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*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts of Nazareth and Biblical accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "Nathanael said to him, 'Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?' Philip said to him, 'Come and see.""-John 1:46 "[And He] came and lived in a city called Nazareth This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'"-Matthew 2:23 "'What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are--the Holy One of God!'"-Mark 1:24 The town of Nazareth, located in Galilee in northern Israel, is a bustling settlement of over 60,000 people today. But more than 2,000 years ago it was an insignificant village of only a few hundred people-mostly farmers and some laborers who would travel to the nearby Roman settlements for employment. Yet it was in this unlikely location that the Holy Family lived. Even more important is that this was where the Annunciation took place, the moment when the angel Gabriel revealed to Mary that she would be the virgin mother of Jesus. Many also maintain that Nazareth was where Jesus spent many of his childhood years learning the trade of his father, growing up attending services at the local synagogue, and developing the foundations of his faith. Joseph, Mary and Jesus would have had a traditionally Jewish lifestyle at that time, but after the life of Christ, Nazareth increasingly became a center of pilgrimage in the Holy Land. Over the years it has been the location of some of the most impressive displays of faith against oppression and danger, representing the turbulence of the early years of Christianity in the region, and of the military campaigns in the Holy Land during the Crusades and the Ottoman period. Through it all, Nazareth has continued to be an extremely important site for the Christian faith, as there are five sites in present-day Nazareth that relate to the life and ti