The Galilee

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

 Etymology of Galilee

Galilee: Meaning Region, Rolling

• Etymology From the verb ( ‫גלל‬galal), to roll or encircle.
• Related names Via (galal): Abigail, Beth-gilgal, Galal, Galeed, Gallim, Geliloth,
Gilalai, Gilead, Gilgal, Giloh, Golgotha
For a meaning of the name Galilee, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Circle,
Circuit, Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names has Rolling,
Revolving, and BDB Theological Dictionary proposes Circuit, District.
The name Galilee probably started out as a derogative: "that" region;
the boondocks; out in "the country", and its name means just that: Region
According to Etymology Online Dicitonary: Galilaea, Greek Galilaia, with
place-name element + Hebrew Haggalil, literally "The District," a compressed
form of Gelil haggoyim "the District of Nations" (see Isaiah viii.23)

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• From the desert Jesus 'returned to Galilee'. At this
point, if not earlier, the center of his operations shifted
from Nazareth, his childhood home, to Capernaum
(which means the 'house of Nahum'), a small harbor town
on the northern shore of Lake Galilee. ‘Leaving
Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum' (Mathew 4:13),
which Jesus' 'Galilean ministry' which lasted for three
years.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Galilee (or the Galilee) probably acquired its name
from the Hebrew word galil meaning ‘circle'.
Geographical it was divided into two quite different
areas, which Josephus descried as 'Upper Galilee and
Lower Galilee.
• Upper Galilee was the high mountainous region to the
north and west, which forms a natural boundary with
the modern state of Lebanon.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

 • Upper Galilee rose in parts to over 3000 feet (1000
meters) above sea level, Lower Galilee (Around the
lake) was 600 feet (180 meters) below and included some
fertile areas that produced loaves and grain.
• Most of Jesus public ministry however, would have
taken place in Lower Galilee.
Upper Galilee

Lower Galilee

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

 Galilee of the Gentiles: The Jewish
frontier territory
• The Old Testament refers to this area on remarkable few
occasions. It sudden comes to the fore in the 8th
century BC, when Isiah prophesies that God will honor
Galilee of the Gentiles' with people there seeing 'a
great light' (Isaiah 9:1-2).
• Mathew expressly sees Jesus ministry here as the
fulfilment of this prophecy (Mathew 4:13-16).

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• However, Isiah's observation that Galilee was 'of the
Gentiles' is an important reminder that, ever since the
Assyrian invasions of that period (when many of the
Israelite population deported) Galilee's population would.
have always contained a mixture of Jews and non-
Jews

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Unlike Samaria to the south, quite a number of the
Jewish population returned to the Galilee region from
their periods of exile, and by Jesus' day Jews may have
been in the majority.
• Yet it was still very much frontier territory'. Compared
to Jerusalem in the south, Galilee was a palace in which
Jews were constantly interacting with Gentiles.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• In such an environment the Jewish population would
constantly be considering how they could keep
themselves distinct from their Gentile neighbors.
'Boundary markers' such as circumcision, observing
the Sabbath, rules associated with food and hygiene
and frequent pilgrimages to Jerusalem- would all have
had important resonances and significance within
such a society.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Anyone who challenged these boundaries, for
whatever reason, could be seen as undermining the
whole strategy of how Jews were to conduct
themselves in such as area.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Not surprisingly, then, the Pharisees were a powerful
lobby in the region They had a vision of helping 'the
people f the Land' to live according to the Jewish
Torah this rushing the day when God would rescues his
people from pagan domination.
• The Pharisees would let people know when they were
unhelpfully 'collapsing the boundaries and infringing
their understanding of these practical laws and rules

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Certain areas were predominantly, if not exclusively,
Gentile: the so called 'Decapolis' (Greek for 'ten towns')
to the east and south of the lake; possibly also the new
city of Tiberias (build by Herod Antipas in honor of the
Pagan Roman emperor, and provocatively located on the
site of an ancient Jewish cemetery).

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Elsewhere, however, it was a mixed, polyglot
community where Jews and Gentiles lived alongside
one another in an uneasy relationship.
• The local language was Aramaic, but Greek was
common too as the lingua franca of the eastern half of
the empire- the languages and between different people
groups , for example, in commerce and business
transactions. At least two of Jesus disciples (Andrew
and Philip) had Greek names with no Aramaic
equivalent and were later found to be Greek speakers.
• Philip: From the Greek name Φίλιππος (Philippos) meaning
"friend of horses", composed of the elements φίλος (philos)
meaning "friend, lover" and ἵππος (hippos) meaning "horse".

• Andrew: English form of the Greek name Ἀνδρέας

(Andreas), which was derived from ἀνδρεῖος (andreios)
meaning "manly, masculine", a derivative of ἀνήρ (aner)
meaning "man"
This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck
 Capernaum and international trade

All in all, then, Galilee had quite an international feel to i

in the first century. Unlike Jerusalem, it lay on a main
trading route- the 'way of the sea' mentioned in Isaiah.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• This 'Via Maris' connected the markets of
Mesopotamia and Damascus with the Mediterranean
and Egypt and it passed through the Plain of
Gennesaret, along the northern shore of the lake, right
through Capernaum.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Capernaum was also the last town before the new
border (established after the death of Herod the Great in
4 BC) between Galilee 'proper' and Gaulanitis to the
east.
Gaulanitis: a name derived from
"Golan“ (circle or enclosure) (q.v.),
one of the cities of refuge in the
territory of Manasseh ( Joshua
20:8 ; 21:27 ; Deuteronomy 4:43 ).
This was one of the provinces
ruled by Herod Antipas. It lay to
the east of the Lake of Galilee, and
included among its towns
Bethsaida-Julias ( Mark 8:22 ) and
Seleucia.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• The border was at the crossing of the River Jordan.
This meant that Bethsaida- the birthplace of some of
Jesus disciples, (Philip, Andrew and Peter, was
technically no longer in 'Galilee. It also meant that
Capernaum, as the border town, would be a place of
increased revenue and a heaven for tax collectors.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• It probably had both a customs office and a small
garrison- hence Luke's reference to a Roman
'centurion' who had helped the poor citizens to build
their synagogue (Luke 7: 2-5).
• It is conceivable that the reason why these disciples had
moved house to Capernaum was precisely because they
could avoid paying repeated taxes as they transported
their fresh fish to the places (like Magdala on the
western side of the lake) where their fish could
preserved.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• As a result Jesus decision to base his ministry in
Capernaum can be seen as quite strategic. Nazareth
was indeed a by water, but not so Capernaum. Though
small and still fairly poor, it was located in a unique
position- just tight for a preacher who wished his
message to be heard by as many people as possible.
From 'Galilee of the nations' there would come in due
course a ;light for the worlds'

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

 Jesus message and themes

• According to the Gospels, Jesus Galilean ministry was

marked by to ingredients which many initially sound
contradictory.

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• On the one had there was the sheer authority with
which he taught: He taught them as one who had
authority, not as the teachers of the law (Mark 1:27).
Jesus spoke directly and clearly about God as one who
knew precisely what he was talking about. And this
authority was endorsed by his actions: his awesome
power over the great enemies of human experience-
disease, disasters, demons and even death itself.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• On the other hand, the Gospels emphasize the essential
simplicity of Jesus teaching style and his accessibility
to ordinary people. Jesus teaching does not deal in
abstracts but rather is filled with compelling, everyday
examples. From his surroundings in Galilee, Jesus was
able to find ample material to draw on.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Yet this very 'earthiness' of Jesus teaching has
sometimes caused people to conclude that his
message was gentle. They miss the radical purpose for
which Jesus was using such imagery. They conjure up a
picture of Jesus as wandering philosophers, speaking
harmless truths in homely imagery, pointing to a divine
reality that made few demands.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• The truth is quite the reverse. He was proclaiming a
radical new message- the kingdom of God. In other
words, Israel's God was at last becoming king! Many of
Jesus hearers, of course, were longing for just this; they
were ready to take up arms to bring in God's kingdom,
if only it would bring about the end of domination by
the pagan Romans.
• Only thirty years earlier the Galileans had launched a
rebellion against Roman (left by Judas the Galilean) but
they had failed seemly. Thirty year after Jesus they
would try again, and this time, as Josephus makes clear,
the slaughter would be terrible.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Into this volatile, electrically charged situation came
Jesus. He had the right message about God's kingdom.
No wonder crowds initially followed him, and many, we
learn wanted to make him their king. Yet somehow it
was all 'upside down and the wrong was round.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• First, he implied, there was no point in fighting the
Romans, for the 'peacemakers were the ones that God
would bless. Instead Gentiles were going to be
included in this new kingdom of God. And some of the
old ways of being Israel- of keeping themselves apart
form Gentiles (like keeping the Sabbath an the food law)
were going to become obsolete.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• Secondly, the king of the kingdom was right there 'in
their midst' he claimed he was the very one who had
been teaching them 'in their street' (Luke 13:26) Jesus
himself was the King, the long awaited Messiah. But if
he spoke openly about this, the crowds would almost
certainly have misunderstood him.

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• So Jesus spoke in parables and riddles, pointing
clearly to the truth and only letting people into the
secret gradually.
• Yet, there was no doubting his intention. Jesus was
calling his hearers to a radical obedience- to him ! He
was the one in whom they should put their trust. They
were being called on a journey and he was the one they
must follow. "Follow me!"

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

 The gathering storm:

• So, although Luke initially tell us of Jesus popularity as

people flocked to hear him 'from every village of
Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem' (Luke 5:17-
Jesus Galilean ministry was not all joy and light. People
fell away and lost interest.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• When the challenge of Jesus message began to be
understood, it alienated as many people as it attracted.
And there was a continual note of opposition and
controversy throughout, not least from the religious
leaders who could detect the radical direction of Jesus
teaching.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• So the dark shadows of what would transpire in
Jerusalem can be detected in Galilee too. 'The time will
come' Jesus expressly teaches near the very outset of
his ministry, 'when the bridegroom will be taken from
them' (Luke 5:35).
• Indeed, pursuing Jesus own martial imagery, we
conclude that Jesus Galilean ministry was no perpetual
honeymoon.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck

• His message regarding the kingdom of God was radical
and demanding from the outset. And, although some of
the particular flash points of controversy were
different here in this frontier-state compared with
those found later in the capital city, we can sense the
underlying continuity of his message. Jesus was
announcing the dawn of a new age, focused on himself.
Galilee was not a place of idyllic calm, but a place of
gathering storm.

This Lecture is prepared by Haytham Dieck