The story of the Gospels is inextricably connected with the story of the Romans in Judea from the account of the decree that was sent out by the Emperor Augustus that the Roman world should be taxed – leading to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem – to the story of the Roman centurion who stood by the cross at Christ’s death.
 
In the decades before the life of Jesus, the Roman Empire increased its influence in the eastern Mediterranean, and by 40 BC the land of Judah became a province of the Roman Empire ruled by Jewish puppet kings. When King Herod the Great died in 4 BC, the emperor Augustus divided Herod’s kingdom among his three sons: Antipas, Philip, and Archelaus, who ruled Judea and Samaria. Archelaus ruled so badly that the Jews and Samaritans both appealed to Rome, and in AD 6 Judea became part of the larger Roman province of Syria, ruled by a Roman Governor.

As we read the Gospels, we find many references to the influence of the Roman occupiers. The Romans encouraged the development of several cities with heavy Greek and Roman influence, such as Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast which the Romans used as the administrative capital of Judea, and Tiberias – called after the emperor of that name – a city in Galilee mentioned in the Gospels.

A number of Roman soldiers were stationed in the province of Judea to keep order and to suppress the ever-present threat of rebellions – which occurred frequently and were just as quickly and brutally put down. Two cohorts (with about 500 men in each) were stationed in Jerusalem (Acts 23:23-32) and a third cohort guarded the capital Caesarea (Acts 10:1).  An additional two cohorts served throughout the province (Acts 27:1) along with a squadron of cavalry (Acts 23:23-32).

The rank and file soldiers of the Judean Legions were sometimes Roman (Acts 27:1), but many – possibly including a number of the soldiers who participated in Christ’s execution – were recruited locally. At least two and perhaps more cohorts in Judea were composed of Samaritans.

The military officers were mainly centurions (each commanding 80 rather than 100 men as often supposed). Seven of these centurions are mentioned in the New Testament, and two are particularly prominent in the Gospels – the one who asked Jesus to heal his servant (Matthew 8:5-13), and another who watched Jesus die on the cross and exclaimed “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54). Despite being Gentiles looked down upon by most Jews, the New Testament shows many of these men to have been honorable and accepting of the truth.

The Roman governors of Judea were also military men chosen for their rank and experience. They oversaw local government, taxation, and some building projects.  They also served as judges and, as Rome’s governing authorities in the area, they alone had the power to execute criminals.  While several of the Roman governors are mentioned in the Gospels, only one – Pontius Pilate – is pictured in some detail.  Although he is mentioned over fifty times in the New Testament as well as in a number of historical documents, and archaeological evidence of his governorship was discovered in 1961, not much is known about him. The Gospels make it clear that Pilate was weak in dealing with the Jews regarding the false charges brought against Jesus, but they show that he was equally unwilling to execute him and tried repeatedly to avoid this.   What happened to Pilate?  Within a few years of the death of Jesus, the Roman Governor was recalled to Rome in shame due to his handling of an uprising among the Samaritans.  He died soon after, in AD 39.
 
Although Pilate is doubtless the most infamous example we meet in the Gospels, a great many of the events of New Testament history involved upstanding Romans.  It is perhaps not surprising that the Book of Acts shows the devout centurion Cornelius was the first Gentile converted to Christianity (Acts 10), and despite the Romans’ reputation for brutality among the Jews, the Gospels show that both Jesus and the early Church fully accepted the individual Romans who turned to God – sometimes with greater faith than that found among the Jews themselves.

The region of Samaria that is frequently mentioned in the New Testament has a colorful history that helps us understand many things written in the four Gospels. 
​
samaria was the area between Judea and Galilee that had been the northern kingdom of Israel after Judah and Israel split into two monarchies following the death of Solomon around 931 BC.  Some two hundred years later, in 726–722 BC, the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V invaded the region, captured the capital city of Samaria and deported many of its inhabitants to Assyrian cities in Mesopotamia.  But some of the Samaritans remained in their land and eventually mixed with other groups who moved into the area.

This mixed – partly Jewish and partly pagan – population represented the Samaritans of Jesus’ day.  Although they worshiped the same God as the Jews and strictly upheld the commands of the Mosaic law, their religion was rejected by Judaism – both because of their partly Gentile ancestry, and because the Samaritans accepted only the first five books of the Bible and worshipped in their temple on Mount Gerazim in Samaria rather than in the Temple in Jerusalem.
 
As a result, the Samaritans were despised by most Jews – who treated their northerly neighbors terribly, as virtual “untouchables.”  The depths of this terrible disdain can be seen in the fact that Samaritans could not even be accepted as converts to Judaism. Rather than “contaminate” themselves by passing through Samaritan territory, Jews who travelled between Judea and Galilee would often cross over the River Jordan in order to bypass Samaria, rather than going through the area. Those who did take the direct route would hurry so as not to stay overnight there and would even refuse to eat in that area.  

The attitude is reflected in later statements in the Jewish Talmud such as: “He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is like to one that eats the flesh of swine” (Mishnah Shebiith 8.10).  Perhaps understandably, the Samaritans developed a deep antipathy toward the Jews, and there is no question that there was a great deal of mutual hostility and religious rejection between the two cultures (Luke 9:52-53).

This was the situation in the society into which Jesus was born.  When we understand this background, we see how remarkable Jesus’ teaching and actions regarding the Samaritans truly were.  We can sense the shock among many of his Jewish listeners when Christ told the parable of the “Good Samaritan,” an individual he held up as being not only “our neighbor,” but also someone more righteous than a representative priest and Levite – the Jewish religious professionals of that day (Luke 10:25–37).

The nature of Jewish-Samaritan relations (or lack of them) helps us to realize what a statement it was that Jesus chose to pass directly through Samaria instead of crossing the Jordan to avoid the area on the way to Jerusalem (John 4:4-5).  When Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman outside one of their cities, it was directly contrary to Jewish custom (John 4:9), and when he agreed to eat with the Samaritans of the area – and even stay with them overnight – it was the ultimate outrage from the perspective of the Jews: Jesus accepted the Samaritans as being no different from the Jews themselves.

When Jesus healed ten lepers from the border of Samaria (Luke 17:11-16) – at least one of whom was a Samaritan (vs. 16) – he showed he loved the Samaritans just as much as anyone else.  In his teaching and serving alike Jesus accepted and cared for the Samaritans in a manner that completely negated their “untouchable” status in the eyes of many.

So, despite widespread Jewish antipathy, it is not surprising that the early Church recognized Samaritans as equal to Jews. Many Christians spread through the area of Samaria (Acts 8:1), and the evangelist Philip taught there (Acts 5:3-8).  Significantly, the leading apostles Peter and John were sent on a special mission to the area in order to confirm those Samaritans who had been baptized by Philip (Acts 8:14-17) – to show that their acceptance was the official position of the Church.
  
The ready acceptance of Christianity by many Samaritans is likely due to their expectation of a Taheb or “Restorer,”  a messiah-like figure whom they understood would be the prophet like Moses foretold in the Scriptures (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18).  The Taheb, they thought, would be so much like God that anyone who believed in him would believe in the Taheb’s Lord (God himself).

In his ministry, Jesus had taught that the time was coming when worship in the temples of both Jerusalem and Samaria would no longer be important (John 4:21), and the conversion of Samaritans was one of the first steps in the realization of that truth. The acceptance of Christianity by many Samaritans became a clear intermediate step between the preaching of the Gospel to the Jews and to the Gentiles – just as Christ had predicted (Acts 2).
​
Even today a few ethnic Samaritans still survive in their homeland – mainly in the city of Nablus in northern Israel – and have maintained their traditional identity and worship. Some Samaritan Christians also maintain their faith – descendants of the second oldest Christian community in the world, and the only group of believers founded outside of Judea by Jesus himself. ​

“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,  the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,  Galilee of the Gentiles — the people living in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:14-16, quoting Isaiah 9:1-2).

​The region of ancient (and modern) Israel that we call Galilee apparently was originally just a small circle of land (the name means “circuit” or “circle” in Hebrew) round the Canaanite city of Kedesh, which was conquered by Joshua and became part of the inheritance of the tribe of Naphtali (Joshua 20:7).   It was in this area that the twenty towns were located that King Solomon gave to Hiram king of Tyre, in payment for the workmen and cedar wood  he supplied  from Lebanon for building the Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 9:11).  Perhaps it was then that the area became settled by Gentiles from Phoenicia (Isaiah 8:23), though this may have occurred at a later time, when the Assyrians moved other populations into the area after the captivity of ancient Israel.

In Roman times, and throughout the life of Jesus, all Palestine was divided into three provinces: Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, with Galilee being the largest (Luke 17:11). The area is extremely hilly and rocky, and most people lived in small villages – though the cities such as Tiberias built on the shores of the Sea of Galilee were larger. The Sea of Galilee was, in fact, the central focal point of the whole region.  Also called in the Bible the Sea of Kinneret (possibly from the “harp” shape of the lake) or its Greek form, Gennesaret,  as well as Ginosar and the Sea of Tiberius,  the large lake (today approximately 7 miles wide and 12.5 miles long) was the center of the fishing trade which was Galilee’s main industry. 

Many Bible commentaries give a picture of ancient Galilee as a rustic and socially backwards area looked down upon by Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere, but modern archaeology has shown that although the Galileans may have had a different accent (Matthew 26:73) and may not have had the education of many of the Jerusalem elites (Acts 4:13), they were nevertheless respected for their thriving commerce.  The whole area of Galillee was known for its beauty, and the Jewish historian Josephus who lived shortly after the time of Christ (c. AD 37 – AD 100)  even wrote that “One may call this place the ambition of Nature.”

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke,) all give detailed accounts of the ministry of Jesus which was conducted in Galilee.  They tell us that it was there that Jesus chose his disciples and where he taught and performed many miracles in the scattered villages and towns.  Matthew tells us that he did this to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,  the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,  Galilee of the Gentiles— the people living in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:14-16, quoting Isaiah 9:1-2).

Yet why did Jesus spend so much of his earthly life in Galilee?  It would have been possible, of course, for him to have grown up anywhere in Judea and to have simply travelled to Galilee to complete his prophesied work there.  Most scholars feel that because Galilee was relatively distant from the political and religiously volatile situation in Jerusalem, Jesus’ ministry was more likely to thrive and survive in the more out of the way area.
​
But there is perhaps another reason why so much of Jesus’ ministry was completed in Galilee – and that was the nature of the Galileans themselves.  The common stereotype that paints the Galileans as unsophisticated  and “backwoodsy” fails to take into account an important trait for which they were well known.  The Jewish historian Josephus also wrote of the Galileans that they were “fond of innovations and by nature disposed to change, and they delighted in seditions.”  The latter charge, that they were fond of political seditions, was seen in the revolt against the Romans led by Judas of Galilee in  AD 6 and mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 5:37). 

However, the fact that the Galileans were socially and temperamentally inclined to innovation and change meant that they were doubtless far more receptive to the seemingly radical new teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  Far less constrained in what they believed than the tradition-bound Jews of Jerusalem, the Galileans (apart from Jesus’ own family and those who had known him as a child – Matthew 13:54-58) may have been more open to the message of the Gospel than any other group in ancient Palestine.  It was among the Galileans, as Isaiah prophesied, that the light that was to come shone most brightly. 

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33).

The ancient Romans prided themselves on their roads. The famous “Roman roads” were not only expertly constructed (many still survive today and are still in use),  but they also formed a massive network stretching virtually from one end of the known world to the other.  Great highways radiated outward from Rome (you have doubtless heard the expression “All roads lead to Rome”),  and by the time of the late Empire all Rome’s 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads totaling almost a quarter of a million miles (over 400,000 km). 

The Roman roads were used to move armies as well as for trade and international communication, and virtually everyone used the vast network of roads for any kind of travel by land. In fact, the roads of Rome became a kind of institution, and they were carefully maintained and protected by laws appropriate to their importance. 

So it is interesting to realize that, despite the vast amount of national and international travel in which the Romans regularly participated, they made few maps as we know them, with landforms and other features. Instead, the Romans made itineraria which were simply lists of roads (and in some cases, sea routes) with distances between the major points along the way.  These itineraria ranged from small local road lists to ones covering vast distances.

Julius Caesar and Mark Antony commissioned the first known master itinerary of all Roman roads in 44 BC.  Skilled Greek geographers were hired to compile the information on the Roman road system, and this task took over 25 years to complete. The result was a master itinerarium which was engraved on a stone set up in Rome from which travelers could make copies. The famous Tabula Peutingeriana is a later copy of another, Fifth Century, schematic listing of the Roman roads from Spain in the West to India in the East.
​
So, with such an itinerarium, if you knew where a person was from, you could know where he or she could go and how long it would take them to get there. The possible roads any person could take were well documented, and the Romans were doubtless especially proud of this.  We should remember this fact as the context in which the apostle Paul wrote, in his letter to the Romans themsleves, of the wisdom and knowledge of God – whose paths (Greek hodoi: “travelled ways,” “roads”) were “beyond tracing out” (Romans 11:33).

In writing this Paul makes a point about the greatness of God that is easy to read over.  The documentation of the Roman roads demonstrated not only human ability to know exactly where and how others could come and go, the itineraria symbolized Rome’s – and humanity’s – knowledge and control of the world: over the very universe from a human perspective. 
​
In pointing out to the Romans that God’s paths were beyond “tracing out,” Paul did more than simply tell them that God was great beyond our comprehension. That is an essential part of his meaning, of course, but he also reminded them of the true scale of things and that it was God, not Rome, who “mapped” the world and controlled it with unimaginable power.  

“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:28-31)

In this parable with complementary halves, Jesus gave back-to-back examples of the potential problems resulting from a lack of planning. The first example, of building a tower without first counting the cost, is sometimes thought to be based on a failed building project in Jerusalem planned by Pontius Pilate – which may be possible if the allusion is not to building a watchtower on an estate or vineyard. The principle is straightforward, and the example expands upon the concept of building on a firm foundation given in the Parable of the Two Builders (Matthew 7:24-27). In that parable the focus is the nature of what we build upon, in this parable it is our spiritual preparation and dedication that is at issue, even if we have a proper basis for our faith.

In the second example Jesus gives, he does appear to make an allusion to a specific event of that time. Herod Antipater (c. 21 BC – AD 39), known by the nickname Antipas, was the first century ruler under the Romans of Galilee and Perea on the east side of the Jordan. Antipas divorced his first wife Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea, to marry his brother’s wife Herodias (as condemned by John the Baptist: Luke 3:18-20), and this divorce added further friction to a dispute with Aretas over territory on the border of Perea and Nabatea. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Antipas declared war on Aretas without proper planning, and his army was routed by the larger forces of the other king. These contemporary events would have been clear in the minds of Jesus’ hearers and would have made the allusion to the king at war seem particularly real.

Many commentators explain the verbal pictures used in this parable as simply prompting us to count the cost before engaging in the struggle that the follower of Christ faces against the many forces that “war” against him or her: not only those of our own human nature, but also external physical and spiritual forces (Ephesians 6:12). But if that is the meaning, the allusion to asking for “terms of peace” when realizing one is outnumbered does not seem to make sense. Other commentators see the parable differently – that the king with a much stronger force represents God, with whom we should ally ourselves rather than becoming His enemy. In this case the terms of peace make better sense and perhaps tie better to the words that follow the parable on being willing to renounce everything that we have (as “terms of peace”), which was the point that Jesus was making as he gave these two small parables:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27).

The spiritual costs of building the “tower,” like the cost of engaging in “war,” Jesus tells us, are the costs of being willing to give up family, friends, possessions, position or anything else that might be necessary in order to succeed in what we set out to do – though, as biblical scholar Joachim Jeremias has written, this double parable is an “exhortation to self-examination” – are we willing to give up anything necessary –  rather than to planned self-denial.

* From our FREE eBook, The City on a Hill:  Lessons from the Parables of Jesus, available for download on our sister site here.