Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §9.9
Luke 9.6) is also well-rooted in the tradition. As already noted, this is the basis
of Theissen's portrayal of the earliest missionaries as itinerant charismatics
(§4.6). But since most of Galilee, Upper as well as Lower, was within two days
journey from Capernaum, the amount of itinerancy involved should not be exaggerated.
338 In terms of their own means of living (food and shelter), Jesus and
his team were evidently able to rely on village hospitality (Mark 6.10 pars.), and
there is a firm tradition that a number of women acted as a support team, following
him (Mark 15.40-41) and providing for him from their own means (Luke
8.2-3). 339
In addition, there are also references to Jesus' fame reaching beyond Galilee,
and indeed to outreach beyond Galilee. In typically hyperbolic fashion Mark
reports crowds coming from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and beyond the Jordan,
and from Tyre and Sidon (Mark 3.8 pars.). More to the point, Jesus himself is recalled
as travelling to the territory (mere)/borders (horia) of Tyre (and Sidon), in
the far northwest (Mark 7.24/Matt. 15.21) where the boundary between Upper
Galilee and Tyre is not clear, and where anyway the villages would be subject to
Tyrian influence. Similarly, a trip north from the lake of Galilee would bring him
into the territory (mere)/villages (komas) administered from Caesarea Philippi
(Mark 8.27/Matt. 16.13), again heavily influenced by trade through Tyre. 340 And
any trip across the lake meant an excursion into territories administered by cities
of the Decapolis. 341 Jesus is never said to have visited any of the cities themselves.
In these cases the Evangelists hint heavily that Jesus' own mission thus
foreshadowed the subsequent Gentile mission. 342 But we should also recall that
all these were territories which had at one time belonged to greater Israel and
which could be regarded as Israel's heritage, part of the land promised to Abra-
338. 'Not itineracy but short day trips to the villages and towns of the region' (Arnal, Jesus
199-200). See also § 14.3b below.
339. Including Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's steward (epitropos). Chuza, we may
imagine, managed (some of) Antipas's estates, possibly in the richly fertile plain of Gennesaret
between Tiberias and Capernaum.
340. Freyne, 'Archaeology' 167-69; Reed, Archaeology 163-64.
341. Mark 5.1 -20 pars.; 10.1 par. The wording of Mark 7.31 ('he returned from the territory
of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee through the territory of the
Decapolis') has always remained a puzzle (Sidon being situated to the north of Tyre) — hence
presumably the scribal modifications in p 45 etc. ('from the territory of Tyre and Sidon'). Conceivably
it was Mark's (or the tradition's) way of signalling that Jesus went out of his way to
avoid Upper Galilee (he circumvented its northern border); in which case, once again we
should not exclude the possibility of a political motive — to stay out of reach of Antipas's authority
(Gnilka, Jesus 190-91).
342. The sequence of Mark 7.1—8.10/9.1 is particularly noticeable — a mission outside
Galilee (7.24—8.10), or including one brief unsatisfactory visit to the west shore of the lake
(7.24—9.1), following Jesus' effective denunciation of the laws of clean and unclean (7.15-19).
322