Some historians have called the city's traditional association with the life of Jesus into question, suggesting instead that what was originally a title was corrupted (Nazarene) into the name of his hometown (alternately, Nazara or Nazaret or Nazareth). Alfred Loisy, for example, in The Birth of Christianity argues that Iesous Nazarene meant not "from Nazareth", but rather that his title was "Nazarene."
Frank Zindler, managing editor of the American Atheist Press, has asserted that Nazareth did not exist in the first century. His arguments include the following:
Nazareth is not mentioned in any historical records or biblical texts of the time and receives no mention by any contemporary historian.
Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament, the Talmud, nor in the Apocrypha and it does not appear in any early rabbinic literature.
Nazareth was not included in the list of settlements of the tribes of Zebulon (Joshua 19:10-16) which mentions twelve towns and six villages.
Nazareth is not included among the 45 cities of Galilee that were mentioned by Josephus* (37AD-100AD).
Nazareth is also missing from the 63 towns of Galilee mentioned in the Talmud.
* This is the same Josephus whose historical chronicles Christians attempted to use to "prove" the existence of Jesus by injecting Jesus centuries after the fact.