- Galilean
Galileans (or Galilæans) were members of a fanatical sect (
Zealot s), followers ofJudas of Galilee , who fiercely resented the taxation of the Romans, and whose violence contributed to induce the latter to vow the extermination of the whole race.More generically, a Galilean is an inhabitant of
Galilee ."Galilean", as an adjective, describes some aspects of
mathematics orastronomy associated with Galileo: see for exampleGalilean moons andGalilean transformation .When the United Kingdom was divided during the reign of Rehoboam, Galilee became a part of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Southern Kingdom was Judah, which continued to be ruled by the descendants of David. The Northern Kingdom, under Jeroboam and subsequent ungodly kings, turned to false worship. Israel did not do much better, although some of her kings were godly men. When both kingdoms became corrupt, God began to warn of a coming day of judgment, a day when God would use the Assyrians as His instrument of judgment, carrying the people of the Northern Kingdom into captivity. The Assyrians would threaten Judah and Jerusalem but would not succeed in sacking that city.
Galilee was not considered a place of status. As Frederick Bruner put it,
Galilee is a strange place for a Messiah to work. There is no early rabbinic reference to the Messiah’s appearing or working in Galilee. Galilee was not just geographically far from Jerusalem; it was considered spiritually and politically far, too. Galilee was the most pagan of the Jewish provinces, located as it was at the northernmost tier of Palestine. This distance from Zion was not only geographic; Galileans were considered by Judaeans to sit rather loosely to the law and to be less biblically pure than those in or near Jerusalem. Finally, Galilee was notorious for being the nest of revolution and the haunt of Zealot revolutionary movements. Just a few years before Jesus’ birth, Sephoris, capital city of Galilee, had been led in revolt by Judas of Galilee against the Roman government and had brought Galilee into defeat and many of the people of God into shame.
The Galilee up until the time of
Jesus After some early expeditions to Galilee to save the Jews there from attack, the
Hasmonean rulers conquered Galilee and added it to their kingdom. They also conquered Idumea, the ancient kingdom ofEdom east of theDead Sea .John Hyrcanus forced the Gentile Galileans and Idumeans to convert toJudaism -the only forcible mass conversion in the history ofJudaism . In the time ofJesus Galilee contained many Jews whose ancestors had only been Jewish for about a century.It does not seem that the Galileans and Idumeans resisted their conversion. During the
Great Rebellion (66-70 CE) the Galileans and Idumeans were the most adamant fighters againstRome . They fought theRomans to the death when manyJudeans were ready to accept peace terms.The Galileans were fiercly loyal to
Judaism . They undoubtedly were meticulous in fulfilling the essential demands ofJudaism , such as Sabbath observance. ThePharisaic scholars ofJudaism , centered inJerusalem andJudea , found theGalileans to be insufficiently concerned about the details of Jewish observance-for example, the rules of Sabbath rest. TheTalmud says thatYohanan ben Zakkai , a greatPharisee of the first century, was assigned to a post in Galilee during his training. In eighteen years he was asked only two questions of Jewish law, causing him to lament "O Galilee, O Galilee, in the end you shall be filled with wrongdoers!" (JerusalemTalmud Shabbat 16:7, 15d). ThePharisaic criticism of Galileans is mirrored in theNew Testament , in which Galilean religious passion is compared favorably against the minute concerns of Judean legal scholars. This was the heart of a friendly "crosstown" rivalry existing between Galilean Zealots and Judean Pharisees.
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