Climate, Droughts, Wars, and Famines in Galilee As A Backgrounfld For Understanding Historical Jesus

JBL 131, no.
2 (2012): 307–324
Climate, Droughts, Wars, and Famines

in Galilee as a Background for
Understanding the Historical Jesus
morten h. jensen
mh@teologi.dk
Menighedsfakultetet, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark
I. Galilee: Eden or Sodom?
For the land [in Galilee] is everywhere so rich in soil and pasturage and produces
such variety of trees, that even the most indolent are tempted by these facilities
to devote themselves to agriculture. In fact, every inch of the soil has been culti-
vated by the inhabitants; there is not a parcel of waste land. The towns, too, are
thickly distributed, and even the villages, thanks to fertility of the soil, are all so
densely populated that the smallest of them contains above fifteen thousand
inhabitants. (Josephus, War 3.42–43, trans. Thackeray, LCL)
Undoubtedly, Josephus’s paradisiacal description of Galilee is nothing short of
an exaggeration. The question is, however, by how much? Scholars disagree on how
to depict the climatic conditions of Galilee. Some, such as Seán Freyne, find Galilee
to be blessed in terms of climate and soil fertility: “the soil and climate of Galilee
make it by far the most fertile and productive region of the country, and its loca-
tion as a hinterland to two thriving ports meant that its produce could be easily
transported to lucrative markets. Galilee produced all the important agricultural
items that were in demand in the ancient world.”1 Martin Goodman likewise con-
I wish to thank Agnes Choi and Bradley Root for helpful comments and corrections. The
article is dedicated to my doctoral supervisor, Prof. Per Bilde, for his continuous help and encour-
agement.
1 Freyne, Galilee, from Alexander the Great to Hadrian 323 B.C.E. to 135 C.E.: A Study of Sec-
ond Temple Judaism (University of Notre Dame Center for the Study of Judaism and Christianity
in Antiquity 5; Wilmington, DE: Glazier; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980),
16.
307
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308 Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 2 (2012)
cludes that “the natural geography of Galilee thus renders it capable of supporting
a large population on its fertile soil.” Similarly, Michael Avi-Yonah presents Galilee
in glowing terms for its “varied soil and climate,” lending it the capacity to produce
many kinds of fruits, vegetables, and cereals. Yehuda Karmon’s investigation of the
geography of Israel and its consequences for modern agriculture also concludes
that “it may thus be summarized that climate is the main natural advantage for
Israel’s agriculture.”2
Others argue for less favorable conditions in the region, including frequent
periods of droughts and famine. Shimon Applebaum, for example, states that the
economic problems of the peasants were “further curtailed by climatic instability
and taxation, leading to chronic indebtedness, and the growth of a landless ten-
antry and labouring class.”3
Galiliee and Famine in the First Century c.e.

The issue of climate and famine is far from trivial. It is directly connected to
the socioeconomic conditions experienced in Galilee’s agriculturally based econ-
omy. Did certain developments take place in first-century Galilee of a political, eco-
nomic, religious, climatic, or other nature that brought about rapid changes in the
living conditions of rural life? Can Jesus be seen as a direct response to such changes
for the worse? This last question has placed Galilee in the center of the historical
Jesus research, as discussed, for example, in a recent article by Jonathan L. Reed.4
An investigation of the climate of Galilee, therefore, comes with the promise of
bringing us one step closer to resolving one of the hotly debated issues in the his-
torical Jesus debate.5
2 Goodman, State and Society in Roman Galilee, A.D. 132–212 (Totowa, NJ: Rowman &
Allanheld, 1983), 22; Avi-Yonah, The Holy Land: From the Persian to the Arab Conquests (536 B.C.
To A.D. 640). A Historical Geography (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), 203; Karmon, Israel: A Regional
Geography (London: Wiley-Interscience, 1971), 102.
3 Shimon Applebaum, “Economic Life in Palestine,” in The Jewish People in the First Cen-
tury: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, Cultural and Religious Life and Institutions,
vol. 2 (ed. Shmuel Safrai, and Menahem Stern; CRINT section 1; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1976), 691.
4 Reed, “Instability in Jesus’ Galilee: A Demographic Perspective,” JBL 129 (2010): 343–65.
See also the discussion in Morten Hørning Jensen, Herod Antipas in Galilee: The Literary and
Archaeological Sources on the Reign of Herod Antipas and Its Socio-Economic Impact on Galilee
(WUNT 2/215; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 9–30; and idem, “Herod Antipas in Galilee:
Friend or Foe of the Historical Jesus?” JSNT 5 (2007): 8–10.
5 Needless to say, other topics must be considered for a full treatment of the Galilean social
milieu, such as settlement patterns in rural Galilee and archaeological data from the various exca-
vations of Galilean settlements, including classification of house units, specialization and com-
merce, tax pressure, monetization of the economy, and so forth. For a discussion of these topics,
see Morten Hørning Jensen, “Conflicting Calls? Family and Discipleship in Mark and Matthew
in the Light of First-Century Galilean Village Life,” in Mark and Matthew I: Comparative Read-
Jensen: Climate, Droughts, Wars, and Famines in Galilee 309
To evaluate how prone first-century Galilee was to famine, we need to inves-

tigate the two basic causes of famine in antiquity as suggested by Peter Garnsey,
one of the foremost scholars of famine in the Roman world. The first category
encompasses the region’s climatic conditions, which, in premodern times, were
intimately connected with agricultural productivity. In the words of Garnsey: “Any
general account of the causes of food crises in the Mediterranean must start from
climatic irregularities, which meant that grain production was subject to consid-
erable fluctuations.”6 However, actual famine in antiquity was often produced not
by drought alone but by a combination of climatic instability with the second fac-
tor, namely, human-made instability, including warfare, plague, disease, political
upheaval, and market manipulation.7 If these conditions occurred simultaneously,
the perfect “synoptic” situation of famine was present.
In order to address both of these main causes of famine, the following survey
will be conducted in three steps. First, I will place the climate of Galilee in its wider
Mediterranean context and will investigate the phenomena of drought and famine.
Second, it will be necessary to investigate the political history and the amount of
reported turmoil, upheavals, and actual war in Galilee in this period in order to
determine the extent to which human-made conditions could have produced food
crises or famines. Finally, I will explore the various written sources in order to gain
an overview of reported famines through time. Against this background, I will
finally discuss the overall prospects of an agriculturally based rural lifestyle in first-
century Galilee and apply this to the ongoing debate concerning the historical Jesus.
II. The Climate of Galilee and the Phenomenon of Famine
Climatic Zones in Galilee

An understanding of Galilee’s climatic conditions for habitation and agricul-
tural activity involves an investigation of the climatic zones of the area, the amount
of precipitation and types of rainfall, as well as the nonlinear relationship between
drought and actual famine.
First, however, a note must be made concerning the debate over Holocene cli-
mate change. Can we rely on present climatic data, or have levels of precipitation
ings. Understanding the Earliest Gospels in Their First Century Settings (ed. Eve-Marie Becker and
Anders Runesson; WUNT 271; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011); idem, “Rural Galilee and Rapid
Changes: An Investigation of the Socio-Economic Dynamics and Developments in Roman
Galilee,” Bib 93 (2012) 43–67.
6 Peter Garnsey, “Famine in Rome,” in Trade and Famine in Classical Antiquity (ed. Peter
Garnsey, and C. R. Whittaker; Supplementary Volume 8; Cambridge: Cambridge Philological

Society, 1983), 57–58.
7 Ibid., 58.
changed considerably over time? Several sets of sophisticated data are relevant in
this dispute, including hydrological evidence, dendroarchaeological and paleo-
botanical evidence, palynological evidence, fossil fauna, pedological and sedimen-
tary analysis, and so on,8 and consensus is yet to be reached. One camp, revitalizing
E. Huntington’s proposal of “pulsatory climatic changes,”9 argues that major changes
took place throughout the Holocene period altering the living conditions drasti-
cally, not least in an area like Israel situated between several environmental belts.
The palynological studies of A. Horowitz are vital for this view. Through an analy-
sis of different borehole samples, Horowitz established a diagram of the pollen
deposits, which he related to the amount of precipitation.10 The original diagram,
as well as the calibrated diagram by L. E. Stager,11 suggests that present-day rain-
fall is lower than most ancient periods. However, as one of this camp’s proponents
admits, “the Persian to Roman periods are presented as fairly constant”12 with only
a modestly higher yearly precipitation than today. The other camp criticizes the
relationship posited by Horowitz between arboreal pollen deposits and precipita-
tion as a flawed argument. David C. Hopkins, for instance, suggests other inter-
pretations of the variations in pollen deposits, such as human activity in terms of
forest clearing,13 and concludes: “We are left then with the conclusion that the cli-
mate of Highland Canaan in the early Iron Age was not changed from that of today,
but only varied around a mean closely resembling present conditions.”14 In sum, for
our purposes, the use of modern-day data may be carefully allowed since, even if
following Horowitz, the Roman era experienced a stable amount of precipitation
only modestly higher than the present-day situation.
Climatic zones are defined by a number of different factors. At times, precip-
itation is taken as the decisive factor when distinguishing arid from semi-arid
regions based on an annual rain expectation below or above 250 mm and again
8 See David C. Hopkins, The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the Early Iron Age
(Social World of Biblical Antiquity 3; Sheffield: Almond, 1985), 101.

9 Huntington, “Climatic Change and Agricultural Exhaustion as Elements in the Fall of
Rome,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 31 (1917): 186.

10 Horowitz, “Preliminary Palynological Indications as to the Climate of Israel during the
Last 6000 Years,” Paléorient 2 (1974): 407–14; idem, “Human Settlement Pattern in Israel,” Expe-
dition 20 (1978): 55–58.
11 See figs. 22-5 and 22-6 in James A. Sauer, “A New Climatic and Archaeological View of
the Early Biblical Traditions,” in Scripture and Other Artifacts: Essays on the Bible and Archaeol-
ogy in Honor of Philip J. King (ed. Michael D. Coogan, J. Cheryl Exum, and Lawrence E. Stager;
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 376–77.
12 Sauer, “New Climatic,” 378. See also Rafael Frankel et al., who argue that the entire period
from Iron II to the Byzantine era can be viewed as “a single era in Galilee” in terms of rainfall
(Settlement Dynamics and Regional Diversity in Ancient Upper Galilee [IAA Reports 14; Jerusalem:
Israel Antiquities Authority, 2001], 130).
13 See Hopkins, Highlands of Canaan, 106.
14 Ibid., 107; see also Frank S. Frick, “Palestine, Climate of,” ABD 5:119–26.
between semi-arid and humid regions on the basis of a 500 mm rain marker.15 This
is, nevertheless, far too simple a scheme to do justice to reality. Other factors
impacting agricultural fertility include the number of rain days, heat and evapora-
tion, and fluctuation in precipitation from year to year. As a matter of fact, the aver-
age annual rainfall in Galilee is on par with that of London (approx. 600 mm),
differing only by the fact that evergreen London has 151 precipitation days as
opposed to around 60 in Galilee. In addition, the higher temperatures of Galilee
cause far more evaporation than is the case for London.16
For this reason, more sophisticated systems have been proposed to describe
the climate of a given area. Widespread is the use of the Köppen climate classifica-
tion system distinguishing six main types of climate, further subdivided into sec-
ondary types.17 In Israel, three regions exist: a Mediterranean region (Csa), a desert
region (BWh), and a semi-desert region or steppe (BSh). According to this classi-
fication, the entire coastal strip from the north of Gaza, the central mountain range
(Samaria) and down to the south of Jerusalem, and both Upper and Lower Galilee
are classified as having the Mediterranean climate, Csa.18 In a recent study, Yair
Goldreich provides this definition of Csa:
The Csa climate classification, refers to a region of mild temperatures, whose
mean temperature in the hottest month is above 18° and the coldest month is no
lower than -3° (the letter C); most of the precipitation falls during the coldest
half of the year (s), and the mean temperature of the hottest month exceeds 22°
(a).19
That Galilee is among the most fertile areas in Israel, superseded only by some areas
in Samaria and the Carmel range, is further highlighted by Denis Baly’s six major
rules of rainfall prediction. In general, rain in Israel decreases from north to south,
from west to east and on any lee slopes toward the east.20 He summarizes: “Within
the Palestinian area the climate becomes more and more marginal, and the unre-
liability of the rainfall increases with the continuing decrease of the average annual
total towards the south as well as eastwards away from the sea.”21 Galilee can, there-
fore, usually expect to receive more rain than Judea, for example.
15See, e.g., Perveril Meigs, “Classification and Occurence of Mediterranean-Type Dry Cli-
mate,” in Land Use in Semi-Arid Mediterranean Climates (ed. D. H. K. Amiran; Belgium: UNESCO,
1964).
16 See Yair Goldreich, The Climate of Israel: Observation, Research and Application (New
York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2003), 55–56; Hopkins, Highlands of Canaan, 86.

17 See Naftali Rosenan, “Climate,” in Atlas of Israel (ed. David H. K. Amiran; Jerusalem:
Survey of Israel, 1970); and Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 12–15.

18 See the map in Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 13.
19 Ibid., 12.
20 See Baly, The Geography of the Bible (new and rev. ed.; Guildford/London: Lutterworth,
1974), 54.
21 Baly, “The Geography of Palestine and the Levant in Relation to Its History,” in The Cam-
bridge History of Judaism, vol. 1, Introduction; The Persian Period (ed. W. D. Davies, and Louis
Actually, when analyzing conditions for agriculture in the twentieth century,

Karmon goes a step further in stating, “The climate of Israel yields temperatures
which are in general favorable for agriculture. Even in the cool season, temperatures
in almost all parts of the country reach above 10°, the critical point for plant
growth.”22 This means that
the growing season lasts throughout the year and enables the Israeli farmer to
spread his work over the whole year, and, in case of many seasonal crops, to uti-
lize the same areas for more than one crop. It is this length of the growing sea-
son and the possibility of producing two or more crops from one area, which has
made it possible for farmers in Israel to exist on small sized holdings, which in
most countries of the world would be regarded as insufficient.23
However, Karmon is here speaking of contemporary Israeli agriculture, from which
agriculture in first-century Galilee differed in one profound way: the level and use
of irrigation. Without this facility, the farmer is entirely at the mercy of “the rain-
fall regime,” which Karmon readily admits is “the biggest disadvantage to agricul-
ture”24 due to its irregularity.
The Rainfall Regime

The complex situation regarding rain in Galilee is first and foremost due to the
seasonal wet/dry climate with a dry and hot season in the summer months (May–
September) and a wet and rainy season in the winter months (November–March),
to which can be added two short transitional periods in October and April, during
which time it may or may not rain.25
As opposed to evergreen climatic zones, the scarcity of rainfall days produces
uncertainty as to when the rain will begin and for how long it will continue. Even
in the rainy season, rainy days can be far apart.26 From an agricultural perspective,
this presents the farmer with challenging choices.27 For seasonal crops to grow, rain
is needed not only in the right amount but also at the right time and with the proper
dispersal. In modern times, the same amount of precipitation in two consecutive
years has been known to produce radically different harvests due to differences in
Finkelstein; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 16; see also Goldreich, Climate of
Israel, 56–57.
22 Karmon, Regional Geography, 101.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., 102.
25 See Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 21–22, for a slightly different classification; see also Baly,
Geography, 43–53.
26 See Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 70.
27 See Gildas Hamel, Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine, First Three Centuries C.E.
(University of California Publications: Near Eastern Studies 23; Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1990), 103–8.
timing and dispersal.28 This makes precipitation “the most critical and variable cli-
matic parameter in Israel.”29
Interestingly, the importance of precipitation at the right time and in the right
quantity has left a trace in the Hebrew Bible as well as in rabbinic literature in the
form of six different names for precipitation that are distinguished based on the
season and mode of precipitation: ‫( יורה‬Deut 11:14; Jer 5:24) and ‫( מורה‬Ps 84:7;
Joel 2:23) denote the early (or former) rain.30 In the LXX it is normally rendered
πρόϊµος.31 The timing of the early rain is highly important agriculturally; it serves
to soften the earth before plowing and fertilizes the soil, allowing the seeds to take
root. But the amount of rain also is important, as too much may flood the fields,
diminishing their yields.32 ‫ מלקוש‬is the latter rain, the counterpart of the former
rain (Deut 11:14; Jer 5:24; Joel 2:23). In the LXX it is termed ὄψιµος; it serves to
make the cereals ripe before harvest as well as to fill the cisterns before the dry
period.33 According to Baly, it is “desperately needed to make the grain swell and
ensure a good harvest.”34 The regular rain (the winter rain) is normally called ‫גשם‬
(e.g., Gen 7:12; 1 Kgs 17:7; Hos 6:3) or ‫( מטר‬e.g., Deut 11:11, 14, 17), whereas thun-
der or heavy rain may be termed ‫( זרם‬e.g., Isa 4:6; 25:4; 28:2).35
In other words, rain was not perceived as simply “rain.” A delicate balance
existed between the right timing and the right amount. Too much rain or hail (‫)ברד‬
was a potential danger, just as drought was.36 At several places in the Hebrew Bible,
this complex situation regarding different kinds of rains is seen as a reflection of the
people’s relationship to Yahweh. Yahweh is the one who provides the right kind and
amount of rain “in its time” (e.g., Ezek 34:26: ‫)הגשם בעתו‬. The most explicit text
stating this is the famous verse of Deut 11:14 stating that Yahweh will—if his com-
28 See Baly, Geography, 49–50.

29 Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 55.
30 For the rabbinic literature in particular, see Hamel, Poverty and Charity, 103–8.
31 Besides the passages mentioned, see also Hos 6:3; Zech 10:1; and also Jas 5:7.
32 See Gustaf Dalman, Jahreslauf und Tageslauf, 1. Hälfte: Herbst und Winter, vol. 1.1 of
Arbeit und Sitte im Palästina (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1928), 128.

33 Ibid., 291.
34 Baly, Geography, 52.
35 Heavy rainfall, or “jet rainfall,” is a well-known phenomenon and occurs on average “once
a year and is expressed by stratified cloudiness that yields tens of mm of rainfall” (Goldreich, Cli-
mate of Israel, 28).
36 Daniel Sperber refers to b. Tavan. 22b, which states that the promise of Lev 26:4 of God
providing rain in due time and seasons also includes a protection against torrential rain that will
have the effect of washing away the topsoil, leaving barren land behind and leading to denudation:
“For whenever the rains are too excessive, they wash away the soil so that it yields no fruit” (cited
after Sperber, Roman Palestine 200–400, The Land: Crisis and Change in Agrarian Society As
Reflected in Rabbinic Sources [Bar-Ilan Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Culture; Ramat-
Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1978], 51). For similar sayings, see Ps 147:17; Prov 28:3; Isa 28:2;
30:30; Hag 2:17. See also Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 88–91.
mands are obeyed—provide rain (‫ )מטר‬in its due time (‫)בעתו‬, both former and lat-
ter rain (‫)יורה ומלקוש‬, so that grain, wine, and olive oil may be gathered (see also
Jer 5:24; Joel 2:23).
The Phenomena of Droughts and Famines

The fragile balance between sufficient and timely or insufficient and untimely
precipitation was a serious threat to agricultural productivity. Different kinds of
drought could occur regularly, which again under certain circumstances could pro-
duce actual famine. However, as in the case of rain, drought is a complex phe-
nomenon, and it has even proven difficult to agree on a universal definition.37
One helpful explanation is provided by Goldreich, who distinguishes three
different kinds of drought: (a) climatic droughts, where the annual rainfall is less
than 75 percent of the average, which, depending on other factors, may or may not
lead to crop damage; (b) agricultural droughts, which cause crop damage either
due to a deficit in seasonal rainfall or to an unfavorable seasonal distribution of
rain, even though the total amount may be median; (c) hydrologic droughts,
defined as a deficit in running water, which can be produced by climatic droughts
or by an exceptionally warm or windy year increasing evaporation.38
As Goldreich further states, naturally “the most drought vulnerable regions are
the agricultural frontiers of the southern Judea plain and northern Negev, which
border on the desert and whose aridity oscillates annually.”39 Galilee, for its part,
could expect precipitation above the 250 mm aridity marker, allowing for some
crop yield even during dry years.
As already noted, the detailed studies of Garnsey warn us to distinguish care-
fully among drought, crop failures, and actual famines: “food crisis was common,
but famine was rare.”40 Famines were most often the product of a combination of
factors, including such human elements as, in addition to war,41 “negligence, self-
ishness, maladministration, ideological blindness or dogmatism, without which
there would be no famine.”42 In other words, “nature may trigger off famine. But
37 See Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 76.

38 See ibid., 77; also Efraim Orni and Elisha Efrat, Geography of Israel (2nd ed.; Jerusalem:
Achiasaf, 1963; repr., Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translation, 1966), 108–9.
39 Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 78. For this reason, Orni and Efrat actually suggest that the
aridity border must be drawn at the 350 mm isohyete, since the fluctuation is so strong that the
regular 250 mm needed for winter crops is not met with any regularity before a median of 350 mm
(Geography, 109).
40 Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Cri-
sis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 39.

41 See Garnsey, Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity: Essays in Social and Eco-
nomic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 286.

42 Garnsey, Cities, Peasants and Food, 273; also idem, “Famine in Rome,” 57–59.
there is no straightforward causal chain leading from climatic irregularity through

harvest failure and food shortage to famine.”43 Therefore, “to say that an interplay
of natural and human causes was a regular feature of food crisis is not a bold asser-
tion.”44
Actually, Garnsey goes on to argue that climatic instability was, compared to
human-made instability, such a trivial fact of life that the Mediterranean peasants
throughout the generations had adopted methods of risk sharing as a buffer against
one or more crop damages. These methods of risk sharing included mixed farm-
ing, a system of patronage, the principle of self-sufficiency, and reciprocity in mar-
ket exchanges:
The Mediterranean small farmer has traditionally practised mixed farming, the
polycropping of arable and trees on the same land with the addition of a little
livestock. The goal is self-sufficiency but also the minimisation of risk: since the
growth requirements of the various products differ, the possibility that the farmer
will be left with nothing is reduced.45
This view is supported by Gildas Hamel, who with respect to the situation in
Roman Palestine, argues that the small farmer would set aside part of each year’s
harvest and store it in case the “synoptic conditions of famine” should occur:
The society at large was not without defense against this familiar danger. The
spreading of risk and labor needs throughout the year and across a wide territory
by encouraging production of a variety of cereal, legumes, and animal products,
also minimized the danger of famine.46
Partial Conclusion
This first part of our survey has produced two important conclusions. First,
the climatic zone of Galilee presented its inhabitants with its fair share of both bless-
ings and troubles. On the one hand, Galilee had the best location in Palestine in
terms of precipitation with a Mediterranean climate—Csa, according to Köppen’s
classification. On the other hand, Galilee was not exempt from the general “rain-
fall regime” of Palestine, which produced both the long dry summer period and
the infrequent—but intense—rainy days. This precarious situation is well reflected
in the refined nomenclature developed by the ancient Israelites to describe precip-
itation.
Second, climatic instability (i.e., seasonal, prolonged, or even successive
droughts) is not to be confused with famine. An actual famine was most often the
43 Garnsey, Cities, Peasants and Food, 290.

44 Garnsey, “Famine in Rome,” 60; also idem, Famine and Food Supply, 271.
45 Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply, 49; see also 54–58.
46 Hamel, Poverty and Charity, 49; see also 109–12.
product of “synoptic” circumstances that almost always included human factors

such as maladministration or war. It was the moral obligation of the rulers to pro-
tect the masses from starvation by honoring what has been called a “moral econ-
omy.”47 For this reason, we must now investigate the political stability of Galilee in
order to evaluate to what extent human-made factors were likely to produce
famine-prone conditions in the period under consideration.
III. Wars, Upheavals, and Turmoil
The Political History of Galilee from Pompey to Herod the Great

In this section, the history of Galilee from the Roman takeover in the first
century b.c.e. to the war of 66 c.e. will be surveyed in order to detect whether
Galilee experienced wars and/or dramatic political shifts that may have had a neg-
ative influence on the agricultural productivity and heightened the possibility of
famine.
After a period with a steady influx of settlers from the growing Hasmonean
kingdom to the south,48 Galilee was about to experience a period of unrest in the
first century b.c.e. with several political shifts, upheavals, and outright war. A brief
outline reveals the following events. First, Pompey’s conquest and reorganization in
63 b.c.e. meant that the Hasmonean state was stripped of many of the conquered
city-states. According to the lists provided by Josephus, however, Galilee proper
remained in Jewish hands (Ant. 14.74–76; War 1.155–58). The only battle report-
edly fought at this time was the three-month-long siege and the resulting capture
of Jerusalem (Ant. 14.54–73; War 1.142–54).
Second, as legate of Syria, Gabinius (57–54 b.c.e.) later reorganized the area
by dividing it into five toparchies, or districts with local councils, after which Galilee
was to be ruled from Sepphoris (Ant. 14.91; War 1.170). No mention of unrest is
made in this connection.
Third, the following period, however, until Herod the Great’s final capture of
47 Garnsey, Cities, Peasants and Food, 287.

48 The Hasmonean takeover of Galilee is an old crux interpretum in research. However, new
archaeological material seems to tip the balance in the direction of the view that the Galileans in
the Roman period were mainly Hasmonean settlers rather than old Israelites or forcefully con-
verted Itureans. Vital here are a number of settlement surveys that show a dramatic increase of set-
tlements in the first century b.c.e. (see esp. Uzi Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic,
Roman, and Byzantine Galilee: An Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee [Studies and Texts
in Antiquity and Christianity 127; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009]), and studies of coin circula-
tion that demonstrate how the numismatic profile completely changes in this period, with the
Hasmonean coins becoming predominant in circulation (see esp. Danny Syon, “Tyre and Gamla:
A Study in the Monetary Influence of Southern Phoenicia on Galilee and the Golan in the Hel-
lenistic and Roman Periods” [Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2004]).
Jerusalem in 37 b.c.e., was one of unrest and war, including several battles and con-
frontations between the ousted Hasmonean clan of Aristobulus II, backed by the
Parthians, and his brother Hyrcanus II, backed by the upcoming Herodian dynasty
and Rome. Galilee was the setting of some of these conflicts: (a) Gabinius engaged
in a battle with Alexander, son of Aristobulus II, at Mount Tabor (Ant. 14.102; War
1.177). (b) When Cassius came to the region to raise (or rob) funds for his war
against the Parthians, according to Josephus, he also engaged in battle with the
inhabitants of Tarichaea and enslaved some thirty thousand people (Ant. 14.120;
War 1.180). (c) The time that the young Herod the Great spent in Galilee as stra-
tēgos beginning in the year 47 seems to have entailed some turmoil (Ant. 14.158;
War 1.203). He first engaged in battle with the “arch-robber” (ἀρχιλῃστής) Hezekiah
(Ant. 14.159; War 1.204).49 Later, he managed to deliver a huge tax of one hundred
talents to Cassius (Ant. 14.280; War 1.221), just as he also drove back a Tyrian offen-
sive (Ant. 14.297–99; War 1.238–39). While Herod’s vigor was praised by some, the
Jerusalem council made charges against him for his cruel behavior (Ant. 14.165–
84; War 1.208–15). Finally, (d) the culmination of the civil war between the Hero-
dians and the clan of Aristobulus II came with the battle for the throne of Jerusalem
in 40–37 b.c.e. between Herod the Great and Antigonus II. While Herod’s most
vigorous fight was the siege of Jerusalem, he also conducted campaigns in Galilee,
including the attack against the stronghold at Arbela (Ant. 14.413–33; War 1.290,
303–16).
The Political History of Galilee from Herod Antipas

to the War of 66 c.e.
While the period after Herod the Great’s conquest of the land seems to have
been a quiet one for Galilee, drastic events took place after his death, with differ-
ent factions igniting warlike upheavals and battles forcing the Syrian legate, Varus,
to dispatch a large army to quell the resistance (War 2.39–79; Ant. 17.250–99).
While most of the incidents described by Josephus took place in Judea (see Ant.
17.285: Λῃστηρίων δὲ ἡ Ἰουδαία πλέως ἦν), Galilee was impacted as well when Judas,
son of Hezekiah, captured the city of Sepphoris and seized its arsenal. The army of
Varus recaptured the city in 4 b.c.e., burned it to the ground, and sold off the inhab-
itants as slaves, according to Josephus (War 2.56, 68; Ant. 17.271–72, 289).50
Interestingly, no internal upheavals are reported, by Josephus or any other
written source, to have taken place in Galilee during the reign of Antipas and actu-
ally right up to the war of 66 c.e. The rebellion in 6 c.e. by Judas the Galilean (so
49Freyne has proposed that Hezekiah was really a Hasmonean noble who fought in support
of Antigonus (Galilee, 63–68). This is rejected by Richard A. Horsley, Galilee: History, Politics,
People (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), 54 n. 61.
50 For a more detailed exposition of these events, see Jensen, Herod Antipas, 150–51.
War 2.118; Ant. 18.23; Acts 5:37) or Judas of Gamala (so Ant. 18.4), who most likely
is identical with the Judas, son of Hezekiah, of War 2.56, probably did not take
place in Galilee, since it was a response to the census in Judea carried out by
Quirinius after the removal of Archelaus. Likewise, there is nothing in Josephus’s
accounts to indicate that the only war mentioned for the time of Antipas, namely,
his fight with his former father-in-law, the Nabatean king Aretas, should have taken
place in Galilee. Rather, since the fight was partly a dispute about boundaries, it
seems to have taken place in or near Antipas’s other area, Perea, bordering on
Aretas’s kingdom (see Ant. 18.113–15).51 Further, Antipas’s arrest of John the Bap-
tist reportedly did not lead to direct rebellion, though, according to Josephus, he
was able to gather a crowd around him (Ant. 18.116–19).52 Josephus is keenly inter-
ested in portraying Antipas in an unfavorable light as another example of bad Hero-
dian rule,53 but he does not provide us with many embarrassing stories of rebellion
or unrest within his jurisdiction.
An outline of the rest of Galilee’s political history until the war reveals a sim-
ilar picture, that is, an absence of reported incidents in the sources. Agrippa I suc-
ceeded Antipas as ruler of Galilee in 39 c.e., albeit only until 44 c.e. (Ant. 18.252;
19.350–52; War 2.183, 219). No reports of Galilean upheavals or incidents have
survived from this time, except concerning the protests against Gaius’s attempt to
erect his statue in the temple, which were brought to Petronius, the legate of Syria
(Ant. 18.269; War 2.193). From the following period, with direct Roman govern-
ment54 in 44–66, we are likewise not informed of actual confrontations in Galilee
except for the assault on Galilean pilgrims in Samaria (Ant. 20.118–36; War 2.232–
35). When the war finally broke out, it therefore comes as no surprise that, accord-
ing to Josephus, it was orchestrated from Jerusalem and subsequently spread to
Galilee.55
Partial Conclusion
This survey of the political history of Galilee highlights two things in partic-
ular. First, Galilee did indeed experience a number of periods with upheavals and
51 The manuscripts name the district Gamala, but since it was part of the Decapolis and
not subject to either Antipas or Aretas, Louis H. Feldman suggests that the district of Gabilis
south of Moabitis in Idumea was the area in dispute (Josephus: Jewish Antiquities Books XVIII–XIX
[LCL 433; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965], 80–81).
52 For a more detailed exposition, see Jensen, Herod Antipas, 96–97.
53 See ibid., 99–100.
54 Agrippa II did gain some foothold in Galilee in this period and was granted the city of
Tiberias during the reign of Nero (54–68 c.e.); see Ant. 20.159; War 2.252; Life 37–38. For more
on the history of Tiberias, see Jensen, Herod Antipas, 135–38.
55 See the discussion of the events in Freyne, Galilee, 78–91. According to Goodman, the
increased tension in Judea and Jerusalem was due to socioeconomic inequality between rich and
poor prompted by the elite’s control not least of the temple institution; see Goodman, “The First
Jewish Revolt: Social Conflict and the Problem of Debt,” JJS 33 (1982): 417–27.
direct war profound enough to influence crop yields and thereby raise the danger
of famine. Second, these periods of unrest seem to have occurred particularly in the
first century b.c.e., especially around the Roman takeover in 63 b.c.e. and the long
period of civil war between Hyrcanus/the Herodians and Aristobulus/Antigonus
culminating with Herod’s victory in 37 b.c.e., whereas the periods under first
Antipas and then Agrippa I and finally direct Roman rule seem to have been times
of peace and stability.
IV. Reported Droughts and Famines
As established in section II, the level of precipitation in first-century Galilee

fluctuated from year to year, which, in combination with other factors such as polit-
ical instability and war, as surveyed in section III, resulted in fluctuating crop yields
and occasional famine, the frequency of which will be the topic in this section. It
may be noted, initially, that bad years were part of the cycle and far too trivial to be
reported by the ancient writers. We should therefore only expect successive years
of crop failure resulting in acute food shortages and/or actual famine to be men-
tioned, while local droughts or hardships would have remained unnoticed. For this
reason, according to Hamel, it is “difficult to establish the frequency and scope of
the droughts hinted at in our sources.”56 Nevertheless, both specific famines and the
calamity of famines in general are reported in many sources of this period. In fact,
upon surveying these sources, Hamel even concludes that “severe droughts hap-
pened perhaps as often as every twenty years.”57
The following overview of this material will first outline some of the general
statements on famine in the Hebrew Bible and in the rabbinic sources and then
examine reported famines from the early Roman period.
The Concept of Famine in the Bible

In the biblical traditions, famine is placed among the most well-known per-
ils together with pestilence and sword in a kind of negative triad.58 According to
Louis I. Rabinowitz, Lam 4:9 might even indicate that “famine was the greatest evil
of all.”59 That sword and famine are coupled should come as no surprise since
famine was often a product of war and sieges, as discussed above.60
56 Hamel, Poverty and Charity, 44.

57 Ibid., 50. This coheres well with modern data as reported in Orni and Efrat, Geography,
109.
58See Jer 14:12; 24:10; 27:8, 13; Ezek 6:11; Sir 40:9; Bar 2:25; 4 Ezra 16:18–19; etc.
59Rabinowitz, “Famine and Drought,” EncJud 6:1171–74.
60 See Judg 6:2–6; 2 Kgs 6:24–7:20; also Bar 2:2–3; 1 Macc 13:49; Josephus, War 1.64, 159;
3.178–84; 4.62; 6.1–3, 201–13, and many other places, e.g., like the story in b. Git.i 56a of Martha,
one of the richest women in Jerusalem, who dies of starvation during the Roman siege in 70.
The Hebrew Bible is replete with references to famines—at the time of Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Joseph (Gen 12:10; 26:1; 41:54; 43:1), under David and Solomon
(2 Sam 21:1; 1 Kgs 8:35–40), in the days of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kgs 17:1–24; 2 Kgs
4:38; 8:1–3), and others. Often God is described as the protector against famine
(Ps 37:19; Ezek 34:29) or as the one inflicting famine as punishment (Lev 26:26;
Deut 28:22–24; 32:24; 2 Sam 21:1; 1 Kgs 17:1; Ps 105:16; Isa 14:30; 51:19; Jer 11:22;
14:11–18; 24:10; 42:13–17; Amos 4:6–8; 8:11–14; Sir 39:29 and others). Nehemiah
5:1–5 is especially interesting, describing the people’s complaints about being forced
to mortgage fields, vineyards, and houses in order to acquire grain during the
famine (‫ ;ברעב‬5:3).
The NT, on the contrary, does not refer to famine very frequently. Apart from
a couple of references in the apocalyptical material (Mark 13:8; Rev 6:8; 18:8) and
a few references to famines in the Hebrew Bible (Luke 4:25; Acts 7:11), the only
references to famines are the λιµός mentioned in the parable of the prodigal son
(Luke 15:14) and the famine under Claudius leading to Barnabas and Paul’s famine-
relief visit (Acts 11:27-30).61
The Early Roman Period

From the Early Roman period, we know of a number of famines caused by
droughts:
1. According to Josephus (Ant. 15.299–316), continual droughts (αὐχµοὶ
διηνεκεῖς; 15.300) occurred in Israel in the thirteenth year of Herod the Great (25/24
b.c.e.). Josephus describes in detail the chain effects of prolonged droughts, rang-
ing from barren fields (ἄκαρπος; 15.300) to illness and plague (πάθος λοιµικόν;
15.300) caused by change in diet, empty storehouses (15.302), lack of seed for the
next year’s harvest (15.302), and lack of clothing due to the consumption of the
animal flocks (15.310). Rightfully so, Josephus describes this situation as the great-
est of suffering (πάθη µέγιστα; 15.299) relieved only by the aid of Herod the Great,
who purchased grain in Egypt, which was paid for with the ornamental gold from
his palace (15.306), thus demonstrating his goodwill and patronage (τῆς εὐνοίας
καὶ τῆς προστασίας; 15.308) toward the people.
2. In the same year that Gaius attempted to erect his statue in the temple in
Jerusalem (38–39 c.e.), also according to Josephus, the entire country was con-
strained all through the year by a severe drought (τὸ πᾶν ἔτος αὐχµῷ µεγάλῳ
κατεσχηµένον; Ant. 18.285). Rain fell only on the day that Petronius yielded to the
Jewish protesters and refrained from carrying out Gaius’s command, instead send-
ing the Jews home to attend to their agricultural affairs (18.284).
61 Besides that, Paul refers to his own experience of λιµός in 2 Cor 11:27 and Rom 8:35.
3. During the reign of Claudius (41-54 c.e.), a great famine (τὸν µέγαν λιµόν)
struck Judea, as recorded by Josephus (Ant. 20.51–53, 101; 3.320)62 and Acts
(11:28–30: λιµὸν µεγάλην).63 The exact date of this famine is disputed because of a
different reading of Ant. 20.101 in the manuscript tradition. In 20.100, Josephus
describes the shift from Fadus (44–46) to Tiberius Alexander (46–48) in 46. Most
manuscripts, followed also by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 2.12.1), read ἐπὶ τούτοις in the
following §101, which should be rendered either “under these circumstances” or “in
their” days or time, meaning in the reigns of both Fadus and Alexander Tiberius,
which would point to a date before 46 c.e.64 However, another tradition found in
the Epitome manuscript and followed by Feldman in the Loeb edition reads ἐπὶ
τούτου, that is, “under this one,” namely, Tiberius Alexander. This would then place
the famine after 46 c.e.65 Acts places the incident immediately before the death of
Agrippa I in the year 44 c.e. (Acts 12) but provides no exact date.66 It is during this
famine that Queen Helena of Adiabene relieved the Jews by purchasing grain in
Egypt (Ant. 20.49–53).
4. Some scholars argue that the famine under Claudius referred to by Jose-
phus in Ant. 3.320 is a separate famine altogether, since it is said to have taken place
when Ismael was high priest. According to Ant. 20.179, he was appointed by
62 This famine is mentioned also in later sources, e.g., Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.3, 8, 12, quot-
ing Josephus; Orosius, Hist. 7.6.12; and Zonaras 6.13. See Kenneth Sperber Gapp, “The Univer-
sal Famine under Claudius,” HTR 28 (1935): 260 n. 10. As will be discussed below, Ant. 3.320 may
point to another famine under Nero.
63 According to Hamel (Poverty and Charity, 51), this famine is echoed in the rabbinic lit-
erature, mentioning how Rabbi Yohanan ben Hauranit during his youth experienced “years of
deaths” (t. Sukk. 2.3).
64 See Feldman, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities Book XX (LCL 456; Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1965), 55 n. e.

65 The revised Schürer argues strongly for the first option; see Emil Schürer, The History of
the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christi (175 B.C–A.D. 135) (rev. and ed. Geza Vermes and
Fergus Millar; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1973–87), 457 n. 8.
66 Another issue is the difference of locality of the drought according to Josephus and Acts.
Josephus records that the famine was confined to Judea (κατὰ τὴν Ἰουδαίαν; 20.101), Jerusalem
(20.51), or the country in general (τὴν χώραν; 3.320). According to Acts, however, it was extended
over the entire inhabited earth, that is, the Roman Empire (ἐφ᾿ ὅλην τὴν οἰκουµένην; 11:28). Gapp
(“Universal Famine,” 262) has tried to resolve the issue by presenting two arguments. First, dur-
ing the reign of Claudius, the Roman Empire experienced a number of droughts in different parts
of the empire accounting for some of the generalization of Acts (see, e.g., Suetonius, Div. Claud.
18; Tacitus, Ann. 12.43.1; and Orosius, Hist. 7.6.17). Second, Gapp offers a conjecture that famine
happened when the Nile overflowed its banks in the years 44–45, ruining much of the harvest.
This was followed by the local drought in Palestine and Syria (according to Orosius, Hist. 7.6.12,
the famine afflicted Syria as well), which resulted in a “general dearness of wheat” throughout the
empire. This last argument, though, is not accepted by Hamel, since it presupposes the “existence
of a responsive international market” (Poverty and Charity, 50 n. 356).
Agrippa II around the year 59 and served to 61.67 Others equate the incident with
the famine discussed above and mentioned in Ant. 20.51–53, 101.68
5. In his appeal to the Jews of Jerusalem to surrender to Titus in 70 c.e. (War
5.362–419), Josephus mentions that the Siloam as well as all the springs outside the
city had failed (ἐπιλείπουσαν; 5.410) before Titus approached the city so that water
was sold by the amphora. Then, in 70 c.e., it flows steadily again to the benefit of
the Romans. It is difficult to make much out of this notion, except that the rainfall
may have been inconsistent in the year or years before the siege of Jerusalem.69
Partial Conclusion
Droughts and actual famines are thus known in the Herodian period as well
as in the rest of the first century c.e. There were not many, a total of four or five.
Additional partial crop failures and local famines were most likely experienced as
a natural part of the climatic cycle. It may nevertheless be fair to say that the writ-
ten sources do not indicate that first-century Galilee experienced an unusual
amount of climatic instability.70
V. Conclusion and Discussion
It remains finally to draw the main conclusions from this survey and to dis-
cuss how the climate of Galilee impacted the socioeconomic stability of the region,
which forms the background against which the historical Jesus is presently under-
stood.
67 See Feldman, Judean Antiquities 1–4: Translation and Commentary (Flavius Josephus:
Translation and Commentary 3; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 328 n. 959; H. St. J. Thackeray, Josephus: Jew-
ish Antiquities Books I–IV (LCL 242; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 474–75;
Tessa Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and His Society (London: Duckworth, 1983), 125.
68 See Gapp, “Universal Famine,” 261 n. 11.
69 Hamel points to rabbinic sources that indicate the same situation (Poverty and Charity,
51). That the war caused famine inside the besieged Jerusalem is described in graphic detail by
Josephus in War 5.424–38 (cf. several other places as well) and again in 6.201–13, describing how
a mother eats her son.
70 It has been debated whether the following period witnessed an unusual amount of
drought, as argued by Sperber (see Sperber, Roman Palestine, 5; idem, “On Social and Economic
Conditions in Third Century Palestine,” ArOr 38 [1970]: 21–22; idem, “Drought, Famine and
Pestilence in Amoraic Palestine,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17 [1974]:
272–74). For an opposite view of the middle and late Roman periods as thriving, see Yizhar
Hirschfeld, “A Climatic Change in the Early Byzantine Period? Some Archaeological Evidence,”
PEQ 136 (2004): 147; and Doron Bar, “Frontier and Periphery in Late Antique Palestine,” GRBS
44 (2004): 75.
In regard to the main conclusions, four things have become evident: first,
allowing for his typical hyperbole, Josephus’s picture of Galilee as abundantly fruit-
ful is not entirely unfounded. At least, Galilee was among the most fertile areas of
Palestine. The aridity line was and is more distant than in, for example, Judea and
the Jordan Valley. In general, Galilee can be classified as a humid Mediterranean
region with an annual rainfall above 500 mm.
Second, this should not downplay the fact that in antiquity, droughts, torren-
tial rain, earthquakes, and other natural perils were a constant threat to a fruitful
outcome from the fields. Rainfall especially was a factor of yearly uncertainty that
produced an ever-fluctuating crop outcome.
Third, actual famine, a more complex matter, was most often caused by a com-
bination of factors, of which the climate might be the most important but not the
only one. War and politics figured in as well. A survey of the political developments
in Galilee and the reported wars and upheavals, however, does not produce a pic-
ture of constant unrest. Some turmoil did afflict Galilee, especially in the first cen-
tury b.c.e. However, the reigns of Herod Antipas and Agrippa I, as well as the time
of direct Roman rule, seem to have been periods of prolonged peace and stability
for Galilee.
Fourth, from the survey of the written sources, it is clear that there is no evi-
dence indicating that the early Roman period was a time of unusual climatic insta-
bility for Palestine in general or Galilee in particular. The known famines of 25/24
b.c.e., 38/39 c.e., 45/46 c.e. (besides the local famine in Jerusalem in 69 c.e.) cohere
well with modern data, which indicate that famine occurs as regularly as every
twentieth year.71
How does this climatic perspective inform our understanding of the socio-
economic conditions of Roman Palestine? I suggest two points. On the one hand,
farmers and rural inhabitants alike considered fluctuating crop yields or even crop
failure a regular fact of life, almost a triviality. Different risk-sharing techniques
such as polycropping were therefore common practice. There is reason to believe
that, for many rural inhabitants, there was a delicate balance between subsistence
and famine and that continuous drought was something that could cause serious
crises. On the other hand, nothing suggests that the early Roman period witnessed
anything beyond this “trivial” picture of good and bad years of precipitation and
crop yields.
When applying this analysis to the recent dispute over Galilee as the back-
ground for understanding the historical Jesus, it follows that first-century Galilee
did not seem to have experienced rapid climatic changes that would have provided
us with a plausible explanation as to why Jesus arose at this time and place. While
it must be readily admitted that ancient agricultural village life was a far more inse-
cure endeavor than modern life, it is quite a different thing to “explain Jesus” against
71 See Karmon, Regional Geography, 101.
this background if no rapid change can be detected. It was simply the brutal facts
of life. This would also be my main objection to the already mentioned highly
informative discussion by Jonathan Reed of ancient demographics, in which he
renders probable how difficult life was in antiquity with shorter life expectancy,
high rates of child deaths, and deadly diseases. It is a big leap in argumentation,
however, to jump from this to the conclusion that Galilee witnessed “a high level of
social instability,”72 since these living conditions were a shared condition through-
out the Roman world. Following this logic, one would have to conclude that the
entire ancient world was marked by “social instability.” Further, when applying his
general statistics to Galilee, Reed admits that there are no grounds for claiming that
“Galileans fared terribly and were destitute under Antipas.”73
In consequence, though this survey constitutes only part of the socioeconomic
picture, it points in the direction of relatively good conditions for rural agricultural
life in first-century Galilee, and the picture of Galilee on the brink of meltdown
due to, among other things, climatic instability cannot be supported.74
72 Reed, “Instability,” 349.

73 Ibid., 364.
74 Other scholars have arrived at the same result. Milton Moreland concludes that, since
the fundamental structure of the villages “was maintained and even expanded” in this period, the
villages maintained their ability to function as “insurance against extreme conditions.” Further,
“Thus, one must avoid overstating the types and extent of exploitation of new administrative
structures in ER Galilee. No doubt peasants were oppressed, but to claim that they were pressed
to the limits of survival is not supportable” (“The Galilean Response to Earliest Christianity: A
Cross-Cultural Study of the Subsistence Ethic,” in Religion and Society in Roman Palestine: Old
Questions, New Approaches [ed. Douglas R. Edwards; London: Routledge, 2004], 42–43). See also
Sharon Lea Mattila’s recent article, in which she rejects the validity of the term “peasant” when
describing the rural farmer in first-century Galilee (“Jesus and the ‘Middle Peasants’? Problema-
tizing a Social-Scientific Concept,” CBQ 72 [2010]: 291–313).

Climate, Droughts, Wars, and Famines in Galilee As A Backgrounfld For Understanding Historical Jesus

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JBL 131, no.

Climate, Droughts, Wars, and Famines

I. Galilee: Eden or Sodom?

Galiliee and Famine in the First Century c.e.

To evaluate how prone first-century Galilee was to famine, we need to inves-

II. The Climate of Galilee and the Phenomenon of Famine

Climatic Zones in Galilee

Garnsey, and C. R. Whittaker; Supplementary Volume 8; Cambridge: Cambridge Philological

(Social World of Biblical Antiquity 3; Sheffield: Almond, 1985), 101.

Rome,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 31 (1917): 186.

York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2003), 55–56; Hopkins, Highlands of Canaan, 86.

Survey of Israel, 1970); and Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 12–15.

Actually, when analyzing conditions for agriculture in the twentieth century,

The Rainfall Regime

28 See Baly, Geography, 49–50.

Arbeit und Sitte im Palästina (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1928), 128.

The Phenomena of Droughts and Famines

37 See Goldreich, Climate of Israel, 76.

sis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 39.

nomic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 286.

there is no straightforward causal chain leading from climatic irregularity through

43 Garnsey, Cities, Peasants and Food, 290.

product of “synoptic” circumstances that almost always included human factors

III. Wars, Upheavals, and Turmoil

The Political History of Galilee from Pompey to Herod the Great

47 Garnsey, Cities, Peasants and Food, 287.

The Political History of Galilee from Herod Antipas

IV. Reported Droughts and Famines

As established in section II, the level of precipitation in first-century Galilee

The Concept of Famine in the Bible

56 Hamel, Poverty and Charity, 44.

The Early Roman Period

University Press, 1965), 55 n. e.

V. Conclusion and Discussion

71 See Karmon, Regional Geography, 101.

72 Reed, “Instability,” 349.

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