Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 31:121 (Jan 1874)
Article: Galilee In The Time Of Christ
Author: Selah Merrill

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Galilee In The Time Of Christ

Rev. Selah Merrill

I. Introduction

One gets, in general, a very poor impression of Galilee from the allusions made to it in commentaries and sermons. The province is spoken of as having been, in the time of our Lord, one of the most “obscure” and “despised” of the Roman empire; and Nazareth has the misfortune of being represented as then an “insignificant village,” whose inhabitants were “ignorant,” and even “immoral.” Such is, perhaps, the general impression of Galilee; but it is far enough from the truth. The writers of the Gospels invariably speak of Nazareth as a “city” (πόλις). and in no case do they call it a “village” (κώμη); and it is quite probable that its population amounted to fifteen or twenty thousand

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souls. As to the province itself, it was in Christ’s time one of the gardens of the world — well watered, exceedingly fertile, thoroughly cultivated, and covered with a dense population.

The object of this paper is sufficiently indicated by its title. It may be said, however, that the subject could hardly be confined to the dates which bound the life of Christ. We must be allowed to illustrate our subject, to some extent, at least, both by what preceded this period, — say, during the life of Herod the Great, — and by what followed it, even to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Still, our sole object is to set forth Galilee as it was during the life of our Lord.

The work now proposed has never, so far as we are aware, been thoroughly done; and almost the only attempts in this field are those of Hausrath and Keim. But the former is very brief (hardly ten pages); and the latter, although a little fuller (about sixteen pages) does not pretend to exhaust the subject. We have patiently searched in every direction for facts which might illustrate this country at the time when “Jesus went everywhere among its cities and villages, teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.” But it will be seen that, instead of putting the statements of the Gospels foremost, we have kept them in reserve, and have sought to gather from all external sources those facts by which to light up the background against which the statements of the Gospels rest. We give below a brief notice of the principal books which have served us in our labors:

Keim, “Gesehichte Jesu von Nazara,” 3 vols. Zurich, 1867–1872. Hausrath, “Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte,” vol. i. Heidelberg, 1868; vol. ii. ibid. 1872. Neubauer, “La Géographie du Talmud,” 1 vol. Paris, 1868. Ritter, “Geography of Palestine,” Trans, by W. L. Gage, N. Y., 18...