What's In Your Bible?
…for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. – Psalms 138:2
Luke 4:44
Was Jesus preaching in Galilee or in Judea?
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15
Frequently Asked Questions
For this specific topic
It was important enough for God to mention, so yes.
General
Yes. Yes it does.
Additional Documentation
The immediate context clearly shows that the Lord Jesus was preaching in the synagogues in Galilee, which is far north of the region of Judea.
Luke 5:1: “And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret.”
Gennesaret is another name for the Sea of Galilee. See Matthew 4:18 and Mark 1:16.
“After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.” John 7:1
Galilee and Judea are two distinct and separate regions in the land of Israel, with Decapolis and Samaria standing between them. (Matthew 4:25; 19:1; Mark 3:7; Luke 2:4; 3:1; 5:17; John 4:3 and Acts 9:31)
“He preached in the synagogues of GALILEE” is the reading found in the vast Majority of all Greek manuscripts, including A and D, the Old Latin copies of a, aur, b, c, d, e, f, ff2, l, q, and r1. It is also the reading of the Vulgate, Syriac Peshitta, Gothic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Georgian, many Coptic, and Slavonic ancient versions.
The Westcott-Hort text, as well as the Nestle-Aland and UBS Critical texts actually read: “and he preached in the synagogues of JUDEA.” So does the RSV, NRSV, ESV, NIV, NASB, the Catholic New American Bible, and Jerusalem bible.
The erroneous Judea reading is found in Egyptian manuscripts P75, Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus, the so-called “oldest and best” manuscripts.
The Revised Version of 1881 and the 1901 ASV, both of which generally followed the W-H texts and omitted some 4000 words from the New Testament, did not follow the W-H text, but rather went with “in the synagogues of GALILEE.”
Three modern versions based on the UBS critical text have gone back to the correct reading of “in the synagogues of GALILEE”. The Holman Standard of 2003, the Message 2002, and the 2004 ISV
Agreeing with the correct reading of “Galilee” are Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthews, Great, Geneva Bishops’ Bible, the NKJV, RV, ASV, The Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims, Spanish Reina-Valera Italian Diodati, German Luther, French Louis Segond, and Modern Greek versions to list a few.