GALILEE. - Historical name designating the portion of the Palestinian plateau north of the plain of Esdrelon. The name Gálíl ("circle," "district"), originally reserved for the mountainous country of Naphtali, was gradually extended to the country of Chabul (1 Kings 9:11), to the district of Zebulun and to the whole territory near the lake of Gennesaret (Isa. 8:23). Inhabited for the most part by pagans, it was called gálíl hag-gójim "Galilee of the Gentiles" (Isa. 9:1; 1 Macc. 5:14; Matt. 4:16).
With the invasion of Tiglath-Pileser III it became an Assyrian province (2 Kings 15:20). The few Jews who, on the return from exile, had settled in G. were in 150 transferred by Simon Maccabeus to Judea (1 Macc. 5:14-25). Aristobulus I (104-105) forced the inhabitants to convert to Judaism (Fl. Josephus, Antip. Jud., XIII, 11, 3) and at the time of Queen Alexandra G. was for the most part Jewish. Included in the Kingdom of Herod, at his death it was subjected to his son Herod Antipas (v.). Politically divided into upper and lower G. by the line Tiberias - Acre (Ptolemais), it bordered to the north with the territory of Tyre, to the south with Samaria, to the west with Phoenicia and to the east with the frontier of the Kingdom of Agrippa (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Jud., III, 3, 1). It was so densely populated that, according to the figures - certainly exaggerated - of Fl. Josephus, each village counted more than 15,000 inhabitants (Vita, XIII, 14, 32). The Galileans had a special dialect or pronunciation (Matt. 14:70; Luke 22:59) and because of their very liberal spirit were little esteemed by conservative Jews (John 1:46; 7:52). G. owes its entire history to the Gospel. In Nazareth (v.) of G. Jesus lived; from G. he chose his Apostles. The center of his ministry were the synagogues, the hills and especially the northern shore of the lake with Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida.
Little is known of the development of Christianity in G. (Acts 9:31). After the catastrophe of 70, it became a Jewish religious center, as shown by the numerous synagogues discovered in this century, with the famous rabbinical schools from which the Palestinian Talmud was formed.