Marc Turnage: First-Century Galilee: Contextualizing Jesus

Everyone comes from somewhere. And that somewhere affects who everyone becomes. Jesus grew up in the Lower Galilee in the first quarter of the first century; and, likewise, the Lower Galilee served as the primary landscape for most of Jesus' ministry. The Lower Galilee, then, provides the physical context in which Jesus lived and ministered. How we conceptualize this world of Jesus impacts how we understand Him and His ministry.¹

People commonly assume that first-century Galilee was a bucolic backwater removed from the Jewish religious and cultural life of Jerusalem. Galileans, by extension, were “hicks from the sticks,” an uneducated mass distanced from the Judaism of Jerusalem. Archaeological excavations in Galilee over the past 30 or so years, however, have added to our understanding of first-century Galilee — the Galilee of Jesus — and have challenged this “common” perception of Galilee as a cultural backwater.²
Recent excavations, furthermore, corroborate the presentation of first-century Galilean society and life portrayed in ancient sources including the New Testament.

After the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., Galilee became a sparsely populated region. Very little settlement remains exist in the region from the end of the eighth century B.C. to the second century B.C. Phoenician settlements along the Mediterranean coast thrived during this time; but, in the heart of Galilee, little evidence exists for population settlements. At the end of the second century B.C. and the beginning of the first century B.C., the population of Galilee increased in part due to the expansion of the Hasmonean kingdom in Jerusalem. The need for land and population overcrowding led Judeans (Jews) from the south to migrate into Galilee and settle (cf. Matthew 2:22,23). Some settlers took over preexisting villages, like at Yodefat, while other settlements came into existence. These Jewish immigrants joined a small Jewish population already living in Galilee, such that by the end of the first century B.C., Galilee was thoroughly Jewish.³

How do we know the inhabitants of Galilee were Jews? Different archaeological remains identify these inhabitants of Galilee as Jews: coins, stone vessels, Jewish ritual immersion pools (mikva'ot), avoidance of pigs, Jerusalem manufactured lamps, and synagogues. Keep reading