Galilean

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Generically, a Galilean (/ɡælɪˈliːən/; Hebrew: גלילי; Ancient Greek: Γαλιλαίων; Latin: Galilaeos) is a term that was used in classical sources to describe the inhabitants of Galilee, an area of northern Israel and southern Lebanon that extends from the northern coastal plain in the west to the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan Rift Valley to the east.

Later the term was used to refer to the early Christians by Roman emperors Julian and Marcus Aurelius, among others.

Markus Cromhout describes 1st century Galileans as descendants of Hasmonean-era Judean immigrants. However, they identified as numerous identities, including Galilean, Sepphorean and more broadly, Judean or Israelite. Whilst they all adhered to a 'common Judaism', Galileans 'had a different social, economic and political matrix than Jews living in Judea or the Diaspora'.^[1] Other scholars disagree and attribute the conflation between Galileans and Judeans to Hellenistic-Roman culture, which grouped all 1st century Palestinian Jewish groups, and their related diasporas, as "Judean".^[2]