Länk
According to the gospels, Yahshua or ‘Jesus’ was known as a Galilean (Matt 26:69) which wasn’t surprising considering He grew up in Galilee; spent most of His ministry there and chose 11 of His 12 disciples from Galilee too. In fact, it seems Galilee was the one place He felt safe since it was the Galileans, unlike the ‘Jews’ who believed and followed Him:
"When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law...they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him..." (Luke 2:39-40)
“Now when Yahshua had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee…” (Matt 4:12)
“After these things Yahshua walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.” (John 7:1)
“As Yahshua was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew…“Come, follow me,” Yahshua said…At once they left their nets and followed him…“Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John…Yahshua called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him” (Matt 4:18-22)
"Then when He was come into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did..." (John 4:45)
“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people…there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee…(Matt 4:23-25)
"Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him..." (Matt 28:16)
So who were the Galileans and were they related to the Galatians to whom Paul wrote one of his most famous letters?
Since Christ said "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel" (Matt 15:24) the Galileans must have been Israelites. However, is there proof they were also Celts?
If they were related to the Galatians then yes they must have been. And if so, then Yahshua must have been a Celt too!
Were the Galatians Celts?
“What we know of the Galatians state gives us our first example of the organisation of a Celtic state,’ says Henri Hubert in the ‘Greatness and Decline of the Celts’ (1934). “Galatia was established by the Celts in Asia Minor during the third century BC and a Celtic language was still spoken there in the fourth century AD. The Galatians had become one of the first peoples to accept the new religion of Christianity and are now best known through Paul or Tarsus famous Epistle to the Galatians written about 55 AD.” (The Celtic Empire, Peter B Ellis, Pg 92)
“It was Hieronymos of Cardia who is credited with the first-known use of the term Galatia, the land of the Gauls, Galli or Celts” (ibid. Pg 94)
“According to Strabo the Galatians spoke Celtic in his day (63 BC to AD 21) and Lucan (39 - 65 AD) supports this…And then we have the famous evidence of St Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymous) in the forth century AD…he was able to state categorically not only that the Galatians still spoke Celtic but that the language was very close to that spoken by the Guals of Treves…So we may safely say that Celtic was spoken in the central plain of what is modern Turkey for at least seven centuries” (ibid. Pg 96)
Referring to the Celts, “When they emerge in historical record, they are first called Keltoi, by the Greeks. Polybuis also uses the word Galatae, which had, by his day, become widely used by the Greeks. The Romans referred to them as Galli as well as Celtae. Diodorus Siculus, Julius Caesar, Strabo and Pausanias all recognise the synonymous use of these terms. And Julius Caesar comments that the Gauls of his day referred to themselves as Celtae.” (ibid. Pg 9)
Now back to Galilee where Christ searched for His “lost sheep of Israel.” Isn’t it logical if the Romans called the Celts the “Galli” during this time and the Celts were called:
Galatians in Asia Minor
Galicians in Spain
Gauls in Europe
Gaels in Ireland
Then wouldn’t it make sense that the Galileans in Palestine must have also been Celts? Clearly the ‘Galli’ which the Romans used to refer to the Celts was a prefix and although there are some slight spelling deviations they would all have had a similar pronunciation.
What’s more, the name ‘Galli’ and all its variants above appears to come from the Hebrew word “galah, a primitive root; to denude (especially in a disgraceful sense); by implication to exile” (Strong’s Concordance).
Calling the Israelites ‘exiles’ would be fitting remembering the House of Israel had been exiled by Yahweh as punishment for their sins when they were defeated by the Assyrians in 721 BC and all transported and resettled in northern Persia. What is truly fascinating is that as the House of Israel passed from history having been taken captive by the Assyrians and resettled in northern Persia south of the Caucasus Mountains, the Celts and Scythians (Saxons) suddenly burst into recorded history coming from the same direction the Israelites had been settled!
For evidence and proof that the Celts were Israelites visit:
