Galilee in the context of Israel

Jewish Christians were the followers of a Jewish religious sect that emerged in Roman Judea during the late Second Temple period, under the Herodian tetrarchy (1st century AD). These Jews believed that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah and they continued their adherence to Jewish law. Jewish Christianity is the historical foundation of Early Christianity, which later developed into Nicene Christianity (which comprises the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant traditions) and other Christian denominations.

Christianity started with Jewish eschatological expectations, and it developed into the worship of Jesus as the result of his earthly ministry in Galilee and Jerusalem, his crucifixion, and the post-resurrection experiences of his followers. Jewish Christians drifted apart from Second Temple Judaism, and their form of Judaism eventually became a minority strand within mainstream Judaism, as it had almost disappeared by the 5th century AD. Jewish–Christian gospels are lost except for fragments, so there is a considerable amount of uncertainty about the scriptures which were used by this group of Christians.

In Christianity, the Great Commission is the instruction of the resurrected Jesus Christ to his disciples to spread the gospel to all the nations of the world. The Great Commission is outlined in Matthew 28:16–20, where on a mountain in Galilee Jesus calls on his followers to make disciples of and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Great Commission is similar to the episodes of the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles found in the other Synoptic Gospels, though with significant differences. Luke also has Jesus during his ministry dispatching disciples, including the seventy disciples, sending them to all the nations and giving them power over demons. The dispersion of the Apostles in the traditional ending of Mark is thought to be a 2nd-century summary based on Matthew and Luke.

Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Methodist and Baptist churches believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the Mother of God. The Church of the East historically regarded her as Christotokos, a term still used in Assyrian Church of the East liturgy. She has the highest position in Islam among all women and is mentioned numerous times in the Quran, including in a chapter named after her. She is also revered in the Baháʼí Faith and the Druze Faith.

The synoptic Gospels name Mary as the mother of Jesus. The gospels of Matthew and Luke describe Mary as a virgin who was chosen by God to conceive Jesus through the Holy Spirit. After giving birth to Jesus in Bethlehem, she and her husband Joseph raised him in the city of Nazareth in Galilee, and she was in Jerusalem at his crucifixion and with the apostles after his ascension. Although her later life is not accounted in the Bible; Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and some Protestant traditions believe that her body was raised into heaven at the end of her earthly life, which is known in Western Christianity as the Assumption of Mary and in Eastern Christianity as the Dormition of the Mother of God.

Judaea was a Roman province from 6 to 135 AD, which at its height encompassed the regions of Judea, Idumea, Peraea, Samaria, and Galilee, as well as parts of the coastal plain of the southern Levant. At its height, it encompassed much of the core territories of the former Kingdom of Judaea, which had been ruled by the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties in previous decades. The name Judaea (like the similar Judea) derives from the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah, which was centered in the region of Judea.

Since the Roman Republic's conquest of Judaea in 63 BC, which abolished the independent Hasmonean monarchy, Rome maintained a system of semi-autonomous vassalage in the region. After Hasmonean ruler Antigonus II Mattathias briefly regained the throne, he was overthrown by Herod, who was appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate and ruled Judaea until his death in 4 BC. The province's formal incorporation into the Roman Empire was enacted by Augustus in 6 AD following an appeal by the populace against the misrule of Herod's son, Herod Archelaus (r. 4 BC – 6 Anno Domini Nostri). The administrative capital was relocated from Jerusalem to the coastal city of Caesarea Maritima.

Western civilization traces its roots back to Europe and the Mediterranean. It began in ancient Greece, transformed in ancient Rome, and evolved into medieval Western Christendom before experiencing such seminal developmental episodes as the development of Scholasticism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the development of liberal democracy. The civilizations of classical Greece and Rome are considered seminal periods in Western history. Major cultural contributions also came from the Christianized Germanic peoples, such as the Longobards, the Franks, the Goths, and the Burgundians. Charlemagne founded the Carolingian Empire and he is referred to as the "Father of Europe". Contributions also emerged from pagan peoples of pre-Christian Europe, such as the Celts and Germanic pagans as well as some significant religious contributions derived from Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism stemming back to Second Temple Judea, Galilee, and the early Jewish diaspora; and some other Middle Eastern influences. Western Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, which throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture. (There were Christians outside of the West, such as China, India, Russia, Byzantium and the Middle East). Western civilization has spread to produce the dominant cultures of modern Americas and Oceania, and has had immense global influence in recent centuries in many ways.

Following the 5th century Fall of Rome, Europe entered the Middle Ages, during which period the Catholic Church filled the power vacuum left in the West by the fall of the Western Roman Empire, while the Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) endured in the East for centuries, becoming a Hellenic Eastern contrast to the Latin West. By the 12th century, Western Europe was experiencing a flowering of art and learning, propelled by the construction of cathedrals, the establishment of medieval universities, and greater contact with the medieval Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily, from where Arabic texts on science and philosophy were translated into Latin. Christian unity was shattered by the Reformation from the 16th century. A merchant class grew out of city states, initially in the Italian peninsula (see Italian city-states), and Europe experienced the Renaissance from the 14th to the 17th century, heralding an age of technological and artistic advance and ushering in the Age of Discovery which saw the rise of such global European empires as those of Portugal and Spain.

The Herodian tetrarchy was a regional division of a client state of Rome, formed following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE. The client kingdom was divided between Herod's sister Salome I and his sons Herod Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Philip. Upon the deposition of Herod Archelaus in 6 CE, his territories were transformed into a Roman province. With the death of Salome I in 10 CE, her domain was also incorporated into a province.

Other parts of the Herodian tetrarchy continued to function under Herodians. Philip ruled over territories north and east of the Jordan River until 34 CE. His domain was later incorporated into the Province of Syria. Herod Antipas ruled Galilee and Perea until 39 CE. The last notable Herodian ruler with some level of independence was King Herod Agrippa I. He was given the territory of Judea with its capital Jerusalem. With his death in 44 CE, the provincial status of Judea was restored for good.

The ministry of Jesus, in the canonical gospels, begins with his baptism near the River Jordan by John the Baptist, and ends in Jerusalem in Judea, following the Last Supper with his disciples. The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry. A chronology of Jesus typically sets the date of the start of his ministry at around AD 27–29 and the end in the range AD 30–36.

Jesus' early Galilean ministry begins when after his baptism, he goes back to Galilee from his temptation in the Judaean Desert. In this early period, he preaches around Galilee and recruits his first disciples who begin to travel with him and eventually form the core of the early Church as it is believed that the apostles dispersed from Jerusalem to found the apostolic sees. The major Galilean ministry which begins in Matthew 8 includes the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, and covers most of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee. The final Galilean ministry begins after the beheading of John the Baptist as Jesus prepares to go to Jerusalem.

The Israeli coastal plain (Hebrew: מישור החוף, romanized: Mishor HaḤof, lit. 'coastal plain') is the Israeli segment of the Levantine coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea, extending 187 kilometres (116 mi) north to south. It is a geographical region defined morphologically by the sea, in terms of topography and soil, and also in its climate, flora and fauna. It is narrow in the north and broadens considerably towards the south, and is continuous, except the short section where Mount Carmel reaches almost all the way to the sea. The Coastal Plain is bordered to the east by – north to south – the topographically higher regions of the Galilee, the low and flat Jezreel Valley, the Carmel range, the mountains of Samaria, the hill country of Judea known as the Shephelah, and the Negev Mountains in the south. To the north it is separated from the coastal plain of Lebanon by the cliffs of Rosh HaNikra, which jut out into the sea from the Galilee mountains, but to the south it continues into the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.

The plain can be conventionally divided into a number of areas: the Northern Coastal Plain borders the Galilee in its northern part, and the Jezreel Valley in its southern part between Akko and Haifa, where it is also called the Plain of Zebulon; Hof HaCarmel, or the Carmel Coastal Plain, runs along the Mount Carmel range; the Sharon Plain continues down to northern Tel Aviv; the Central Coastal Plain stretches from Tel Aviv to the northern limit of the Gaza Strip, with the Nahal Shikma [he] stream as its limit – there Israel's access to the Mediterranean ends and the Israeli Southern Coastal Plain, also known as the Western Negev, actually consists of the hinterland of the Strip. For almost its entire length, the plain has sandy beaches, and a Mediterranean climate, except at its southern end where the climate is semi-arid.

The Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem or Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, officially Patriarch of Jerusalem (Greek: Πατριάρχης Ιεροσολύμων; Arabic: بطريرك القدس; Hebrew: פטריארך ירושלים), is the head bishop of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, ranking fourth of nine patriarchs in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since 2005, the Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem has been Theophilos III. The patriarch is styled "Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and all Holy Land, Syria, beyond the Jordan River, Cana of Galilee, and Holy Zion." The patriarch is the head of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, and the religious leader of about 130,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, most of them Arab Christians in Israel and Palestine.

The patriarchate traces its line of succession to the first Christian bishops of Jerusalem, the first being James the Just in the 1st century AD. Jerusalem was granted autocephaly in 451 by the Council of Chalcedon and in 531 became one of the initial five patriarchates.

Samaria (/səˈmæriə, -ˈmɛəriə/), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (Hebrew: שֹׁמְרוֹן‎), is used as a historical and biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is known in Arabic under two names, Samirah (Arabic: السَّامِرَة‎, as-Sāmira), and Mount Nablus (جَبَل نَابُلُس, Jabal Nābulus).

The first-century historian Josephus set the Mediterranean Sea as its limit to the west, and the Jordan River as its limit to the east. Its territory largely corresponds to the biblical allotments of the tribe of Ephraim and the western half of Manasseh. It includes most of the region of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, which was north of the Kingdom of Judah. The border between Samaria and Judea, while historically fluid, is set at the latitude of Ramallah.

The Hasmonean dynasty (/hæzməˈniːən/; Hebrew: חַשְׁמוֹנָאִים Ḥašmōnāʾīm; Greek: Ασμοναϊκή δυναστεία) was the Jewish ruling dynasty of Judea during the Hellenistic times of the Second Temple period (part of classical antiquity), from c. 141 BC to 37 BC. Between c. 141 and c. 116 BC the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously within the Seleucid Empire, and from roughly 110 BC, with the empire disintegrating, gained further autonomy and expanded into the neighboring regions of Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea. The Hasmonean rulers took the Greek title basileus ("king") and the kingdom attained regional power status for several decades. Forces of the Roman Republic intervened in the Hasmonean Civil War in 63 BC, turning the kingdom into a client state and marking an irreversible decline of Hasmonean power; Herod the Great displaced the last reigning Hasmonean client-ruler in 37 BC.

Simon Thassi established the dynasty in 141 BC, two decades after his brother Judah Maccabee (יהודה המכבי Yehudah HaMakabi) had defeated the Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt of 167 to 160 BC. According to 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, and the first book of The Jewish War by historian Josephus (37 – c. 100 AD), the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175–164) moved to assert strict control over the Seleucid satrapy of Coele Syria and Phoenicia after his successful invasion of Ptolemaic Egypt (170–168 BC) was turned back by the intervention of the Roman Republic. He sacked Jerusalem and its Temple, suppressing Jewish and Samaritan religious and cultural observances,and imposed Hellenistic practices (c. 168–167 BC). The steady collapse of the Seleucid Empire under attacks from the rising powers of the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire allowed Judea to regain some autonomy; however, in 63 BC, the kingdom was invaded by the Roman Republic, broken up and set up as a Roman client state.

Hasmonean Judea, also known in part of its history as the Hasmonean kingdom, was an independent Jewish state in Judea and its surrounding regions, during the Hellenistic era of the Second Temple period. The Hasmonean state emerged from the Maccabean revolt against Seleucid rule. It was ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty, who descended from the Maccabees, and combined the offices of high priest and ethnarch, later assuming the title of kings. Initially, Judea remained semi-autonomous under the Seleucid Empire, but as Seleucid authority declined, the Hasmoneans gained full independence and expanded their territory into neighboring regions, including Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea.

The Maccabees launched their revolt against the Seleucids in the 160s BCE, with Judas Maccabeus's victories and the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple following its desecration by the Seleucids. After Judas's death in battle, his brother Jonathan revived the movement, secured Seleucid recognition, and was appointed High Priest. Following Jonathan's execution, their brother Simon took command, expelled the Seleucid garrison from Jerusalem, and achieved independence, marking the foundation of the Hasmonean state. Simon was later assassinated by his son-in-law.

The Battle of Ain Jalut (Arabic: معركة عين جالوت, romanized: Ma'rakat ‘Ayn Jālūt), also spelled Ayn Jalut, was fought between the Bahri Mamluks of Egypt and the Ilkhanate on 3 September 1260 (25 Ramadan 658 AH) near the spring of Ain Jalut in southeastern Galilee in the Jezreel Valley. It marks as the first major loss of the Mongolian advances and halted their expansion into Arabia and Europe.

Continuing the westward expansion of the Ilkhanate, the armies of Hulegu Khan captured and sacked Baghdad in 1258, along with the Ayyubid capital of Damascus sometime later. Hulegu sent envoys to Cairo demanding Qutuz surrender Egypt, to which Qutuz responded by killing the envoys and displaying their heads on the Bab Zuweila gate of Cairo. Shortly after this, Möngke Khan was slain in battle against the Southern Song. Hulegu returned to Mongolia with the bulk of his army to attend the kurultai in accordance with Mongol customs, leaving approximately 10,000 troops west of the Euphrates under the command of Kitbuqa.