Was Jesus a member of the first century religious group called Nazarenes?
Rick Brentlinger Answers – No, Jesus was not a member of the Nazorean or Nazarene sect. We could refer to Jesus as a Nazarene because at one time he lived in the tiny country village of Nazareth but that doesn’t make him a Nazarene in the sense of being a member of the religious sect which was an offshoot of the Essenes cult. Jesus is called a Nazarene in Matthew 2:23 because he lived in the little farm village of Nazareth which had about 35 homes. It was such a small and insignificant village that it is hardly mentioned in early secular history. In Acts 24:5, unbelieving Jews falsely accused the apostle Paul of being “a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” However, nothing in the New Testament indicates that followers of Jesus ever called themselves Nazarenes or embraced the unbiblical teachings of the sect of the Nazarenes. There are at least four sound reasons to reject the idea that Jesus and his disciples were Nazarenes or Nazoreans in the sectarian sense of those words. • Th
