Week 36 John 7-21
John does a nice job of identifying the towns & regions where Jesus is travelling. It means I can track Jesus as he moves up-and-down the country between Galilee & Judea. At least I can up until chapter 6. After that the only place names that I find are in the south. It looks like in that last big chunk of John’s gospel – chapters 7-21 – Jesus doesn’t get back to his home territory.
So anyway that idea was in the back-of-my-mind when I noticed there were three religious festivals that Jesus attended in those last 15 “chapters-in-the-south”:
• Feast of Tabernacles
• Feast of Dedication
• The Passover
At first I didn’t think much about it. Then it registered: holidays aren’t consecutive – they’re spaced out. What were the dates of the festivals?
• Tabernacles: late-September / early-October
• Dedication: late-November / December
• Passover: March / mid-April.
If Jesus stayed in Judea during that whole time (which is what John led me to think) – then he was in the south more than six months (possibly October to April).
How likely was it that Jesus never went back to Galilee during the last six months of his life? It’s hard to say. Personally I think he might have. John didn’t say he did. On the other hand he didn’t say he didn’t.
It’s maybe one of those questions that’s worth being aware of. But not really something that needs answering.
Note: the three festivals are in John 7:2 10:22 & 11:55. Festival dates came from gotquestions.com and my online Search Assist.