The Construction of Galilee as a Place for the Historical Jesus—Part I

Abstract

How have scholars understood and constructed Galilee as a place for the historical Jesus? This study traces the development of the image of Galilee from the early nineteenth century until the Third Quest. The picture of Galilee in the nineteenth century was influenced by the major cultural ideas of Europe at the time: colonialism, and the emergence of nationality, ethnicity, and race as categories of identity. Central figures in this period were F. Schleiermacher, D. F. Strauss and E. Renan. Drawing on nineteenth century studies of ethnicity and race in Nazi Germany in the first part of the twentieth century, some scholars portrayed Galilee as a non-Jewish region and the home of a non-Jewish Jesus. This question of race was discredited after World War II, and in the Second Quest there was little interest in Galilee. Jesus was seen over against Judaism merely as a religious system.