One of the reasons to prefer the translation "Judeans" in verse 1--besides guarding against anti-Semitic attitudes--is that it better gets across who Jesus's opponents were. The main groups that were his opponents were the Pharisees, a group devoted to strict observance of the Torah (the law of Moses), and the Sadducees, who were picked by the foreign power of Rome to manage the worship of the temple. As a rule, they weren't particularly religious or observant; it's a bit like today, when we read about some country that has a state church. Most people realize that the people long since abandoned those convictions. In defense of the Pharisees, all the tragedy of the Old Testament--especially the sacking of Jerusalem in 586 BC, and the takeovers by foreign powers--convinced many people that it had all come about because people had not observed the Law closely enough. But again, even the receiving of the Law had at the heart of it God redeeming his people from slavery in Egypt. We were never intended to keep the Law for its own sake, but for the sake of loving God.
Jesus comes along, and tells these leaders that they're all missing the point. He can do this because he is God, and mysteriously, he gave the Law to the Israelites in the first place. He told his disciples to go to the Feast of Tabernacles without him. He says his time has not yet come, and he is speaking spiritually there, basically saying that going to Jerusalem at this time is not in the Father's plan. We should note that the word "brethren" is broader in this culture than it is in ours. These people were cousins of Jesus, both close, and not so close.
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