Galilee (;"Galilee". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ; ; ;Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1879), s.v. Galilaea. ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). Other sub-regions are the Western Galilee and the Galilee Panhandle.
Galilee encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel–Mount Gilboa ridge and south of the east–west section of the Litani River. It extends from the Israeli coastal plain and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea with Acre in the west, to the Jordan Valley to the east; and from the Litani in the north plus a piece bordering on the Golan Heights to Dan at the base of Mount Hermon in the northeast, to Mount Carmel and Mount Gilboa in the south.
In some definitions, it may include the plains of the Jezreel Valley north of Jenin and the Beit She'an Valley, the Sea of Galilee, and the Hula Valley.
Etymology The Galilee is first mentioned in Ancient Egyptian inscriptions from the 15th century BC, chronicling the military campaigns led by Tuthmosis III against Canaanite kings in the region. The Egyptian hieroglyphs can either be read as GLL, or the same as in Akkadian: GRR, garāru, meaning 'roll'.
The region's name in , means 'district' or 'circle'. The form used in the Hebrew Bible's Isaiah 8:23 ( in the Christian Old Testament) is in the construct state, leading to "Galilee of the nations", which refers to gentiles who settled there at the time the book was written, either by their own volition or as a result of the resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The region is also referred to as the "land of Naphtali" or "country of Naphtali", in 2 Kings 15:29, after the eponymous tribe of Israel.
The region's Arabic name is الجليل, Al-Jalil, meaning "illustrious" or "grand", and the 1881 Palestine Exploration Fund survey says it is derived from the Hebrew. Ali Fahmi Khashim's 2005 Akkadian-Arabic: A Comparative Dictionary and Introduction gives the root of al-Jalil as meaning "great" and cites it as a cognate of the Sumerian word GAL (cuneiform), also meaning "great".
Borders and geography
The extent of Galilee can be defined in two ways: in more stricter, geological terms, which would exclude the low-lying areas on its margins, or in more fluid historical (political) terms, which are based on the territory's affiliation with one state or administrative unit or another. Either way, it is usually split into Upper Galilee and Lower Galilee. The political-administrative borders of 1st-century Galilee were described by Josephus in his Jewish War:
Most of Galilee consists of rocky terrain, at heights of . Several high mountains are in the region, including Mount Tabor and Mount Meron, which have relatively low temperatures and high rainfall. As a result of this climate, flora and fauna thrive in the region. At the same time, many birds annually migrate from colder climates to Africa and back through the Hula–Jordan corridor. The streams and waterfalls, the latter mainly in Upper Galilee, along with vast fields of greenery and colourful wildflowers, as well as numerous towns of biblical importance, make the region a popular tourist destination.
Due to its high rainfall , mild temperatures and high mountains (Mount Meron's elevation is ), the Upper Galilee region contains some distinctive flora and fauna: prickly juniper (Juniperus oxycedrus), Lebanese cedar (Cedrus libani), which grows in a small grove on Mount Meron, cyclamens, paeonias, and Rhododendron ponticum which sometimes appears on Meron.
Western Galilee () is a modern term referring to the western part of the Upper Galilee and its shore, and usually also the northwestern part of the Lower Galilee, mostly overlapping with Acre sub-district.
Galilee Panhandle, in Hebrew Finger of the Galilee, is a common term referring to the "panhandle" in the east that extends to the north, where Lebanon is to the west, and includes Hula Valley and Ramot Naftali mountains of the Upper Galilee.
History
Iron Age
1 Kings 9 states that Solomon rewarded his Phoenician ally, King Hiram I of Sidon, with twenty cities in the land of Galilee, which would then have been either settled by foreigners during and after the reign of Hiram or by those who had been forcibly deported there by later conquerors such as the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Hiram, to reciprocate previous gifts given to David, accepted the upland plain among the Naftali Mountains and renamed it "the land of Cabul" for a time.Rawlinson, George (1889). "Phoenicia under the hegemony of Tyre (B.C. 1252–877)". History of Phoenicia.
In the Iron Age II, Galilee was part of the Kingdom of Israel, which fell to the Assyrians. Archaeological survey conducted by Zvi Gal in Lower Galilee indicates that the area became deserted following the Assyrian conquest in the 8th century and remained so for several centuries; the local Israelite population was carried off to Assyria after 732 BCE.Zvi Gal, Lower Galilee during the Iron Age (American Schools of Oriental Research Dissertation Series 8; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1992), p. 108Jensen, M. H. (2014). The Political History in Galilee from the First Century BCE to the end of the Second Century CE. Galilee in the late Second Temple and Mishnaic periods. Volume 1. Life, culture and society, pp. 51–77 Yardenna Alexandre discovered minor short-lived Israelite settlements in the Naḥal Ẓippori basin, which were built by survivors of the Assyrian conquest. Elsewhere, Galilee was depopulated. But there is evidence of Assyrian presence, based on artefacts in Cana, and Konrad Schmid and Jens Schroter believe it was likely that Assyrians settled in the region.
Hellenistic period Up until the end of the Hellenistic period and before the Hasmonean conquest, the Galilee was sparsely populated, with the majority of its inhabitants concentrated in large fortified centers on the edges of the western and central valleys. Based on archaeological evidence from Tel Anafa, Kedesh, and ash-Shuhara, the Upper Galilee was then home to a pagan population with close ties to the Phoenician coast.
Hasmonean period
During the expansion of the Hasmonean kingdom of Judea, much of the Galilee region was conquered and annexed by the first Hasmonean king Aristobulus I (104–103 BCE). Following the Hasmonean conquest, there was a significant Jewish influx into the area. Sites including Yodfat, Meiron, Sepphoris, Shikhin, Qana, Bersabe, Zalmon, Mimlah, Migdal, Arbel, Kefar Hittaya, and Beth Ma'on have archaeological-chronological evidence for this settlement wave.
Josephus, who based his account on Timagenes of Alexandria, claimed that Aristobulus I had forcibly converted the Itureans to Judaism while annexing a portion of their territory. Schürer believed this information to be accurate and came to the conclusion that the "Jewish" Galilee of Jesus' day was actually inhabited by the offspring of those same Iturean converts. Other scholars have suggested that the Itureans underwent a voluntary conversion to Judaism in the Upper Galilee, or at the very least in the Eastern Upper Galilee. However, archaeological information does not support either proposal, as Iturean material culture has been identified clearly in the northern Golan Heights and Mount Hermon, and not in the Galilee, and it is clear that this area remained outside Hasmonean borders.
Roman period Early Roman period In the early Roman period, Galilee was predominantly Jewish. Archaeological evidence from multiple sites reveals Jewish customs, including the use of limestone vessels, ritual baths for purity, and secondary burial practices. A significant wave of Jewish settlement arrived in the region following the Roman conquest of 63 BCE. Large towns such as Kefar Hananya, Parod, Ravid, Mashkaneh, Sabban, and Tiberias were established by the end of the first century BCE or the start of the first century CE. By the end of the first century CE, the Galilee was dotted with small towns and villages. While Josephus writes there were 204 small towns, modern scholars consider this an exaggeration.
Galilee's economy under Roman rule thrived on a combination of agriculture, fishing, and specialized crafts. Excavations in villages like Nazareth have revealed extensive agricultural infrastructure, including numerous olive presses and granaries. Olive was extensively grown in parts of Upper Galilee. Many towns and villages, particularly those around the Sea of Galilee benefited from both fertile land and a thriving fishing industry. In Tarichaea (Magdala), salted, dried, and pickled fish were significant export goods. Galilee also had specialized production centers. Shihin, near Sepphoris, produced most of the region's storage jars. Kefar Hananya in Upper Galilee manufactured various tableware forms, supplying markets across Galilee, the Golan Heights, the Decapolis, coastal areas, and the Beth Shean Valley.
Josephus describes the Jewish population of Galilee as being nationalist and hostile to Jewish city-dwellers, making them the first target for the Romans during the Jewish-Roman wars. Bargil Pixner believes they descended from a Davidic Jewish clan from Babylon. But according to archaeological and literary evidence, upper and lower Galilee were 'very much in constant touch with the gentile, Greek-speaking cities that surrounded them.' Many Galileans were bilingual and made daily contacts with Jerusalem and gentiles around the Roman territory.
Markus Cromhout states that while Galileans, Judeans and diasporic Judeans were all Jewish, the Galileans had their unique social, political and economic matrix. In terms of ethnicity, Galileans were ethnic Judeans, which generally saw themselves also as Israelites, but could be also identified with localized characteristics, such as Sepphorean. Others argue that Galileans and Judeans were distinct people groups. Outsiders generally conflated them due to Hellenistic-Roman culture, which grouped all diverse groups in Palestine and their related diasporas as "Judean".
In 4 BCE, a rebel named Judah plundered Galilee's largest city, Sepphoris. According to Josephus, the Syrian governor Publius Quinctilius Varus responded by sacking Sepphoris and selling the population into slavery, but the region's archaeology lacks evidence of such destruction.Eric M. Meyers,'Sepphoris on the Eve of the Great Revolt (67–68 C.E.): Archaeology and Josephus,' in Eric M. Meyers,Galilee Through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures, Eisenbrauns, 1999 pp.109ff., p. 114: (Josephus, Ant. 17.271–87; War 2.56–69). After the death of Herod the Great that same year, his son Herod Antipas was appointed as tetrarch of Galilee by the Roman emperor Augustus. Galilee remained a Roman client state and Antipas paid tribute to the Roman Empire in exchange for Roman protection.
The Romans did not station troops in Galilee, but threatened to retaliate against anyone who attacked it. As long as he continued to pay tribute, Antipas was permitted to govern however he wished and was permitted to mint his own coinage. Antipas was relatively observant of Jewish laws and customs. Although his palace was decorated with animal carvings, which many Jews regarded as a transgression against the law prohibiting idols, his coins bore only agricultural designs, which his subjects deemed acceptable.