Tiberias, Home of the Aristocrats

Tiberias was the capital of the region of Galilee, which was split into Upper Galilee and Lower Galilee. The Sea of Galilee, on which Tiberias was located, was part of Lower Galilee. It was an economically split city inhabited by Galilee’s wealthy, their slaves and small shopowners or artisans such as woolmakers, basketmakers and candlemakers. The average Galilean would go nowhere near Tiberias, which King Herod Antipas had built on a graveyard, unclean ground by Jewish law, just 10-15 years before Jesus’ ministry. Outside of the city walls slept the very poor, often homeless or selling indecent wares.

The aristocratic residents of Tiberias ‘owned’ much of the region of Galilee. They taxed peasants to a high degree, and some peasants had to sell their land to those aristocrats as a result. They often allowed the peasants to stay on their land and pay rent, with their house as collateral. At this point, it was often just a matter of time before they lost their land. Droughts and disaster came every 2-4 years, and while they might survive a few cycles of disaster by selling things, taking on additional work and/or selling family members into slavery, some wound up at the mercy of an unyielding landlord and lost everything.

These same aristocrats needed laborers to harvest their expansive estates, and eventually, if the tenant ran out of money completely and had no family able to take them in, the aristocrat confiscated their land and the peasant became a day laborer looking anywhere for seasonal or daily work. Often seasonal work could be found during the harvest or sowing months, and they could live in shoddy housing, perhaps on one of the estates owned by the very man that had taxed them off of their ancestral land. When the season ended, the aristocrats set them on the road again.

Any females on the road day laboring with them probably risked 'night work' in addition to their 'day job' of spinning, weaving, etc. Alternatively, they might become prostitutes, working in a brothel or ‘inn’ for travelers, such as the inn the Good Samaritan was deposited in. Slaves were expensive, and as a so-called ‘commodity’ worth money, they had ‘health insurance’ – i.e., if they got sick, they were cared for so the aristocrat didn’t have to buy a new slave. Thus, the fathers that sold their daughters into slavery and managed to stay on their land often were making the best out of a terrible situation.

The modern harbor, viewed from the Caesar Tiberias hotel in northern Tiberias, probably the site of a mansion back then. Presumably some aristocrats profited from the Jordan River trading ships docking here. Tiberias had the largest harbor on the Galilee, and many aristocrats would have seen the harbor outside their sitting rooms.

Isn’t it sad what money and power can do to us humans? I mean, who’s to say that you or I would have treated them any better, if we grew up in that environment? It’s kind of sick.

The Scripture
Luke 8:1-3: After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

Mark 15:40: Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.

Luke 19:16-17: “Well done, my good servant!” his master replied. “Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.”