Well, good, old Nathaniel. In a way, he's the mystery disciple of the New Testament. His name doesn't even rate a mention in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Only in John's gospel do we hear about the disciple with the parochial ideas about Galilean towns.

Picture, if you will, our man Nathaniel. Like Peter, he is a fisherman by trade. He hails from Cana, another in a long line of undistinguished little hamlets in the Galilean region. The region itself is rather undistinguished. It was like what Newark is to New York, or Puyallup is to Seattle, to those who came from the urban and urbane center of Israel's life in Jerusalem. The whole of Galilee is more or less a backwater region, noted mostly for a small lake, frequently called, in a ludicrous exaggeration, the Sea of Galilee. Within this dull li…