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| Kit Fassett | profile | all galleries >> Galleries >> Israel 2008 | tree view | thumbnails | slideshow |
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Capharnaum in the New Testament is given as the home of the apostles Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew. In Matthew's gospel the town is given as the adult home of Jesus. The Gospel of Luke says Jesus taught in the synagogue in Capharnaum on the Sabbath days. In Capharnaum (Greek its Capharnaum, English its Capernaum) Jesus healed a man who had the spirit of an unclean devil and healed a fever in Simon Peter's mother-in-law. According to Matthew it is also the place where a Roman Centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant. The synagogue that Jesus taught in has been found beneath the remains of a later synagogue 4th Century synagogue. Capharnaum was a settlement on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The site is a ruin today, but was inhabited from 150 BC to about AD 750.
The remains of Peter's house in Capharnaum can be seen today; including the inner room which was used as the very first Christian Church. Jesus performed many miracles in Capharnaum. The foundations of Peter's house and the 4th Century Synagogue built on top of the original Capharnaum foundation are seen in these Pictures. Capharnaum was a small village but large enough to have a small synagogue. In Jesus' time Capharnaum was a poor fishing village, which extended along the north lake shore for a distance of about 1,600 feet. The Jewish inhabitants could not afford their own synagogue but a Roman Centurion, who held the Jewish people in high regard, built one for them.
The modern Saint Peter's Memorial Church was built over the traditional House of Saint Peter by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land to protect the archaeological remains of the Insula Sacra, and to make the ruins more accessible to the visitors. The inside of the memorial is used for religious services.
Zippori is mentioned in many Jewish sources of the first centuries. The Zippori Jews did not join the revolt against Rome in 66 C.E.; instead, they opened the city gates to the legions of the Roman Emperor Vespasian and surrendered. On coins minted in Zippori at that time, the city is named Eirenopolis, "city of peace."
The Jewish community grew when thousands of refugees from Judea moved to towns in the Galilee following the Bar-Kokhba revolt of 135 and Zippori became the center of Jewish religious and spiritual life in the Land of Israel. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, who relocated the Sanhedrin (the supreme Jewish religious and judicial body he headed) to Zippori in the third century. At least 18 synagogues were functioning in the city around this time and Jews constituted the majority of the town's population.
Even after the seat of the Sanhedrin was moved to Tiberias, Zippori remained a center of Bible study and notable sages taught in its numerous academies. Zippori thrived with it’s location on or near major trade routes in the lower Galilee, made Zippori a prime market for traders.
The discovery of rich, figurative mosaics during excavations at Zippori provide evidence of the Roman character of the city's pagan population, which coexisted in harmony with the Jews during the period of economic prosperity in the late Roman period. Zippori was destroyed in 363 by an earthquake, but was rebuilt soon thereafter, retaining its social and spiritual centrality in Jewish life in the Galilee.
The city is also the traditional birthplace of Mary and just four miles of Nazareth, the home of Jesus. During Byzantine times, the Christian community in Zippori grew considerably. This growth was accompanied by the construction of many churches and by Christian involvement in municipal matters. It became the seat of a Christian bishopric in the 5th century CE. Following the Arab conquest in the mid-seventh century, the city declined.
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