Galilean

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Generically, a Galilean is an inhabitant of Galilee.

Galileans (or Galilæans) were members of a fanatical sect (Zealots), followers of Judas 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.

The term was used by late antique pagan reactionaries such as the Emperor Julian as a contemptuous synonym for Christian.

Galilean, as an adjective, describes some aspects of mathematics or astronomy associated with Galileo: see for example Galilean moons and Galilean transformation.

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 of Edom east of the Dead Sea. John Hyrcanus forced the Gentile Galileans and Idumeans to convert to Judaism-the only forcible mass conversion in the history of Judaism. In the time of Jesus 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 against Rome. They fought the Romans to the death when many Judeans were ready to accept peace terms.

The Galileans were fiercly loyal to Judaism. They undoubtedly were meticulous in fulfilling the essential demands of Judaism, such as Sabbath observance. The Pharisaic scholars of Judaism, centered in Jerusalem and Judea, found the Galileans to be insufficiently concerned about the details of Jewish observance-for example, the rules of Sabbath rest. The Talmud says that Yohanan ben Zakkai, a great Pharisee 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!" (Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 16:7, 15d). The Pharisaic criticism of Galileans is mirrored in the New 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.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.