Nazareth was settled from the Middle Bronze Age onwards and silos, cisterns and oil presses show that it has been an agricultu

History

Nazareth was settled from the Middle Bronze Age onwards and silos, cisterns and oil presses show that it has been an agricultural village for several millennia.

Jesus was raised in Nazareth and the Christian religion had its beginnings here. The modern Hebrew word for Christians, ``Notzrim,'' derives from the name of the town. There are numerous references in the New Testament to Nazareth, particularly to Jesus being chased out of the town after claiming to be the Messiah (Luke 4:21).

The Romans devastated Nazareth during the Jewish Revolt. After the collapse of Bar Kochba's rebellion, the city became a Jewish town made up of many refugees from Judaea.

The Byzantines expelled the Jews who had earlier sided with the invading Persians. Nazareth's Christian shrines were definitively located and the first churches were built during Constantine's reign.

The Moslems destroyed the city but the churches were rebuilt by the Crusaders. Nazareth was completely devastated by Sultan Beibars in 1263 and lay desolate for some 400 years. Thereafter the Franciscans returned under the tolerant rule of the Druze ruler, Fakhr al-Din.

Napoleon's troops held it briefly in 1799, when it was reclaimed by the Turks.

Before the outbreak of World War I the Germans established their military headquarters for Palestine in Nazareth. It surrendered to the British in 1918.

The town fell to Israeli troops two months after Independence and was the town with the largest concentration of Arabs in the pre-1967 borders.

Upper Nazareth received its first settlers in 1957, a factor that brought car assembly plants and textile, food and furniture factories to its environs.