Did Jesus preach in Capernaum before Nazareth, or in Nazareth before Capernaum? In all three synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) Jesus is baptized by John, is tempted, and then enters Galilee (Mk 1:14, Mt 4:12, Lk 4:14). In Mark Jesus then goes to the sea of Galilee (Mk 1:16) and afterward enters Capernaum (Mk 1:21), while in Matthew he enters Capernaum first (Mt 4:13), afterward goes to the sea of Galilee (Mt 4:18), and returns to Capernaum sometime later (Mt 8:5). Later still (Mk 6:1 and Mt 13:54) Jesus enters the synagogue in Nazareth, but in Luke this sequence is quite different, with Jesus going to Nazareth first, then Capernaum, and lastly the Sea of Galilee. In both Mark and Matthew Jesus goes to Capernaum before Nazareth, but in Luke he goes to Nazareth before Capernaum.
In Luke Jesus teaches in Nazareth (Lk 4:16-30), enters Capernaum (Lk 4:31-36), and then goes to the sea of Galilee (Lk 5:1). However, prior to that in Luke Jesus had already taught in a number of unspecified locations around Galilee, and had become well known (although we are given no details), as shown below (English text from the King James Version, or KJV):
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. [Lk 4:14] And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. [Lk 4:15]
Strangely, after then teaching in just two named locations: Nazareth and Capernaum, Jesus repeats what he had done just before going to Nazareth by again preaching in unspecified locations around Galilee:
And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about. [Lk 4:37]
…
And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee. [Lk 4:44]
After the first episode of preaching throughout Galilee (Lk 4:14) Jesus enters Nazareth, goes into the synagogue and (unique to Luke) reads from Isaiah, argues with the people and is then thrown out of Nazareth. However, in Mark and Matthew it is only much later that we read of Jesus entering the synagogue in Nazareth (his own country, where he and his family are known), at Mk 6:1 and Mt 13:54 respectively:
As already noted, in Luke the Nazareth episode occurs immediately before Jesus goes to Capernaum in Lk 4:31-41. However, what Jesus says in Lk 4:23-24 indicates that he had previously performed healings in Capernaum that are by then already known in Nazareth. This suggests that in Luke the Capernaum episode should precede Nazareth, and in a presentation to the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), E. Bruce Brooks gave the following possible explanations for this different order in Luke:
In Lk 4:16-37, Jesus preaches at Nazareth, and people ask why he did not do miracles of the kind he had earlier done at Capernaum. But at that point in Luke's story, the Capernaum miracles have not yet been narrated. We might say, well, that detail was in the story as Luke got it from Mark. But there is no such feature in Mk 6:2, where the audience do not mention Capernaum. Or perhaps, we might say, Luke expects his hearers to know of Jesus' miracles in Capernaum without being told, and does not feel a need to introduce them to Capernaum.
That possibility can be tested. When Luke's narrative first comes to Capernaum, in Lk 4:31, what does it do? Answer: It locates Capernaum: "And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee." I think we must take Luke's word for it, that his audience needed to be narratively introduced to Capernaum. If so, then the second explanation fails. I cannot think of a third.
I conclude that Lk 4:16-30 is out of place. It needed to follow, at whatever distance, something like the end of the Capernaum miracle narrative, which concludes, "And reports of him went out into every place in the surrounding region" (Lk 4:37). It is exactly this which would make the present Lukan Nazareth story work right. As that story now stands, at least in this respect it does not work. It was written for a different position in the Lukan narrative than the one it presently occupies.
It is also worth noting that both Lk 4:23 and 24 begin with "And he said." This is a common Lukan introduction to Jesus responding to someone, as in Lk 4:23, but it is completely superfluous in Lk 4:24, because this simply continues Jesus' words from Lk 4:23 (and of course when this was originally written there were no verse divisions). Together with the fact that Lk 4:23 has no parallel in either Mark or Matthew, this suggests that the words in Lk 4:23 are either not original, or were originally located somewhere else in Luke. In the NET Bible the following is noted regarding Lk 4:23, also suggesting that these events in Nazareth actually took place after those in Capernaum:
The remark “What we have heard that you did at Capernaum” makes many suspect that Luke has moved this event forward in sequence to typify what Jesus’ ministry was like, since the ministry in Capernaum follows in vv. 31-44. The location of this event in the parallel of Mark 6:1-6 also suggests this transposition.
The reference to Capernaum in Lk 4:23 makes no sense, since in Luke Jesus only goes to Capernaum after leaving Nazareth:
But he passing through the midst of them went his way, [Lk 4:30] And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days. [Lk 4:31]
It is then in Capernaum that, among other things, Jesus removes the ‘unclean spirit’ (Lk 4:33-36) and heals Simon’s mother-in-law (Lk 4:38-39), both of which in Mark occur before Nazareth, at Mk 1:23:27 and 1:29-31 respectively.
In Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 23, Irenaeus confirms that at some point there was a transposition in Luke involving Capernaum and Nazareth. However, rather than a wholesale swap of the locations and all the events associated with them, Irenaeus reports that the reading from Isaiah in Lk 4:17 originally occurred in Capernaum, instead of Nazareth:
For this reason, too, did the Lord Himself read at Capernaum the prophecies of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me; to preach the Gospel to the poor hath He sent Me, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind." [Lk 4:18] At the same time, showing that it was He Himself who had been foretold by Esaias the prophet, He said to them: "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." [Lk 4:21]
Further evidence that the events at Capernaum and Nazareth were ‘swapped’ in Luke at some point can be found in Codex Bezae, in which Lk 4:31 reads:
And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, [Lk 4:31a] near the sea, in the borders ot Zabulon and Nephthalim, and taught them on the sabbaths. [Lk 4:31b]
Here we see a much more detailed introduction to Capernaum, very closely matching the parallel at Mt 4:13b, which marks the first mention of Capernaum in Matthew. It is usually considered that Mt 4:13 / Lk 4:16a are parallels, and that neither have a parallel in Mark, so being part of the Double Tradition. Logically this makes sense, because Mt 4:1-11 / Lk 4:1-13 are clear parallels and have no parallel in Mark, and Mt 4:12b / Lk 4:14a are also parallels, although they do also have a parallel at Mk 1:14b, with Jesus entering Galilee in all three gospels. However, Lk 4:14b appears to be parallel to Mt 4:24a, and Lk 4:15 has no parallel. Then, Mt 4:13 / Lk 4:16 read:
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, a city of Galilee, (Mt 4:13a) which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: (Mt 4:13b)
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: (Lk 4:16a) and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read (Lk 4:16b)
There is clearly a disconnect here, because in Matthew Jesus is leaving Nazareth, while in Luke he is entering it. Although the two verses ‘fit’ in a logical sense, narratively they do not. Nevertheless, despite this the supporters of Q include Q 4:16a in their text, with the Matthean parallel at Mt 4:13a, even though they appear unclear as to what the text of Q 4:16a might have been other than it referring to Nazareth. However, there is instead an obvious narrative parallel to Mt 4:13a at Lk 4:30-31a:
But he passing through the midst of them went his way, and came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, (Lk 4:30-31a)
It is very odd to see the ‘grand’ introduction to Capernaum here in Lk 4:31b in Bezae instead of there being a corresponding ‘grand’ introduction prior to Lk 4:23 (the first reference to Capernaum) instead. So, this suggests that here Bezae preserves an earlier reading, from a time when this was also the first reference to Capernaum in Luke, i.e. before the city was mentioned in passing in what we see as Lk 4:23.
Yet more evidence for this change of order can be found in Mark, in which Jesus preaches first in Capernaum, and after healing Simon’s mother-in-law and others, and then praying (Mk 1:29-37), he moves on to other places:
And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth. [Mk 1:38] And he preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils. [Mk 1:39]
The same sequence occurs in Luke, ending with this parallel to Mk 1:38-39, where we see the second of the references to Jesus teaching in many synagogues:
And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about. [Lk 4:37]
… (The healings of Peter’s mother-in-law and others)
And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent. [Lk 4:43] And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee. [Lk 4:44]
This makes sense in Mark (because Jesus has not yet preached in Galilee), but according to Lk 4:15 Jesus had already done this before entering Nazareth. However, although Lk 4:14a has parallels in both Mark and Matthew, Lk 4:14b-15 do not. They are essentially copies of Lk 4:37, 44 respectively that were added to Luke when Capernaum and Nazareth were swapped, purely to make it possible that Jesus could have preached in Capernaum before Nazareth (See Well Known in Galilee - Twice).
In all three synoptic gospels (Mk 1:16-20, Mt 4:18-22, Lk 5:1-11) Jesus goes to the Sea of Galilee (In Luke, the Lake of Gennesaret) where he meets a number of fishermen and recruits them as his first disciples. Although the list of disciples varies from gospel to gospel, in all three Jesus recruits Simon (also Simon Peter or Simon called Peter) and, in Mark and Matthew, his brother Andrew. It is clear from the text that this is the first time that Jesus had met these fishermen, because it is at this point that they begin to follow him.
We next meet Simon (Peter) in Mk 1:29-31, Mt 8:14-15 and Lk 4:38-39, when Jesus enters the house of Simon and his brothers. Here Simon’s mother-in-law is sick and Jesus heals her. In both Mark and Luke this takes place during the initial visit to Capernaum, and while in Matthew it also takes place in Capernaum it happens much later, after healing the centurion’s servant in Mt 8:5-13 (which has a parallel in Lk 7:1-10, but not in Mark).
Although it is only made explicit in Mark there is no doubt that at this point in all three gospels Jesus knows Simon, with there being no suggestion of Jesus being here asked by a person unknown to him to heal someone who was sick. Although in both Mark and Matthew this takes place after Jesus had met Simon and the other fishermen by the Sea of Galilee, in Luke Jesus’ initial meeting with Simon by the Sea of Galilee only takes place after he has already cured Simon’s mother-in-law during the visit to Capernaum. As Lk 4:31-39 simply parallels Mk 1:21-31 the problem is not created in these verses. Instead, it is caused by the author of Luke re-locating the call of the disciples from Mk 1:16-20 to after both Capernaum and Nazareth, perhaps so that in Lk 5:1-11 he could create a much more detailed version of the call than we see in either much shorter parallels in Mark and Matthew.
What is particularly interesting here is that in Matthew there is no indication that the author knew the expanded version of the call in Luke, indicating that at this point either Matthew and Luke are independent, or Luke knew Matthew, but not the other way round. On the assumption that there was an early version of Luke in which Capernaum and Nazareth were swapped (and which in some synoptic hypotheses was seen by the author of Matthew), this makes it unlikely that what we now see in Lk 5:1-11 was present in whatever the author of Matthew saw. On the (reasonable) assumption that Luke originally contained text parallel to Mk 1:16-20, Lk 5:1-11 was a later expansion that was added at or about the same time that Capernaum and Nazareth were swapped to the positions in which they now exist in Luke.
Ev was either a cut down version of Luke written by Marcion, or an earlier, shorter version of what later became what we know as Luke that was written by person or persons unknown. Whichever you believe to be the case, there is ample evidence that as well as being shorter (for example without any of Luke chapters 1 and 2, and almost certainly without the Temptation) Ev differed somewhat in order from Luke, in particular beginning in Capernaum, continuing in Nazareth, and then by the Sea of Galilee.
The evidence for these differences comes from Tertullian and Epiphanius, and in particular in The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Book 1 (Sects 1-46), Panarion 42, Epiphanius provides details of individual differences or omissions that he sees in Ev, based on his belief that it was a 'cut-down' version of Luke. He begins:
At the very beginning he excised everything Luke had originally composed—his “inasmuch as many have taken in hand,” and so forth, and the material about Elizabeth and the angel’s annunciation to the Virgin Mary, John and Zacharias and the birth at Bethlehem; the genealogy and the story of the baptism. All this he cut out and turned his back on, and made this the beginning of the Gospel, “In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,” and so on.
This tells us that Epiphanius knew the contents of Luke 1-3, and that Ev contained nothing from these chapters except that (using the equivalent Lukan verse numbers) it began with v. 3:1a “and so on.” However, Epiphanius then becomes very vague over the contents of the next part of Ev, stating just that:
He starts from there then and yet, again, does not go on in order. He falsifies some things, as I said, he adds others helter-skelter, not going straight on but disingenuously wandering all over the material.
After this Epiphanius changes tack and uses his scholia to comment on specific verses in Ev, with the first reference being to v. 5:14. As a result, all we know from him regarding the parts of Ev corresponding to Lk 4:1–5:13 is that in comparison with what he saw in Luke some text was not present in Ev, other text was added, and that the order of the text was different. The implication is that here the text in Ev was so different from what Epiphanius saw in Luke that he either did not want to, or could not, identify individual differences.
None of the information provided by Tertullian regarding the early part of Ev contradicts Epiphanius, although what he writes (or does not) is very different. He agrees that Ev began with v. 3:1a, then makes no mention of the baptism and the genealogy (which Epiphanius states were not in Ev), or the temptation (vv. 4:1-14), about which Epiphanius has no specific comment. Following his reference to v. 3:1a the order of his comments confirms Epiphanius’ statement that Ev did not keep to the order that we see in Luke, with the most notable difference being that Capernaum comes before Nazareth, as it also does in both Mark and Matthew. By piecing together the comments from both Tertullian and Epiphanius, we know that Ev began as follows:
In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, [3:1a] he came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days. [4:31]
This raises the question of why, if Marcion edited Luke, he would begin his gospel this way, both changing the order and omitting so much, to which there is no logical answer. Of course, as an author Marcion could have done this, but these changes are so unlike the other much smaller omissions and other minor changes we see between the rest of Ev and Luke that they appear to represent two completely separate sets of changes.
On the other hand, if Ev is an early version of what later became Luke then the differences between them can be seen as being very similar to the form of growth we see from Mark to Matthew or Luke, and a facetious remark from Tertullian in Adv. Marcion (Adversus Marcionem) Book IV, as translated by E. Evans in 1972 suggests that he knew that the contents of Luke had been subject to change prior to Marcion:
… an amender of that Gospel [Luke], which had been all topsy-turvy from the days of Tiberius to those of Antoninus, first presented himself in Marcion alone -- so long looked for by Christ.
In other words, Tertullian knew that there had been earlier forms of Luke, and it is therefore possible that rather than editing canonical Luke, Marcion might have had access to, and perhaps edited, one of these earlier versions.
With Lk 4:14b-15 in its current position, by the time we get to Lk 4:43 it appears that Jesus has forgotten that he had already taught in the synagogues of “the region round about” Galilee, and so has to preach throughout Galilee all over again! This repetition makes no sense, and appears to have been added purely to allow something (unspecified) to have happened in Capernaum that could later be referred to in Nazareth. In addition, because Jesus had to have met Simon before healing his mother-in-law there would have had to be an early parallel to Mk 1:16-20 before entering Capernaum. Consequently the order in the original (early) form of Luke (before the addition of Lk 4:14b-15, shown below for reference only) may have been as follows:
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, [Lk 4:14a]
And came down to Capernaum, a city near the sea, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim, [Lk 4:31a(D)] and taught them on the Sabbath days [Lk 4:31b].
... Sea of Galilee (the call) ... [c.f. Mk 1:16-20]
… Capernaum … [Lk 4:32-36]
And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about. [Lk 4:37]
… Peter’s mother-in-law … [Lk 4:38-39]
And there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. [Lk 4:14b]
and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. [Lk 4:15]
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, [Lk 4:16a]
... Nazareth … [Lk 4:16b-28]
... Thrown out of Nazareth ... [Lk 4:29-30]
… Unknown location … [Lk 4:40-42]
And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent. [Lk 4:43]
And he preached in the synagogues of [Judea][Galilee][the Jews]. [Lk 4:44)
With the Capernaum and Nazareth episodes in Luke in their original positions (above), not only would Lk 4:14b-15 be redundant (in particular with Lk 4:14b at this point located only three verses after what we see as Lk 4:37), but the version of Lk 4:31a seen in Bezae then makes perfect sense, as not only does it introduce Capernaum, but Mt 4:12b-13b closely parallels Lk 4:14a,31a, and is probably dependent on these verses. It should also be noted that with this early order (without Lk 4:14b-15), the variant ‘Galilee’ in Lk 4:44 is the obvious original, as Lk 4:14a and Lk 4:44 then neatly ‘bracket’ the Capernaum and Nazareth teachings.
There is ample proof, both from inconsistencies in the Lukan narrative that we see today and the other synoptic gospels, that at some point in the development of Luke Jesus taught in Capernaum before he did so in Nazareth. This should come as no surprise, as this is the order we see in both Mark and Matthew. The surprise is that this order was ever changed to what we see today in Luke.
Brooks, E. Bruce: Prolegomena to Proto-Luke, SBL, San Diego, 2007
Porter, J. R.: Nazareth and Capernaum: The Illustrated Guide to the Bible
If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, etc. regarding this topic please email me at davidinglis2@comcast.net