Jesus in Context: The Influence of the Galilee Region on the Life and Ministry of Jesus and His Followers
By Michael Wainwright
Geographic Context: Using the Land as a
Teaching Tool
In addition to its impact on the socio-economic quality of Jesus’
ministry, the physical geography of the Galilee region shaped the way in
which Jesus organized his public discourses. In Mark 4:1, the author reports
that during one of Jesus’ seaside sermons, the audience became so thick
that Christ could not address them all at once. Today, an evangelist might
address a massive audience by simply switching on a microphone, but Jesus
had to turn to the geography of Galilee to solve his acoustics problem.
To a modern audience, the idea of delivering a sermon from a ship’s
deck rather than a stage may seem odd, but this is precisely how Jesus dealt
with the throng of Mark 4:1. From a skeptical viewpoint, it seems improbable
that his voice could have carried over the entire crowd when he himself was
afloat on the sea. However, Galilee’s geography provides a solution to
this puzzle.
Between Capernaum and Tabgha, there is a natural stadium called the Cove
of the Sower, which would have provided the ideal setting for Jesus’
discourse from the boat. The location is a large cove rimmed by hills, a
half-circle of land from which an audience would have a clear view of the
inlet of water at the hills’ feet. In his article “The Acoustics and
Crowd Capacity of Natural Theaters in Palestine,” published in Biblical
Archaeologist, B. Cobbey Crisler argues that up to 7,000 people could
fit in the area below the hills of the Cove of the Sower, with more than
14,000 situated on the hillside. In addition, Crisler’s study proves that
a speaker on the water can be heard clearly by an audience on the hillside,
and long-distance conversations are actually possible in this location.
While Scripture does not tell us specifically where the discourse from the
boat was held, it is self-evident that Jesus the Galilean and resident of
Capernaum would have been aware of the acoustic properties of the Cove of
the Sower.
If Christ were familiar with this cove, then tradition may be correct
in asserting that the famous “Sermon on the Mount” was delivered from
nearby Mt. Eremos (Bible Places). There is evidence to suggest that the
supposition that this location corresponds with the hill described in
Matthew 5-7. Jesus himself gives the reader an obscure hint to his location,
when he describes the public life of his followers as “a city on a hill
[that] can not be hid.” As all orators know, a visual illustration is
often a powerful way to convey a message. Eremos would provide Jesus with
the illustration he needed to drive home his point – a hefty Greek city
called Hippos, shimmering on a hill just across the waves of the sea (Middendorf).
That a Jewish teacher would illustrate his point with an example from
Gentile culture may seem unusual, but if Jesus did mention Hippos as an
example for his disciples to follow, then it was clearly in keeping with his
cross-cultural message.
Furthermore, the traditional placement of Jesus’ “sermon on the
mount” reconciles an apparent discrepancy between Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6.
While Matthew’s well known version of the story places Jesus on a
“mount,” Luke 1:17 asserts that he “stood in a Plain”. A cursory
glance at Mt. Eremos and its surrounding environs proves that, if the sermon
did take place at this location, then both writers are correct
in their descriptions. Eremos stands just above the four-mile long plain of
Gennesaret, a lush region of fertile farmland which Jewish historian
Josephus called “nature’s crowning achievement” (Bible Places).
Clearly, Mt. Eremos could have been regarded as belonging to the Gennesaret
region, and thus
