I ask:

Could Ephraim the Syrians report that "Jesus was the nokry" mean that the identity of "Jesus" was unknown or that the world didn't know who he was?

Boid answers:

Definitely YES to both questions, from both traditional theology and the words of the first chapter of John. Note that in verse 11 of this chapter, there is wilful mistranslation in many modern translations. It does not say “his own people” or “those that were his own” and it does not refer to Jews collectively. The Greek just says ‘his own” in both clauses, and the word is NEUTER SINGULAR. The paraphrastic translation of the NRSV [not the RSV] “He came to his own home” is in harmony with natural Greek usage, but has the fault of over-translation [translating a bit more than the words must mean, even though they could mean that if the context demanded it or if you knew from elsewhere that this is what the author would have had in mind]. The disadvantage of this over-translation is that it limits the meaning. The reference is to what is called elsewhere “the world”.