8He first finds his brother Simon and saith to him, We have found;
9and brought him to Jesus. And Jesus, looking at him, said: You are Simon the son of Jonah; you will be called Cephas, which means: a stone (Peter).
10The next day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee
11Philip was from Bethsaida, from the same city with Andrew and Peter.
12 Philip finds Nathanael and says to him: We have found Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth.
13 But Nathanael said to him, Can anything good be out of Nazareth? Philip says to him: go and see.
14Jesus, seeing Nathanael coming to Him, says of him: Behold, indeed, in whom there is no guile.
15Nathanael saith to him, Why do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him: Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.
16Nathanael answered him, Rabbi! You are the Son of God
17 Jesus answered and said to him: You believe, because I told you: I saw you under a fig tree; you will see more than this.
That’s all!
John, chapter 2
In this chapter, a very important event takes place – a miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Small everyday details, very vital and obviously not invented, convince in the reliability of the narrative.
“1 On the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and His disciples were also called to the marriage” – what disciples could be “called to the marriage”, if they had just started to be with Him? Three – John, Andrew and Simon – on the second day counting from the meeting of Jesus with John; two more – Philip and Nataniel – on the very third day in question; there is also John’s brother James or Jacob (Zebedee), who is not mentioned here. Also, apparently, Thomas – we will meet with him later, but he comes from the same place, which follows from the list of the disciples who returned to Galilee from Jerusalem after the Passion of Jesus: (John 21,2) “and Nathanael from Cana of Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two others from His disciples”– it is obvious that Thomas belongs to the same company. The mentioned ‘two others’ are, presumably, all the same Philip and someone else from the Galileans, not named. In total – eight. Jesus’ mother was invited to the wedding, and this is understandable – but what does Jesus and his disciples have to do with it? And another question – why is Mary invited alone, without her husband?
Apparently, the father of Jesus, conditionally – Joseph, since information about him is found only from records by the synoptics, who we have no faith in, by that time he had already died, Mary remained a widow, but it was indecent for the woman to appear alone at the wedding, and Jesus, as the eldest son, had to accompany her. And the disciples, as is typical of youth, simply followed him – it is more fun together. In the future, we will return to this assumption; there is confirmation of it in the text.
By the way, we note that it is the presence of Jesus at the wedding that destroys the pious legend about the origin of His brothers and sisters as step-siblings: as if Joseph had them from the first marriage and then married Mary after his first wife died; and that Mary gave birth without husband’s participation; and therefore Jesus was the “youngest” in Joseph’s family. No, he was precisely the eldest son, the duty to protect the honor of the mother passed to Him from the late father in seniority – and that is why He, the only one of Mary’s children, accompanies her at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. And he was born, like his younger siblings, from their father, Maria’s husband, in a legal marriage.
“3 And as there was a lack of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him: they have no wine. 4 Jesus said to her: what is to me and you, woman? My hour has not yet come. 5 His mother said to the attendants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
There are many meanings hidden in this small episode.
A wedding is an expensive and even ruinous business for a poor family – and then Jesus brings with him a whole bunch of guys who are not shy to eat and drink. And Mary feels awkward in front of the family of the newly-wed, feels guilty for the lack on the table that was not prepared for a whole group of extra strangers – and therefore she turns to Jesus with reproach, hinting that the lack happened because of them. Jesus answers her, as modern sons do to their mothers in a similar situation: “This is not our problem,” and adds that His “hour has not come,” that is, the time has not yet come for what? For what happens next. That is, these two KNOW. They know that Jesus is the Son of God and that EVERYTHING in this world is available to Him. And therefore, Mary, without entering into an argument, puts Him in a position without a choice: His duty to correct the created inconvenience for her is obvious, and He has no right to refuse, even referring to the untimeliness of His Divine intervention. She no longer speaks to Him, but to the attendants: do as He tells you. Well, he won’t send them to the store for wine, will he? And they don’t have much money to get the whole feast drunk.
And Jesus humbles himself before his mother’s will.
“6 There were six stone waterpots here, standing according to the Jewish custom of cleansing, containing two or three measures” – what kind of Jewish customs can be obeyed in pagan Galilee?
In general, a separate comment should be made on this topic, since the absurd insertions about Jewish customs and similar points will continue to appear often. Therefore, you need to understand what Galilee was in the time of Jesus. In order not to delve into a major historical study, let’s take a brief reference from Wikipedia:
“Galilee is a historical area in the north of Israel. In the 3rd millennium BC. e. Galilee was settled by the Canaanites. In the 2nd millennium BC. e. here the Hurrians, Hittites and Egyptians appear. Then the country comes to the attention of the Israeli tribes and is included in the kingdom of Israel. In 722 BC. e. Galilee is part of the Assyrian state, the local population is evicted and replaced by Assyrian colonists. In 539 BC. e. Galilee comes under the rule of Persia. In 333 BC. e. from the Persians, Galileo was captured by the troops of Alexander the Great, and the colonization of the lands by Greek and Macedonian colonists began. After this period, Galilee changed hands several times between the Hellenistic dynasties of the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Syrian Seleucids, until the conquest of Galilee by Rome in 63 BC. e.
From the reign of the Hasmoneans and the Maccabean Wars to the conquest by Roman troops in 63 BC. e. Galilee was repeatedly subjected to predatory raids by the Kingdom of Judah. In the 1st century A.D. e. Judas Galilean[42]together with several Jewish priests, started riots in the city of Sepphoris, which provoked the arrival of Roman troops in Galilee, as a result of which it was devastated, most of the local population was killed, and the rest were sold into slavery by the Romans. From the period of the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in the 70s A.D. e. begins the mass migration of Jews to the devastated Galilee, the development of the territories of Galilee and Samaria, the development and construction of synagogues. In 636, Galilee was annexed to the Jordanian province of the Caliphate.”
This publication builds on a fundamental study of the history of Galilee[43], from which and others like it it is composed.
Is everything clear, it seems? There were no Jews in Galilee in the time of Jesus and could not have been. They were there only with robber raids, like bandits – and, of course, the Galilean population treated them like enemies. And the Galileans themselves were a mix of languages, which is why the Jews also called ths land “Galilee pagan.” In Galilee, apparently, representatives of many nations lived alongside, with their gods, faiths and religions, among which only one was missing –