Nazareth

Nazareth was a town in lower Galilee where Jesus was raised, the home of Mary and Joseph (Luke 1:26; 2:39, 51). It lay in a sheltered hollow among the hills of Galilee, about 15 miles from the Sea of Galilee and 6 miles west of Mount Tabor. Its Jewish population was of sufficient size to support a synagogue where Jesus read from Isaiah 61 and applied it to himself (Luke 4:16–21). The town's obscurity is captured in Nathanael's question: "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46). When Jesus returned and preached there, his own townspeople rejected him and attempted to cast him off a cliff (Luke 4:28–30). The identification of "Jesus of Nazareth" served as both a geographical designation and, in Roman-era Jerusalem, a mark of provincial origin.