Climate, Droughts, Wars, and Famines in Galilee as a Background for Understanding the Historical Jesus

I. Galilee: Eden or Sodom?

For the land [in Galilee] is everywhere so rich in soil and pasturage and produces such variety of trees, that even the most indolent are tempted by these facilities to devote themselves to agriculture. In fact, every inch of the soil has been cultivated by the inhabitants; there is not a parcel of waste land. The towns, too, are thickly distributed, and even the villages, thanks to fertility of the soil, are all so densely populated that the smallest of them contains above fifteen thousand inhabitants.

(Josephus, War 3.42-43, trans. Thackeray, LCL)

Undoubtedly, Josephus's paradisiacal description of Galilee is nothing short of an exaggeration. The question is, however, by how much? Scholars disagree on how to depict the climatic conditions of Galilee. Some, such as Seán Freyne, find Galilee to be blessed in terms of climate and soil fertility: "the soil and climate of Galilee make it by far the most fertile and productive region of the country, and its location as a hinterland to two thriving ports meant that its produce could be easily transported to lucrative markets. Galilee produced all the important agricultural items that were in demand in the ancient world."¹ Martin Goodman likewise concludes that "the natural geography of Galilee thus renders it capable of supporting a large population on its fertile soil." Similarly, Michael Avi-Yonah presents Galilee in glowing terms for its "varied soil and climate," lending it the capacity to produce many kinds of fruits, vegetables, and cereals. Yehuda Karmon's investigation of the geography of Israel and its consequences for modern agriculture also concludes that "it may thus be summarized that climate is the main natural advantage for Israel's agriculture."²

Others argue for less favorable conditions in the region, including frequent periods of droughts and famine. Shimon Applebaum, for example, states that the economic problems of the peasants were "further curtailed by climatic instability and taxation, leading to chronic indebtedness, and the growth of a landless tenantry and labouring class."³

Galiliee and Famine in the First Century C.E.

The issue of climate and famine is far from trivial. It is directly connected to the socioeconomic conditions experienced in Galilee's agriculturally based economy. Did certain developments take place in first-century Galilee of a political, economic, religious, climatic, or other nature that brought about rapid changes in the living conditions of rural life? Can Jesus be seen as a direct response to such changes for the worse? This last question has placed Galilee in the center of the historical Jesus research, as discussed, for example, in a recent article by Jonathan L. Reed.⁴ An investigation of the climate of Galilee, therefore, comes with the promise of bringing us one step closer to resolving one of the hotly debated issues in the historical Jesus debate.⁵

To evaluate how prone first-century Galilee was to famine, we need to investigate the two basic causes of famine in antiquity as suggested by Peter Garnsey, one of the foremost scholars of famine in the Roman world. The first category encompasses the region's climatic conditions, which, in premodern times, were intimately connected with agricultural productivity. In the words of Garnsey: "Any general account of the causes of food crises in the Mediterranean must start from climatic irregularities, which meant that grain production was subject to considerable fluctuations."⁶ However, actual famine in antiquity was often produced not by drought alone but by a combination of climatic instability with the second factor, namely, human-made instability, including warfare, plague, disease, political upheaval, and market manipulation.⁷ If these conditions occurred simultaneously, the perfect "synoptic" situation of famine was present.

In order to address both of these main causes of famine, the following survey will be conducted in three steps. First, I will place the climate of Galilee in its wider Mediterranean context and will investigate the phenomena of drought and famine. Second, it will be necessary to investigate the political history and the amount of reported turmoil...