Jesus: Nazarene or Nazarite?

After reading the gospels some people walk away thinking that Jesus was a Nazarite.

“And came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: “He shall be called a Nazarene.” (Mat 2:23 NASB)

The writings of the Apostles, the New Testament are Jewish literary works. Though the authors wrote in Greek there is always some Hebrew lurking behind their words. The writers of the New Testament wrote in Koine Judeo-Greek (common or colloquial Greek) and sometimes, linguistically-speaking, things got messy. Most of the time the Hebrew that stands behind the Greek is hard to see after the text was translated into English.  Here is the source of confusion… Nazarene is not the same as Nazarite and Hebrew shows this clearly!