The Reasoning Behind Jesus' Focus On Galilee In The Context Of Easter

I've written about how Isaiah 9:1 seems to be behind Jesus' focus on Galilee in the context of his resurrection appearances. Notice a few aspects of the references to Galilee:

- Jesus names Galilee as a place where he'll appear to his disciples after he rises from the dead (Mark 14:28).
- He designates a particular location within Galilee and makes arrangements for his disciples to meet him there (Matthew 28:16).
- The angels at the tomb reinforce the upcoming Galilee appearance (Mark 16:7).
- Jesus reinforces it even as he appears first to a group outside Galilee (Matthew 28:10).

It's not just that Galilee and a specific portion of it are singled out and reinforced so much, but also that the singling out and reinforcement occur in spite of the fact that Jesus died and rose in Jerusalem and made his first appearance there. So, it seems that there was a desire to focus on Galilee and keep that focus going even when various circumstances favored a focus on some other location or no location at all. I've argued that Jesus' viewing himself as the figure of Isaiah 9:1-7 is the best explanation for the focus on Galilee in the context of his resurrection.

One alternative to the Isaiah 9 explanation is that Jesus was focused on Galilee because of having grown up there and having lived there as an adult. In other words, he had the same kind of commitment, sentimentality, and such that many people have toward locations where they've lived. As I explained in my earlier post linked above, one problem with such a view is that it just pushes the question back a step. Why was Jesus so focused on Galilee earlier in his life? And was it just a coincidence that his locations of residence lined up so well with Isaiah 9:1? Another problem with the sort of alternative explanation under consideration here is that Jesus speaks so negatively of Nazareth and Capernaum:

"Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown [Nazareth] and among his own relatives and in his own household.' And he could do no miracle there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he wondered at their unbelief." (Mark 6:4-6)

"Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles were done, because they did not repent….'And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.'" (Matthew 11:20, 11:23-24)

As I explained above, Jesus goes out of his way to place a focus on Galilee in the context of his resurrection appearances. Passages like the ones just quoted make some sort of high view of the Galilean cities he lived in or some kind of sentimentality toward them a weaker explanation for why he was so focused on Galilee.

Something like the popularity of Jesus in Galilee or the potential for the Christian movement to grow there also seems to be a weaker explanation than Isaiah 9. Galilee was a relatively small region without many people and with a somewhat bad reputation. One of the points being made in Jesus' condemnation of the Galilean cities mentioned in Matthew 11, as quoted above, is that those regions were unusually opposed to Jesus (Matthew 11:20). Relative to the number of miracles done there, they were more unresponsive to Jesus than other regions. The theme Jesus brought up in Mark 6:4 is applicable beyond Nazareth.

Most likely, he lived in Nazareth (in the region of Zebulun) and Capernaum (in the region of Naphtali) to fulfill Isaiah 9:1, even though the cities were so corrupt, and his ongoing commitment to Galilee in the context of his resurrection probably had more to do with Isaiah 9 than with anything like sentimentality, commitment to locations where he had lived, where he had been most popular, or where his movement had the most potential to grow. And his identifying himself as the figure of Isaiah 9 has major implications for how he viewed himself, who we should believe he is, the historicity of the infancy narratives, the connectedness between those narratives and the accounts of Jesus' adulthood, and other significant issues.

Notice that the alignment between Isaiah 9 and the emphasis on Galilee in the context of Jesus' resurrection has evidential significance even if I'm wrong about Jesus' intending the Galilean emphasis primarily as a fulfillment of Isaiah 9. Even if the alignment with Isaiah 9 wasn't Jesus' primary intention, the Galilean emphasis still had the effect of increasing the degree to which Jesus' life aligns with the passage in Isaiah. In other words, the Galilean emphasis in this Easter context increases the case for the significance of Isaiah 9 either way.