NOTES for Joh 7:52
The words of the leaders of the Pharisaic movement that a prophet "does not come from Galilee" have their historical basis. On the one hand, Galilee is part of the land God promised to His people; it lies within the boundaries God set for this land, and being part of it, Galilee is of course no worse than any other part of it.
But historically it happened that during the Second Temple period, when traditional Jewish theology was being formed and theological schools were taking shape, Galilee ended up on the periphery of the Jewish world. There were no large schools or academies here like those, for example, in Jerusalem, Babylon, or Alexandria; this land knew no teachers famous throughout the Jewish world, and none of the later prophets was a native of Galilee or preached there.
From a theological and spiritual point of view, Galilee was regarded as a deep province. There were, of course, Jewish communities there, but in Gospel times Galilee was a semi-pagan region, where the influence of non-orthodox Jewish currents such as the Essene one was also rather strong. It is no wonder that learned experts and teachers of the Torah, as well as the spiritual leaders of the Pharisaic movement, expected nothing interesting from Galilee. Neither a prophet nor the Messiah could appear from there.
And in general, there lived there the very people who, according to the learned rabbis, were "ignorant of the Torah" and therefore "cursed." Of course, the issue was not that the believing Jews living in Galilee did not read the Torah; that was simply impossible. The issue was their ignorance, as simple believers, of that learned theological tradition whose bearers the leaders of the Pharisaic movement considered themselves to be.
These leaders were absolutely convinced that both the prophets and even the Messiah Himself could now be connected only with their own milieu, that God looked at them just as they looked at themselves, seeing in them the spiritual elite of the Jewish people, that very messianic remnant that the Pharisees proudly proclaimed themselves to be. They could not allow even the thought that God looked at the matter differently.
That is why they so easily refuse to take seriously the quite reasonable arguments of a man as respected and authoritative in the Sanhedrin and in the Pharisaic brotherhood as Nicodemus: for them there is no question here and nothing to discuss. It is no wonder that such a position makes the figure of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah completely unacceptable to them: such a thing simply cannot be, because "it can never be." And the way into the Kingdom turns out to be closed for them. Not because they were defenders and guardians of tradition, but because at the center of this tradition they saw not God, but themselves.