ABSTRACT
In his day, Jesus was known as “Jesus of Nazareth.” To name people after their home area was a common practice at the time. From the Greek historian Homer we know the practice of asking people one encountered for the first time: “Where do you come from?” In small and isolated communities where strangers were looked upon with suspicion this was a way to locate people, to identify them and to associate them with something recognizable. Moreover, it was a common assumption that there was a relationship between place and people, so that from knowing the place and landscape one could know something about the character of the person.
