The importance of Galilee in the life of Jesus and for all the Gospel writers has long been acknowledged. Yet curiously, the relevance of social, political and religious conditions in Galilee in shaping the career of Jesus has received remarkably little attention.

In this original and methodologically concerned contribution to modern Gospel studies, Sean Freyne shows how the particularity of Jesus' Galilean origins is both historically important and theologically relevant. He takes the Galilean context of Jesus' life and subjects it to close analysis, integrating questions of social identity and theological reflection

Part One adopts a literary approach, concentrating on the ways in which the various Gospel narratives exploit the Galilean setting as location for the career of Jesus. Part Two is historical in intention, exploring the social and religious life of Galilee and the role of Jesus and his movement there in light of the available evidence from the first century and with the aid of social scientific considerations.

Professor Freyne's extensive study will be welcomed widely by theologians and biblical scholars in the continuing search for understanding of the role of Jesus in his original setting. The social and religious dimensions of his ministry, rather than the personal aspects of his spiritual life, emerge as the important dimensions to be retrieved