Archaeological Evidence Related to Jesus in the Nazareth, Sea of Galilee Area | Middle East And North Africa

JESUS-ERA HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FROM GALILEE

Daniel Estrin of Associated Press wrote: “Israel is one of the most excavated places on the planet. Some 300 digs take place each year, including about 50 foreign expeditions from as far away as the United States and Japan, the Antiquities Authority said. About 40,000 artifacts are dug up in Israel each year. A third of all the antiquities found attest to the ancient Christian presence in the Holy Land, [Source: Daniel Estrin, Associated Press, March 19, 2017]

Gideon Avni, head of the archaeological division of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said. Historians now know how long it took to travel between cities and villages where Jesus preached, and what those places looked like at the time. Avni said knowledge of the period has advanced over the past 20 years. "We can reconstruct precisely how the country looked," he said.

One of the main hunting grounds for clues about Jesus is the “evangelical triangle” of Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida — an area around the Sea of Galilee that embraces the villages where, according to the Gospels, Jesus led his followers, performed miraculous and taught. One of the most important places there is a small town Israelis still call Migdal, because it was the presumed site of Magdala, the ancient fishing city that was home to Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’s most loyal followers. The Galilean Jews that lived in this area — mostly poor peasants and fishermen — were about a week’s walk from Jerusalem, close enough for regular pilgrimages to Herod the Great’s magnificent temple there. [Source: Ariel Sabar, Smithsonian magazine, January-February 2016]

Websites and Resources: Jesus and the Historical Jesus Britannica on Jesus britannica.com Jesus-Christ ; Historical Jesus Theories earlychristianwritings.com ; PBS Frontline From Jesus to Christ pbs.org ; Life and Ministry of Jesus Christ bible.org ; Jesus Central jesuscentral.com ; Catholic Encyclopedia: Jesus Christ newadvent.org ; Christianity BBC on Christianity bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity ; Christian Classics Ethereal Library www.ccel.org ; Candida Moss at the Daily Beast Daily Beast Christian Answers christiananswers.net ; Christian Classics Ethereal Library www.ccel.org ; Bible: Bible Gateway and the New International Version (NIV) of The Bible biblegateway.com ; King James Version of the Bible gutenberg.org/ebooks Biblical History: Bible History Online bible-history.com ; Biblical Archaeology Society biblicalarchaeology.org

Nazareth

Nazareth (southwest of the Sea of Galilee) is the hometown of Mary and Joseph and where Jesus spent his growing years attending classes in the local synagogue and learning his trade as a carpenter. Many visitors who come here expecting to see something that will bring Christ to life leave disappointed. Situated in a kind of natural amphitheater, Nazareth was a tiny hamlet in Christ's day. Today it is a cramped, dusty, unattractive city of 100,000 people, occupying land captured by Israeli during the 1948-49 war of independence.

According to the New Testament, Jesus’s parents were both from Nazareth. While some scholars question the historical accuracy of the Bethlehem story, there is widespread agreement that there was a man called Jesus who grew up in Nazareth. Some have estimated that only around four to five hundred people lived in Nazareth during Jesus’ day. After beginning his missionary work Jesus only returned to his hometown once and received a cold reception when did. In one instance a crowd there attempted to stone him. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, November 29, 2020]

Professor L. Michael White told PBS: “Jesus grew up in Nazareth, a village in the Galilee. Now the Galilee, by most of the traditional accounts, is always portrayed as a kind of bucolic backwater ... cherubic peasants on the hillsides. And yet, our recent archaeological discoveries have shown this not to be the case. Nazareth, itself, is a village ... a small village at that. But, it stands less than four miles from a major urban center, Sepphoris. Now, we see Jesus growing up, not in the bucolic backwater, not... in the rural outback, but rather, on the fringes of a vibrant urban life. [Source: L. Michael White, Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin, School, Frontline, PBS, April 1998 ]

Modern Nazareth is a crowded city with a few holy sites and clusters of modern buildings.Among the sights claimed to have existed in time of Christ are two rival grottoes of the Annunciation, two competing homes of the Holy Family, a cave purported to be Joseph's workshop and a stone table said to have been where a resurrected Jesus shared a meal with his disciples before he ascended into heaven. If you are looking for mementos of early Christian times look no further than the stone houses, similar to those built thousand of years ago, and the markets, selling many of the same goods sold back then.

Did Archaeologists Find Jesus’s Boyhood Home?

Jesus's House in Nazareth?

In 2020, Ken Dark, an archaeologists at King's College London, said his team found what could very well be Jesus’s boyhood home. In Nazareth There’s nothing remarkable about the house. Dark said: “It’s not pitifully poor, but there’s no sign of any great wealth either. It’s very ordinary.” There’s obviously no inscription, graffiti or anything really solid that identifies the former occupants.

Dark has two reasons for suspecting that Jesus once lived here. The first is the skill and quality of the house’s construction. The second reason for identifying this as a site of significance is its location. A Byzantine church was built above the house between the fifth and seventh centuries. Dark said: "Whoever built the house had a very good understanding of stone-working. That would be consistent with the sort of knowledge we would expect of someone who might be called a tekton," the Ancient Greek word for craftsman that was used to refer to Joseph. "By itself, that's not got flashing lights saying, 'this is where Jesus lived.' But it's underneath a fifth to seventh century Byzantine church."

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The quality of stonework and the techniques used to build the house are consistent with the caliber of workmanship but this is far from convincing evidence. That the house was protected during periods of subsequent construction suggests that later generations thought there was something special about it. Dark argues that the Byzantine church was almost certainly the Church of Nutrition, an ancient pilgrimage site built over the house of Mary and Joseph. A description of the church from a seventh century pilgrimage diary further supports his claim. When you put the pieces together, it seems likely that this is the place that fifth century Christians thought Jesus grew up. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, November 29, 2020]

Dark has appropriately measured his claims. He told CBS News: "You're not going to find an inscription saying this is the house of Jesus...On the one hand, we can put forward a totally plausible case that this was Jesus’ childhood home. But on the other hand, actually proving that is beyond the scope of the evidence. It’s debatable whether it would ever be possible to prove that.”

Study of "Jesus’s Boyhood Home"?

Dark has been studying the house described above since 2006. It is located underneath the Sisters of Nazareth convent in central Nazareth, near the famous Church of the Annunciation, the spot where many Christians believe the angel Gabriel informed Mary that she would have a child.The building has been dated to the A.D. first century and, according to Professor Dark, it appears to be "a typical family home of its time and place..."If this is the childhood environment of Jesus, there's no reason to believe he grew up in anything other than a very typical Galilean rural home of its time." [Source:Madeleine Richards, CBS News, November 24, 2020]

CBS News reported: Dark said that church is "almost certainly" the one described by a pilgrim in the 380s and known as the Church of the Nutrition [taken to mean the nurturing or upbringing of Christ]. The name stems from the idea that it was built over a crypt that contained the home of the young prophet. The church was enormous, elaborately decorated, and probably the Byzantine cathedral of Nazareth. Its location and grandeur indicate to Dark that, "this particular place was considered really important."

Dark notes, by comparison, that the Church of the Annunciation was built "over the place they believed the angel had told Mary she was going to have Jesus, [and] that is smaller than the Sisters of Nazareth church. Whatever's there, whoever built the Sisters of Nazareth church believed it was a major thing, and something that was presumably considered close to or as important as the annunciation. That doesn't leave that many options."

“Despite the possible significance of the site, it had received very little academic attention prior to the publication of Dark's book, "The Sisters of Nazareth Convent: A Roman-period, Byzantine, and Crusader site in central Nazareth," in September 2020. He said the site was largely ignored for years after being dismissed as insignificant by an influential archaeologist in the 20th century. When Dark first came to the location in 2006, he found records from earlier investigations that were never published. “None of this stuff had been touched for generations. It was incredible to see how little attention there's been," he said.

“The site was originally discovered in the 1880s, and over the following 50 years was excavated by the nuns of the convent themselves. “Despite the evidence in favor of his theory, Dark stressed that it was "by no means a conclusive case." “On the one hand, we can put forward a totally plausible case that this was Jesus' childhood home. But on the other hand, actually proving that is beyond the scope of the evidence. It's debatable whether it would ever be possible to prove that," he said.

Synagogue in Mary Magdalene’s Hometown

A synagogue dating to the time of Jesus and thought to be modeled after the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was unearthed in the mid 2010s in Magdala, the hometown of Mary Magdalene located on the Sea of Galilee. The synagogue was big enough for just 200 people. According to Smithsonian magazine: For its time and place is was opulent. It had a mosaic floor; frescoes in pleasing geometries of red, yellow and blue; separate chambers for public Torah readings, private study and storage of the scrolls; a bowl outside for the ritual washing of hands. [Source: Ariel Sabar, Smithsonian magazine, January-February 2016]

“The find was especially significant because it put to rest an argument made by skeptics that no synagogues existed in Galilee until decades after Jesus’ death. If those skeptics were right, their claim would shred the Gospels’ portrait of Jesus as a faithful synagogue-goer who often proclaimed his message and performed miracles in these Jewish meeting places. As archaeologists excavated the ruins, they uncovered walls lined with benches—indicating that this was a synagogue—and a mosaic floor. At the centre of the room they were astounded to find a stone about the size of a footlocker that showed the most sacred elements of the Temple in Jerusalem carved in relief. The discovery of the Magdala Stone, as the artefact has come to be called, struck a death blow to the once fashionable notion that Galileans were impious hillbillies detached from Israel’s religious centre. Father Solana told National Geographic: “We see the number of times that the Gospels mention Jesus in a Galilee synagogue.” Considering the fact that the synagogue was active during his ministry and just a brief sail from Capernaum, Solana concludes, “we have no reason to deny or doubt that Jesus was here.” ^|^

Magdala Stone

On an ancient street beside the synagogue ruins, Marcela Zapata-Meza, the archaeologist now leading the dig, pointed to a barricade that appeared to have been hastily assembled from fragments of the synagogue’s interior columns. As the Romans descended on the city 2,000 years ago, the Magdalans seem to have scuttled parts of their own synagogue, piling the rubble into a chest-high roadblock. The purpose, Zapata-Meza says, was likely twofold: to impede the Roman troops and to protect the synagogue from defilement. (Magdala’s Jewish ritual baths, or mikvaot, also appear to have been deliberately hidden, beneath a layer of shattered pottery.) “In Mexico, it’s very common: The Aztecs and Mayans did it at their holy sites when they expected to be attacked,” says Zapata-Meza, who has excavated such areas in Mexico. “It’s called ‘killing’ the space.”

“Another oddity is that although ancient synagogues are normally at the center of town, the one in Magdala clings to the northernmost corner, the spot closest to Jesus’s headquarters in Capernaum. Measuring 36 by 36 feet, it is big enough for just 5 percent of the 4,000 people who might have lived in Magdala in Jesus’s day. “We know from the sources that Jesus wasn’t in the mainstream of the Jewish community,” Avshalom-Gorni told me. “Maybe it was comfortable for him to have this gathering house at the edge of Magdala, not in the middle.” “Her hunch is that no synagogue so small and so finely decorated would have been built without some kind of charismatic leader. “It tells us something about these 200 people,” she says. “It tells us this was a community for whom walking to the Temple in Jerusalem wasn’t enough. They wanted more. They needed more.” “Talgam believes that the leaders of the Magdala synagogue would have been predisposed to give a visitor like Jesus a sympathetic hearing — and maybe even, as Avshalom-Gorni suggests, a chance to preach to the congregation. They, too, were exploring new, more direct ways of relating to God.

Magdala Stone

Perhaps the most important find in Magdala has been the Magdala Stone, which might have served as a ceremonial Torah in Jesus' time. It is now kept in Israel’s national treasures storerooms. The Magdala Stone is about the size of a toy chest and has been described as a one-of-a-kind find. Ariel Sabar wrote in Smithsonian magazine: In none of the world’s other synagogues from this era — six of them in Israel, the other one in Greece — have archaeologists found a single Jewish symbol; yet the faces of this stone are a gallery of them. Carved onto its faces were a seven-branched menorah, a chariot of fire and a hoard of symbols associated with the most hallowed precincts of the Jerusalem temple. The stone is already seen as one of the most important discoveries in biblical archaeology in decades. Though its imagery and function remain in the earliest stages of analysis, scholars say it could lead to new understandings of the forces that made Galilee such fertile ground for a Jewish carpenter with a world-changing message. It could help explain, in other words, how a backwater of northern Israel became the launching pad for Christianity. [Source: Ariel Sabar, Smithsonian magazine, January-February 2016]

The art historian Rina Talgam is an expert on ancient Hebrew symbols “The stone, she says, is a schematic, 3-D model of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem. Whoever carved it had likely seen the temple’s highly restricted innermost sanctums, or at least had heard about them directly from someone who had been there. On one side of the stone is a menorah, or Jewish candelabrum, whose design matches other likenesses — on coins and graffiti — from before A.D. 70, when the Romans destroyed the temple. The menorah had stood behind golden doors in the temple’s Holy Place, a sanctuary off-limits to all but the priests. On the other faces of the stone — appearing in the order a person walking front to back would have encountered them — are other furnishings from the temple’s most sacrosanct areas: the Table of Showbread, where priests stacked 12 bread loaves representing the 12 tribes of Israel; and a rosette slung between two palm-shaped columns, which Talgam believes is the veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, a small chamber only the high priest could enter and only once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

“On the side opposite the menorah — past reliefs of columned arches, altars and oil lamps — was an engraving that left Talgam dumbstruck: a pair of fire-spitting wheels. Talgam believes they represent the bottom half of the chariot of God, an object seen as one of the Old Testament’s holiest — and most concrete — images of the divine. “This is really shocking,” Talgam told me. “One is not supposed to depict the chariot of God, even its lower portion.” She believes the stone’s designer etched it on the rear of the stone to symbolize the temple’s backmost room, the Holy of Holies.

“Most experts think the stone, which rests on four stubby legs, served in some fashion as a rest for Torah scrolls, but its precise function is still a matter of debate. Talgam’s study will dispute earlier reports that it is made of limestone, in widespread use at the time for decorative objects. Though scientific tests are pending, Talgam suspects the Magdala stone is quartzite, an extremely hard rock shunned by most artisans because of how difficult it is to carve. The choice of material, she believes, is another sign of its importance to the community.

Jesus Boat

Jesus boat

The Kibbutz Nof Ginnisar Museum in Kibbutz Ginossar (10 minutes from Tiberas on the Sea of Galilee) is the home for a 24-foot, 2000-year-old fishing boat found well preserved in the Sea of Galilee mud in 1986. It has been dubbed the “Jesus boat” because many scholars are convinced that the boat dates back to the time of Jesus.

The “Jesus boat” was discovered in 1986 by two amateur archaeologists, exploring the Sea of Galilee coast at a time when the water level was low and found the remains of the wooden boat buried in sediment. Professional archaeologists excavated it and found it dates to around 2,000 years ago. There is no evidence that Jesus or his apostles used this specific vessel. Recently archaeologists discovered a town dating back more than 2,000 years that was located on the shoreline where the boat was found. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, September 30, 2013]

Kristin Romey wrote in National Geographic: “A severe drought had drastically lowered the lake’s water level, and as two brothers from the community hunted for ancient coins in the mud of the exposed lake bed, they spotted the faint outline of a boat. Archaeologists who examined the vessel found artefacts dating to the Roman era inside and next to the hull. Carbon 14 testing later confirmed the boat’s age: It was from roughly the lifetime of Jesus. Efforts to keep the discovery under wraps soon failed, and news of the “Jesus boat” sent a stampede of relic hunters scouring the lakeshore, threatening the fragile artefact. Just then the rains returned, and the lake level began to rise. [Source: Kristin Romey, National Geographic, November 28, 2017 ^|^]

“The round-the-clock “rescue excavation” that ensued was an archaeological feat for the record books. A project that normally would take months to plan and execute was completed, start to finish, in just 11 days. Once exposed to air, the boat’s waterlogged timbers would quickly disintegrate. So archaeologists supported the remains with a fiberglass frame and polyurethane foam and floated it to safety. ^|^

“Today the treasured boat has pride of place in a museum on the kibbutz, near the spot where it was discovered. Measuring two metres wide and 8 metres long, it could have accommodated 13 men... To be candid, it’s not much to look at: a skeleton of planks repeatedly patched and repaired until it was finally stripped and scuttled. They had to nurse this boat along until they couldn’t nurse it any longer,” says Crossan, who likens the vessel to “some of those cars you see in Havana.” But its value to historians is incalculable, he says. Seeing “how hard they had to work to keep that boat afloat tells me a lot about the economics of the Sea of Galilee and the fishing at the time of Jesus.” ^|^

Historical Evidence Related to Jesus in Sepphoris

ritual bath in Sepphoris, five kilometers from Jesus’ boyhood home

Kristin Romey wrote in National Geographic: “Jesus’ boyhood home was just five kilometres from Sepphoris, the Roman provincial capital. Although the city isn’t mentioned in the Gospels, an ambitious building campaign fuelled by Galilee’s ruler, Herod Antipas, would have attracted skilled workers from all the surrounding villages. Many scholars think it’s reasonable to imagine Jesus, a young craftsman living nearby, working at Sepphoris—and, like a college freshman, testing the boundaries of his religious upbringing.” [Source: Kristin Romey, National Geographic, November 28, 2017 ^|^]

Eric and Carol Meyers, Duke University archaeologists and a husband-and-wife team, “have spent 33 years excavating the sprawling site, which became the nexus of a heated academic debate about the Jewishness of Galilee and, by extension, of Jesus himself. Eric Meyers told National Geographic: “It was pretty acrimonious,”, recalling the decades-long dispute over the influence of a hellenising city on a young Jewish peasant. We had to dig through a bivouac from the 1948 war, including a live Syrian shell, to get to these houses. And underneath we found the mikvaot!” ^|^

“At least 30 mikvahs, or Jewish ritual baths, dot the residential quarter of Sepphoris—the largest domestic concentration ever found by archaeologists. Along with ceremonial stone vessels and a striking absence of pig bones (pork being shunned by kosher-keeping Jews), they offer clear evidence that even this imperial Roman city remained a very Jewish place during Jesus’ formative years. ^|^

“This and other insights gleaned from excavations across Galilee have led to a significant shift in scholarly opinion, says Craig Evans, professor of Christian origins in the School of Christian Thought at Houston Baptist University. “Thanks to archaeology, there’s been a big change in thinking—from Jesus the cosmopolitan Hellenist to Jesus the observant Jew.” ^|^

Historical Evidence Related to Jesus in Capernaum

Capernaum

The largest ancient structure in Capernaum is a partially-restored, columned synagogue built in the A.D. 4th century, built upon the foundations of a 1st century synagogue where Christ may have taught. Reliefs inside depict figs, pomegranates and shellfish, and the entrance is guarded by crouching lions, which appear to be in violation of the Jewish proscription against graven images. Nearby, archaeologists discovered a dwelling that was venerated by early Christians. Some scholars believe it is the home of the Apostle Peter. Here, a Byzantine church was built over a site traditionally associated with the apostle Peter. In 1968, archaeologists discovered evidence beneath the Byzantine church of a Roman-era home that had already evolved into a communal centre of veneration by the end of the first century. This has been offered as evidence that for it to have become such a site of veneration it must have been Peter’s home. [Source: Kristin Romey, National Geographic, November 4, 2017]

Aside from various references to Capernaum in the Gospels, the earliest literary attestation of Capernaum is from Josephus, who refers to the village in connection with a fertile spring. The Jewish historian reports he spent a night there with a fever during the second year of the Jewish War. For centuries, Capernaum has traditionally been identified as a site located on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, about three miles west of the upper Jordan River. In 1838, Edward Robinson correctly identified there the remains of a synagogue that was partly excavated by Charles Wilson between 1865 and 1866. More extensive excavations took place in the early twentieth century, first by Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger (1905) and then by Wendelin von Menden (1906–1915).

Most recent excavations have revealed two synagogues, a white limestone synagogue dating from the A.D. 4th and 5th centuries, and a black basalt synagogue dating from the first half of the A.D. 1st century. Only foundation walls, gray marble column fragments and a cobblestone floor remain from the earlier structure, which measured 24.5 by 18.7 meters on the exterior and possessed walls over a meter thick. The 4th-5th century limestone synagogue was built on top of the 1st century synagogue. Only the foundation walls and cobblestone floor remain from this earlier building (Column drums made out of gray marble have also been discovered in a lower stratum of fill material.). It is thus the basalt synagogue which is referred to in the four Gospels.

Kristin Romey wrote in National Geographic: “Commonly referred to on the Christian tour route as the “town of Jesus,” the pilgrimage site of Capernaum today is owned by the Franciscans and surrounded by a high metal fence. A sign at the gate makes clear what’s not allowed inside: dogs, guns, cigarettes, and short skirts. Directly beyond the gate is an incongruously modern church mounted on eight pillars that resembles a spaceship hovering above a pile of ruins. This is St. Peter’s Memorial, consecrated in 1990 over one of the biggest discoveries made during the 20th century by archaeologists investigating the historical Jesus. [Source: Kristin Romey, National Geographic, November 28, 2017 ^|^]

“From its odd perch the church offers a stunning view of the lake, but all eyes are drawn to the centre of the building, where visitors peer over a railing and through a glass floor into the ruins of an octagonal church built some 1,500 years ago. When Franciscan archaeologists excavated beneath the structure in 1968, they discovered that it had been built on the remains of a first-century house. There was evidence that this private home had been transformed into a public meeting place in a short span of time. ^|^

“By the second half of the first century—just a few decades after the Crucifixion of Jesus—the home’s rough stone walls had been plastered over and household kitchen items replaced with oil lamps, characteristic of a community gathering place. Over the following centuries, entreaties to Christ were etched into the walls, and by the time Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, the dwelling had been expanded into an elaborately decorated house of worship. Since then the structure has commonly been known as Peter’s House, and while it’s impossible to determine whether the disciple actually inhabited the home, many scholars say it’s possible.” ^|^

Image Sources: Wikimedia, Commons, except Jesus House from Artnet News

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Christian Origins sourcebooks.fordham.edu “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File); “ Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org; New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ccel.org , Frontline, PBS, “Encyclopedia of the World Cultures” edited by David Levinson (G.K. Hall & Company, 1994); Wikipedia, BBC, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Live Science, Encyclopedia.com, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, Business Insider, AFP, Library of Congress, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024