrison Griffith writes in The Church In the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims In The World, that though “there is some controversy about its etymology and exact significance,” yet there is no question that “the modern scholarly consensus is that it is simply the Arabic form of the name ‘Nazoreans’ or ‘Nazarenes’.” With this consensus in mind, the only question then remains, “what is the significance of this term” and who was this group which was distinguished from Christianity.
François de Blois writes in his Naṣrānī (Ναζωραȋος) and ḥanīf (ἐθνικός): Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam, that “Like Eusebius before him, Epiphanius claims that once all Christians were known as Nazoraeans (Panarion 29.1.3) and that when Paul’s opponents called him the leader of the sect of the Nazoraeans he did not disown the name because ‘at that time everyone called Christians by that name” (Panarion 29.6.5). Epiphanius says further, however, that the name was later appropriated by a group of “heretics”, who he claims believed some things in common with the Christians – that Jesus is the Christ and the son of God – but differ from them greatly in that they “follow the Law of the Jews.”[1]
Epiphanius is, de Blois writes, “the earliest datable author to use the name Nazoraean to designate a specific Christian sect,” yet, de Blois agrees with the position of this study that these differentiated terms of “Nazarenes” and “Christians” are referenced “as two apparently separate communities a hundred years before Epiphanius in three Middle-Persian inscriptions set up, around the end of the third century, by the Zoroastrian high priest Kirdir”[2] and that this distinction[3] was made to specify the Nazarenes known by Epiphanius, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo.[4]
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To purchase the remaining sections on the Nazarene sect, and to learn all about the relationship with and history of the Mandaean sect Pay Pal $19.99 to Mikhah@gmail.com. Remaining sections include the following:
The People of the Gospel
The Jewish Orientation of the Nazarenes
The Nazarenes, the Virgin Birth and the Qur’ān
The Mandaeans as Late Outgrowth of Nazarenes Exiles
Dissimilarity with the <strong><strong><strong>Qur’ān</strong></strong></strong>ic Audience
New-Found Sources, and What They Tell Us
Qur<strong><strong><strong><strong>’ā</strong></strong></strong></strong>nic Designations Regarding the Nazarenes, Identifying Them As Quasi-Jewish and Hebraic
Notes (only those notes for what was posted here, of course)
[1] François de Blois writes in his Naṣrānī (Ναζωραȋος) and ḥanīf (ἐθνικός): Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam, 2
[2] Francois De Blois, “Naṣrānī (Ναζωραȋος) and ḥanīf (ἐθνικός): Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and AfricanStudies 65 (2002): 1-30.
[3] See most recently Gignoux, 1991: 60 (synoptic edition) and 70 (translation and notes). The list is complete in the inscription on the Ka’ba i Zarduit (KKZ, lines 9-10) and partially extant in those at Naqi i Rustam (KNRm, line 29) and Sar Maihad (KSM, line 14); for the latter two see also the edition by MacKenzie, 1989. Turner, CDIAL no. 12685.
[4] Petri Luomanen “Nazarenes” in A companion to second-century Christian “heretics” 279