Rejection of Jesus

This article is about a minor episode in the Synoptic Gospels. For people who have renounced Christianity, see Apostasy

The rejection of Jesus is a minor event in the Synoptic Gospels, where Jesus is strongly rejected by the people of Nazareth, his home town. The incident is also mentioned in John 4:44, see also John 6:52–66. According to the Synoptics, shortly after Jesus has given his first set of teachings (and before John the Baptist is killed), Jesus returns to Nazareth.

On the sabbath, he is described as entering a synagogue and teaching. Luke states that Jesus claimed he was the fulfilment of a prophecy at Isaiah 61:1–2, though the other synoptics make no such statement. All the synoptics describe the crowd as negatively questioning the origin of his teachings (some claimed it was from Beelzebub), and criticising him for being a lowly carpenter's son. The crowd are also described as referring to Jesus as being the brother of James, Simon, Joseph, and Judas, in a manner suggesting that the crowd regards them as just ordinary people, and criticising Jesus' quite different behaviour.

Jesus though is described as rebuking them (in variations of the same wording between each gospel)

a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house - Matthew 13:57

Matthew and Mark then state that Jesus didn't do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. Though this can be interpreted as Jesus being disheartened, or punishing them, it can also be interpreted as implying that the miracles of Jesus were only possible when the crowd believed, in a similar manner to the way supernatural effects are never seen to be repeatable under scientific conditions. This also opens the possibility that the miracles were illusions, or allegory, which by definition could only work if the crowd believed.

Luke, however, deviates from the other synoptics, and instead states that Jesus recounted a story about how during the time of Elijah only a Sidonian woman was saved, and how during the time of Elisha a Syrian was healed. This, according to Luke, causes the people to attack Jesus, and chase him to the top of a hill in order to try to throw Jesus off, though Jesus slips away. The historicity of Luke's version is easily questionable, since there is no hill in Nazareth, indicating the author of Luke was unfamiliar with Nazareth, and had never been there.

This incident is also recorded in the Gospel of Thomas[1], saying 31: "Jesus said, "No prophet is welcome on his home turf; doctors don't cure those who know them." (SV)