"Yeshua Ha-Notsri"

by asdjk482

In the novel The Master and the Margarita, the author describes a meeting between Pontius Pilate and Jesus, referred to as "Yeshua Ha-Notsri" or "Ha-Nozri".

"Yeshua" is obvious, but is there historical justification for the surname, and does it mean anything?

TectonicWafer

"Ha-Nozri" is a means "of Nazareth" or "the Nazarite". The old Aramaic name of the town now called Nazareth in English was "Nazir", so it gets conjugated to "Nozri" when used as a possessive. So it's just how the name "Jesus of Nazereth" would have been spoken in the Aramaic that was the common language of Judea in the 1st century AD.