The Geography of Restoration: Galilee–Jerusalem Relations in Early Jewish and Christian Experience

Abstract

This paper discusses Galilee–Jerusalem relations in the context of the ‘geography of restoration’ as this is represented in various Jewish writings of the Second Temple period. The literary and archaeological records for the Jewish presence in Galilee in the Hasmonean and Herodian periods are examined against this ideology of a greater Israel. Finally, the alleged opposition in early Christianity between Galilee and Jerusalem is judged to be poorly grounded when various NT documents are read within this larger horizon of meaning.

A Galilean Messiah?

“…In whatever tribe aliens reside, there you shall assign them their inheritance' (Ez 47. These Jews had to be transported to Jerusalem by Simon, because of hostility from`the people of Ptolemais, Tyre and Sidon and all Galilee of the gentiles' (1 Macc 5,15). 15 This was not the view of the Hasmonean conquerors, however.…”

“…It was outside Galilee in the region of Caesarea that Peter, as spokesperson for the intimate group of the Twelve, acknowledges that he is the Christ (8,29). This leads to the sentence of cruci® xion on the charge of blasphemy, and on his cross the title`King of the Jews' is af® xed (15,26). Peter is ordered to remain silent and Jesus alludes to himself, not as the Christ, but as the Son of Man who will suffer at the hands of the religious authorities in Jerusalem.…”