BW/008 'Without Honour - Where? A Historian Looks at John 4:44'

John 4:44 suggests either that Jesus' home was not in Galilee, or that his recent mission to Jerusalem and Judea had been a failure. Neither is consistent with the rest of the Fourth Gospel. From Eusebius, we deduce that the author, identified as the Apostle John ("John the Elder" being Eusebius' invention), is correcting the false impression given by Mark that Jesus began his ministry by his dramatic bursting into Galilee at 1:14. Jesus knew that to attempt this would have resulted in failure. St John shows that, instead, Jesus began his career with a triumphant mission to Jerusalem and Judea, only tackling Galilee after first succeeding in the south.

(Paper originally given to the Johannine Seminar of the British New Testament Conference at Exeter University, 7 September 2007.)