Jesus Begins His Ministry in Galilee
c. AD 28–29, estimated dateEstimated date
Mark and Matthew tell how, after John’s arrest, Jesus returns to Galilee, announces that the kingdom of God is at hand, calls four fishermen and makes Capernaum, on the lake, the centre of his teaching and healing.
Mark sums up the beginning in two sentences. After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled, and God’s Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News” (Mark 1:14–15). Matthew adds that he left Nazareth and settled at Capernaum, a town on the lake shore, and sees in the move the light that Isaiah promised to Galilee (Matthew 4:12–17) (Isaiah 9:1–2).
Mark and Matthew tell how Jesus, walking beside the Sea of Galilee, called two pairs of brothers who fished there: Simon, later called Peter, with Andrew, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They left their nets, and the second pair their father and his hired men, and followed him (Mark 1:16–20) (Matthew 4:18–22). Luke tells the call differently, after a catch of fish so large that the nets begin to break and Simon falls at Jesus’ knees (Luke 5:1–11). In John’s Gospel Andrew, a disciple of the Baptist, meets Jesus first and brings his brother Simon to him (John 1:35–42).
Mark then describes a single day at Capernaum. On the Sabbath Jesus taught in the synagogue, and the hearers were astonished because he taught “as having authority, and not as the scribes”. He commanded an unclean spirit to leave a man, and it obeyed. In Simon’s house he took Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand and her fever left her. After sunset the town gathered at the door with its sick. Before dawn he went out alone to pray, and then moved on through the synagogues of Galilee (Mark 1:21–39).
Luke sets a visit to Nazareth at the head of his account. In the synagogue Jesus read from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor”, and said, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”. When he went on to speak of prophets sent to foreigners, the congregation drove him out and tried to throw him from the brow of the hill (Luke 4:16–30) (Isaiah 61:1–2).
Matthew closes his summary with crowds coming from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan (Matthew 4:23–25). In the first three Gospels most of the public life of Jesus is spent in the towns around the lake, in the territory of Herod Antipas (Luke 3:1). John’s Gospel sets more of it in Jerusalem, at the festivals (John 2:13; 5:1; 7:10).
How this is dated
Estimated date. A scholarly estimate from primary evidence, with a margin of years.
Mark and Matthew start the preaching in Galilee after John was imprisoned (Mark 1:14) (Matthew 4:12), and Luke dates John’s first appearance to the fifteenth year of Tiberius, AD 28–29 (Luke 3:1–2). That gives a beginning in about AD 28 or 29. Those who count Tiberius’s years from an earlier point put it a year or two sooner; see the dating note of John the Baptist Preaches at the Jordan.
The Gospels do not agree on the order of what followed. Luke puts the visit to Nazareth first (Luke 4:16–30); Mark and Matthew tell of a rejection there at a later stage (Mark 6:1–6) (Matthew 13:54–58). John’s Gospel has Jesus gather disciples, visit Cana and Capernaum, and work in Judea before John was put in prison (John 1:35–2:12; 3:22–24). The length of the whole ministry is also inferred. The first three Gospels mention one Passover during the ministry, the fourth mentions three (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55), which requires at least two years. The question is discussed in John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 1 (1991), chapter 11, and Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (1977), in the chapter on the duration of Christ’s ministry.
Primary sources
In context
Grows out of
- c. AD 26–29, estimated date
Leads to
- c. AD 28–29, estimated date
- c. AD 29 or 32, estimated date