Why Was Jesus Based in a Backwater?

Question: Why did Jesus base himself in provincial Galilee? It does seem that his main opposition would have been in Jerusalem. Northern Galilee, including Capernaum, had a largish Gentile presence, which was not Jesus’ primary audience.

Answer: Presumably Jesus ministered mostly in Galilee because it was the region where he grew up and where most of his early followers were from. While it is true that the region had a significant Gentile population, Galilee was also an important centre of Jewish culture and of commerce at the time.

Capernaum was an astute choice of base. It was the residence of several apostles — including his first follower, Andrew, and also Simon Peter — and therefore had an existing infrastructure of housing and social networks.

Moreover, Capernaum was located on the strategically important Via Maris trade route, which stretched from Egypt to Damascus, so there was constant traffic of people who might carry Jesus’ message across great distances.

Still, Galilee was relatively remote from the religious and political centres of power in Jerusalem and Judea. This gave Jesus a certain measure of freedom to spread his teachings and gather a following without drawing the immediate attention of the Jewish religious authorities and Roman rulers who were suspicious of anyone with messianic claims, never mind one performing miracles.

Jesus knew that his ministry was dangerous business. Often he asked the beneficiaries of his miracles to keep their healing a secret. When that was not possible, such as after the feeding of the multitudes or the raising of Lazarus, Jesus went into hiding.

Of course, Jesus also took his ministry out of his base around the sea of Galilee. He went as far north as Tyre, the region of the Phoenicians in present-day Lebanon; he went into Samaria, whose population engaged in mutual enmity with the Jews of Palestine; and he performed miracles in Jericho, near the River Jordan.

The Gospels mention that Jesus travelled to Judea, particularly to Jerusalem and Bethany. But when he performed miracles there — the healings at the pools of Bethesda and Siloam, for example, or the raising of Lazarus — he attracted the hostile attention of the religious authorities. We know how that story ended.

So it made sense for Jesus to concentrate his ministry mostly in a small area on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, where the threat of prosecution by the authorities was smaller than it might have been in Judea.

(Günther Simmermacher)

Published in the August 2023 issue of The Southern Cross magazine