GALILEAN(S), the name applied by both Jews and Gentiles to the inhabitants of the portion of Syria-Pal. N of the Plain of Esdraelon and the Valley of Jezreel, and spreading E to the shores of the Lake of Galilee and W to the Mediterranean Sea. This area was little settled by the Jews after the return from the Exile. John Hyrcanus and his successors, such as Alexander Jannaeus, conquered this area and incorporated its mixed population of Aramaeans and Hel. peoples into the Jewish state. The VS of the OT known as the Aram. Targums was popular among these people. Although they were thereafter Jews their mother tongue was Aram. Under the Hasmonaean state many Jews from the S migrated and settled in Galilee and thus became Galileans. Pharisaism and the anti-Hel. and Rom. movements, such as the Zealots, flourished among the hill people of Galilee so that the revolutionary leader and founder of the Zealots was himself called Judas of Galilee. Josephus in a famous excursus distinguishes between Northern and Southern Galilee (Jos. War, Exc. II). All the inhabitants were known by the term, Gr. Γαλιλαῖος, G1134, derived from Heb. גְּלִ֖יל הַגּﯴיִֽם, “Galilee of the Gentiles” or more properly, “The District of the Gentiles.” The inhabitants of this area even though subsequently Jews and loyal to Israel always were considered somewhat inferior by the more southerly countrymen. Josephus, however, who was of Galilean descent himself wrote, “...the Galilaeans are fighters from the cradle and at all times numerous, and never has cowardice afflicted the men or a declining population the country” (Jos. War, Exc. II, G.A. Williamson tr.). At one point Josephus was, in fact, the governor of Galilee. The region and its peoples are mentioned outside the Gospel narratives (Acts 9:31; 10:37; 13:31). It was to these people that John the Baptist a nd Jesus Christ had preached and from this group that the first circle of our Lord’s disciples were drawn and His closest apostles chosen. Apparently Joseph was from a family that had migrated from Bethlehem in Judea to Galilee, as shown by his return there with Mary upon the command of Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:4) Since farming, herding and fishing were the common callings of the country folk of Galilee, their experiences are apparent in Jesus’ parables. In all four of the gospels, and in Acts, it is clear that Galileans were easily distinguishable to their fellow Jews by their speech. The classic passage is, of course, the accusation by the bystanders against Simon Peter and his denial (Mark 14:70; Luke 22:59). The characteristic of this speech was no doubt its Aram. vocabulary, accent and syntax. The direct speeches of Jesus Christ recorded in the gospels (Mark 5:41 and 15:34), as well as the strong Aramaisms which were tr. into Gr. (e.g. John 3:3ff.), leave little doubt that our Lord’s mother tongue was this same Galilean Aram. Their use of this Aram. marked the Galileans not only linguistically but also religiously, as they seem to have utilized the Aram. VS of the OT. This concept of the Galilean origin of the apostolic language and band possibly was known to some of the Rom. authors of the time, but is not commented upon by any of the pre-Nicene Fathers of the Church. After the Rom. overthrow of the Jewish state in a.d. 70, many Jews and Jewish Christians fled from Jerusalem to Galilee, thus making the Galileans a center of the Jewish culture. Interest in Galilee and the Galileans was renewed after the introduction of the now discredited “Galilean Hypothesis” by the romantic author, E. Renan, La vie de Jesus (1863). See Galilee.

Bibliography E. Stapfer, Palestine in the Time of Christ (1885); D. Baly, Geographical Companion to the Bible (1963); C. F. Pfeiffer and H. F. Vos, The Wycliffe Historical Geography of Bible Lands (1967).