How early were Christians known as Galileans?

[StephenGoranson]

One possibility: Julian, who sought to let the Temple in Jerusalem be restored and to return to more or less "old-time-religions" may have found calling Christians Galileans a convenient way of distinguishing them from Jews/Judeans and from Hellenes, using parallel geographic forms.(?)

[Ben C. Smith]

Judas the Galilean was the author of the fourth branch of Jewish philosophy. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kinds of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord. (Antiquities 18.23)

60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:60)

According to Epictetus, the Galileans are obstinate unto death; according to Marcus Aurelius, the Christians are obstinate unto death. And now you are pointing out that the "movement" inaugurated by Judas the Galilean involved people who "reckoned as little the undergoing of various kinds of deaths" (θανάτων τε ἰδέας ὑπομένειν παρηλλαγμένας ἐν ὀλίγῳ τίθενται). Is this another coincidence? What do you think?

[Ben C. Smith]

One possibility: Julian, who sought to let the Temple in Jerusalem be restored and to return to more or less "old-time-religions" may have found calling Christians Galileans a convenient way of distinguishing them from Jews/Judeans and from Hellenes, using parallel geographic forms.(?)

The parallel geographical designations would be interesting. I could imagine myself, in Julian's position, doing something like that.

What do you think of Epictetus' mention of Galileans, then? Whom does he mean?

[lsayre]

According to Epictetus, the Galileans are obstinate unto death; according to Marcus Aurelius, the Christians are obstinate unto death. And now you are pointing out that the "movement" inaugurated by Judas the Galilean involved people who "reckoned as little the undergoing of various kinds of deaths" (θανάτων τε ἰδέας ὑπομένειν παρηλλαγμένας ἐν ὀλίγῳ τίθενται). Is this another coincidence? What do you think?

I'm leaning toward it not being a coincidence. And for the fourth philosophy being proto-Christian. And for there being ties between being called a Galilean and (later) being called a Christian.

[Charles Wilson]

https://books.google.com/books?id=YrrRa ... ee&f=false

Assuming that the URL gets you to the right spot, it still appears to me that the Expansionary Plans of Jannaeus were rewritten to a Roman end. The wonderful Tell-Tale that Peter is Galilean for "...your accent betrays you..." finds the Priests are in Galilee because the Settlements were assigned to the Priests. Galilee, "Greater Israel", is being Appropriated for the purpose of embedding a Culture that could not so easily be dislodged.

With the Transvaluation of the New Religion, the Priestly Groups must be reassigned beliefs. In short, "Galilean Christians" appear when the New Religion appears. They were not called GCs before that and the Hasmoneans who occupied this "Greater Israel" would have been astonished to hear this "news".

[rakovsky]

Here is how Josephus introduces Judas the Galilean in Book 17 of the Antiquities:

There was also Judas, (16) the son of that Ezekias who had been head of the robbers; which Ezekias was a very strong man, and had with great dificulty been caught by Herod. This Judas, having gotten together a multitude of men of a profligate character about Sepphoris in Galilee, made an assault upon the palace [there,] and seized upon all the weapons that were laid up in it, and with them armed every one of those that were with him, and carried away what money was left there; and he became terrible to all men, by tearing and rending those that came near him; and all this in order to raise himself, and out of an ambitious desire of the royal dignity; and he hoped to obtain that as the reward not of his virtuous skill in war, but of his extravagance in doing injuries.

Whiston's footnote:
Unless this Judas, the son of Ezekias, be the same with that Theudas, mentioned Acts 5:36, Josephus must have omitted him; for that other Thoualas, whom he afterward mentions, under Fadus the Roman governor, B. XX. ch. 5. sect. 1, is much too late to correspond to him that is mentioned in the Acts. The names Theudas, Thaddeus, and Judas differ but little. See Archbishop Usher's Annals at A.M. 4001. However, since Josephus does not pretend to reckon up the heads of all those ten thousand disorders in Judea, which he tells us were then abroad, see sect. 4 and 8, the Theudas of the Acts might be at the head of one of those seditions, though not particularly named by him. Thus he informs us here, sect. 6, and Of the War, B. II. ch. 4. Sect. 2, that certain of the seditious came and burnt the royal palace at Amsthus, or Betharamphta, upon the river Jordan. Perhaps their leader, who is not named by Josephus, might be this Theudas.

Loeb's footnote is that this character appears to be the Judas the Galilean who created the fourth religious group in Palestine in that era.

However, the traits and descriptions that I put in bold above seem very different than what one would associate with the Christians' qualities. The Christians did not seem to be an anti-Roman rebel group killing each other and stealing sums of money to declare someone named "Judas" a ruler.
So:
Is this the Judas who supposedly created the fourth religious caste of Palestine in the 1st century?
Is that religious caste related to the Christians?
Is this the same group that Epictetus had in mind?
What is one to make of the numerous times that "Christians" are also called not just Nazarenes, but also given the title of Galileans in the sense of a sect by that name?

One possible answer: The "Galileans" were in fact a religious movement of whom Judas the Galilean, as well as Jesus and the Christians, were each different leaders and components. Maybe the Christians were a subset of the religious movement called Galileans?

[John2]

rakovsky wrote:

However, the traits and descriptions that I put in bold above seem very different than what one would associate with the Christians' qualities. The Christians did not seem to be an anti-Roman rebel group killing each other and stealing sums of money to declare someone named "Judas" a ruler.
So:
Is this the Judas who supposedly created the fourth religious caste of Palestine in the 1st century?
Is that religious caste related to the Christians?
Is this the same group that Epictetus had in mind?
What is one to make of the numerous times that "Christians" are also called not just Nazarenes, but also given the title of Galileans in the sense of a sect by that name?

One possible answer: The "Galileans" were in fact a religious movement of whom Judas the Galilean, as well as Jesus and the Christians, were each different leaders and components. Maybe the Christians were a subset of the religious movement called Galileans?

I see it exactly as you put it. Given that the Fourth Philosophy existed for over sixty years, the various messiah-types that appeared over the course of that time, and the Fourth Philosophic factional strife that existed, I wouldn't suppose everyone liked or followed Judas or Theudas or Jesus or whoever, even though I see them all in the big picture as being under the same Fourth Philosophic tent, just like Orthodox Judaism has various streams and rabbis (and even messiahs). In my view the Fourth Philosophy was literally a new covenant, one that evolved and was understood in various ways over the sixty years leading up to the 66-70 CE war, with one version of it being Christianity. Karaite Judaism is commonly thought to have begun with Anan ben David, and whether or not that was the case, I gather that most modern Karaites, such as Nehemia Gordon, don't necessarily see themselves as followers of Anan.

Then in the 8th century a last glimmer of hope appeared in the form of a shrewd leader named Anan ben David. Anan organized various non-Talmudic groups and lobbied the Caliphate to establish a second Exilarchate for those who refused to live according to the Talmud's man-made laws. The Muslims granted Anan and his followers the religious freedom to practice Judaism in the way of their anscestors. Anan himself was not a Karaite; although Anan rejected the Talmud he used similar irrational methods of interpreting Scripture as the Rabbis, such as intentionally taking words out of context. Anan's followers became known as Ananites and this group continued to exist down until the 10th century. On the other hand, those Jews who continued to practice the Tanach-based religion of their anscestors became known as Bnei Mikra ("Followers of Scripture") which was also abbreviated as Karaim ("Scripturalists"), in English "Karaites". This name derived from the old Hebrew word for the Hebrew Bible: Mikra, Kara. The name Karaim, meaning "Scripturalists", distinguished these Jews from the camp of the Rabbis who called themselves Rabaniyin ("Followers of the Rabbis") or Talmudiyin ("Followers of the Talmud").

http://karaite-korner.org/history.shtml

[rakovsky]

I see it exactly as you put it. Given that the Fourth Philosophy existed for over sixty years, the various messiah-types that appeared over the course of that time, and the Fourth Philosophic factional strife that existed, I wouldn't suppose everyone liked or followed Judas or Theudas or Jesus or whoever, even though I see them all in the big picture as being under the same Fourth Philosophic tent, just like Orthodox Judaism has various streams and rabbis (and even messiahs). In my view the Fourth Philosophy was literally a new covenant, one that evolved and was understood in various ways over the sixty years leading up to the 66-70 CE war, with one version of it being Christianity. Karaite Judaism is commonly thought to have begun with Anan ben David, and whether or not that was the case, I gather that most modern Karaites, such as Nehemia Gordon, don't necessarily see themselves as followers of Anan.

Then in the 8th century a last glimmer of hope appeared in the form of a shrewd leader named Anan ben David. Anan organized various non-Talmudic groups and lobbied the Caliphate to establish a second Exilarchate for those who refused to live according to the Talmud's man-made laws. The Muslims granted Anan and his followers the religious freedom to practice Judaism in the way of their anscestors. Anan himself was not a Karaite; although Anan rejected the Talmud he used similar irrational methods of interpreting Scripture as the Rabbis, such as intentionally taking words out of context. Anan's followers became known as Ananites and this group continued to exist down until the 10th century. On the other hand, those Jews who continued to practice the Tanach-based religion of their anscestors became known as Bnei Mikra ("Followers of Scripture") which was also abbreviated as Karaim ("Scripturalists"), in English "Karaites". This name derived from the old Hebrew word for the Hebrew Bible: Mikra, Kara. The name Karaim, meaning "Scripturalists", distinguished these Jews from the camp of the Rabbis who called themselves Rabaniyin ("Followers of the Rabbis") or Talmudiyin ("Followers of the Talmud").

http://karaite-korner.org/history.shtml

Good point, John 2. If you think about The Renaissance in Europe, it might be hard to really name a single "founder" of it. Maybe the same is true with the Reformation. People might say that Luther founded the Reformation, but that is not necessarily true, because there were other nonLutheran Protestant movements at the time.

Think about the Nazarenes. Jesus was said to be from Nazareth. But maybe Nazareth was a Nazarene settlement whose Nazarene qualities predated Jesus' birth. The Christians could have been called Nazarenes, but it originally might not have meant that all Nazarenes were Christians. But over time with the growth of Christianity, maybe eventually there weren't any of the Nazarene sect left outside the Christian circles. That may have happened to John the Baptist's movement, unless you count the Mandaeans as having a genuine legacy to John the Baptist independent of Christianity.

[rakovsky]

Ben, LOEB's edition recommends: Kennard, JS, Jr, "Judas of Galilee and His Clan," Jew. Quart. Rev. 36 (1945-6), 281-286.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1452114?se ... b_contents

[Ben C. Smith]

Thanks.