Dr. Rami
Arav, is a Professor at the University of
Nebraska, Omaha and the Director of the Bethsaida
Excavations.
"The man of Galilee" and the "Sea of
Galilee" are but two world renown terms which are
known to so many of us. How did the places that
Jesus go to look like when Jesus was there?
Archaeologists think that reconstructing the
ancient environment of Jesus will enhance our
understanding of the historical figure of
Jesus.
The New Testament Gospels tell us that Jesus
left Nazareth and moved to the Sea of Galilee.
There were, perhaps, a few reasons for this.
“Prophets are not without honor, except in their
own country and in their own house” (Matt. 13:57)
was one good reason but apparently not the only
one.
The execution of John the Baptist by the
Tetrarch Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great
and whom the Gospels call “the fox,” was a much
more powerful reason to leave the Galilean
heartland and to go to the periphery. John the
Baptist was executed for denouncing Herod Antipas
for marrying his brother’s ex-wife. Jesus, being
baptized by John, feared that he would be the next
to pay for challenging the authorities and fled to
the east, to the Sea of Galilee, to be closer to
the borders and to cross into the territory of
Philip Herod in a time of adversity.
Jesus made his home among the Jewish fishermen
of the northern Sea of Galilee and soon learned
their lifestyle, the hardship of their livelihood,
and their anxieties. He made Capernaum his
hometown. Capernaum was nothing but a small hamlet
of fishermen situated at the northwestern shores
of the lake. It contained no more than a small
cluster of simple homes constructed of the local
black basalt stones and a humble synagogue. Jesus
also wandered between two other locations in the
vicinity,
Chorazin and Bethsaida. These three
places are today called “the evangelical
triangle.” Jesus preformed in the evangelical
triangle his “mighty works” and laid the
foundation of his ministry. What did he do or
where did he go first, and or what next, we will
never know. But we may be able to discern what
these places may have looked like.
We do not know much about Chorazin in the time
of Jesus. It may have been a small hamlet
comparable in size to Capernaum, or perhaps
slightly larger. Unlike Capernaum and Bethsaida,
Chorazin is not located near the seashore. It is
situated an hour’s walk from the lake, toward the
slopes that descend to the Sea of Galilee from the
basalt plateau known today as the Chorazim
Plateau, which was at one time part of the
Naphtali tribe’s allotment. The inhabitants of the
evangelical triangle, were most probably very
simple, hard working people, who made their living
out of fishing, agriculture, local and small
trade, and serving passengers and itinerant
merchants on the road leading from the
Mediterranean coast to the Golan Heights and
toward the Greek cities in southern Syria.
Bethsaida was the largest of these places. It
was already an ancient place when Jesus visited
it, evidenced in the thriving city during the time
of King David —when it served as the capitol of
the kingdom of Geshur. The city walls of the
ancient town were still seen and used, and during
the time of Jesus it looked like a fortified
village. During the time of Jesus’ ministry at
Bethsaida, Julia-Livia, the wife of the emperor
Augustus and mother of the reigning emperor
Tiberius, died. On behalf of her memory, Philip
Herod elevated the status of Bethsaida to a level
of a city and renamed it Julia. He also had a
temple built at the site on her behalf and
installed the Roman imperial cult. It is
interesting to note this fact because in the next
few centuries the two religions would turn against
each other.
The Gospels relate that Jesus performed “mighty
works” in these places. Among these, he healed
sick people and preached to his audience and
disciples about the Kingdom of Heaven. He told his
poor and humble fishermen that success and wealth
in this world do not mean the same thing in the
next life, and that there is reward to
righteousness and if it does not come in this
world, it will surely come in the kingdom of
heaven. In Capernaum, he healed a paralyzed man.
In order to get him to the house, the audience had
to remove the roof of the building and get him
through the roof.
In another episode a Roman military commander,
known as a centurion, who dwelt in the village,
approached him. The centurion asked him to heal a
boy who was lying sick at his home. The centurion
also knew that Jesus would not go to his home to
heal him because a Halakhah (Jewish law) that was
earlier decreed by Jewish Rabbis forbade Jews to
enter gentiles’ homes. Jesus was thrilled; he did
not find such belief among his Jewish fellowmen
(he preached to Jews but found followers in
non-Jews). “Go home and the boy will be healed,”
he said.
In the evangelical triangle Jesus met his first
disciples. They were Simon-Petrus, the fisherman
from Bethsaida, and his brother Andrew. Jesus told
them to stop being fishers of fish and become
fishers of men. Philip, another disciple, was also
from Bethsaida, as well, and perhaps two more
fishermen, James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
the wealthy fisherman who hired workers to fish
for him, came from this town. In addition to
healing individuals, Jesus performed miracles to
the multitude. On a plain not far from Bethsaida,
he was followed by a crowd of 5,000 people, and
when there was nothing for the crowd to eat, Jesus
managed to feed the crowd with just two fish and
five loaves of bread. On two occasions he preached
the famous sermons in which he laid the foundation
of the Christian faith. One sermon was made from
the top of a mound and the other was made out of a
boat to a crowd that had gathered on the seashore.
Jesus did not stay only in the evangelical
triangle. He sailed to the other side of the Sea
of Galilee and near the city of Hippos, healed a
man plagued by demons. The man had a legion of
demons in him; Jesus cast them to pigs, which
leaped to the lake and drowned. Jesus feared that
his miracles would provoke the inhabitants and
told the man not to talk about it.
After the healing of a blind man in Bethsaida,
Jesus once again prepared to travel, heading
north. He took the road to the capital city of the
Gaulanitis (Golan) region and arrived at the area
of Caesarea Philippi. There his disciples
questioned him whether he was the Messiah or not.
Jesus refused to answer. Then he probably traveled
to the city of Tyre, situated on the Mediterranean
coast, where he performed several miracles. He
probably returned to the northern shores of the
Sea of Galilee and then went back again to the
region of the Decapolis to feed by a miracle a
multitude of 4,000 people. The Decapolis was a
league of ten cities, which were founded by Greek
veterans and local Hellenized Syrians. The crowd
that followed him to this site was apparently
thoroughly gentile.
Jesus probably had the feeling that not all
were convinced they should repent and he left in
anger, rebuking the three places saying: “Woe to
you, Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, for if I
had done these mighty works in the sinful cities
of Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in
cloth and ashes.”
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