Capernaum Until a few decades ago, little was known about Capernaum; even its location was open to question.
The blue and white sign at the site entrance (left, with flowering bougainvillea) reads "Capharnaum the town of Jesus" (an explanation of the spelling follows). Why, at the age of 34, by one reckoning, did Jesus, an artisan-craftsman from the small highland village of Nazareth, move 20 miles to the northeast to take up life as itinerant preacher in Capernaum? While Matthew says it was because the people of Nazareth lacked faith (Matthew 13:58), Jesus probably selected Capernaum due to its location and the quality of its lifestyle. Capernaum lies almost 700 feet below sea level and has a subtropical climate. Although summer temperatures lingered around 90º - 95º F, water was plentiful. To the south lay the fertile plain of Gennesaret, fed by several small springs; one, called Ein-et-Tin ("fountain of the fig"), passed the south edge of the town. The city stood at the north end of the Sea of Galilee, three miles west of the Jordan inlet. It was prominently situated on the Via Maris, the main trade road running northward from Egypt along the Mediterranean coast to Caesarea. There the route split, one branch continuing north into Lebanon, the other passing through the Jezreel Valley and over to the Sea of Galilee, where it went around the west side of the lake through Capernaum, then on toward the Golan Heights, Damascus and Mesopotamia (the lakeside road that we have been following north of Tiberias uses the same route). Capernaum, belying its modest size, controlled all trade along this important international highway. Secondly, Capernaum was sufficiently apart from the larger towns of Galilee and lacked the strong Roman political pressures of Sepphoris (the former Galilee administrative center) and Tiberias (the new Galilee capital). It was also located on the route from territories ruled by the tetrarchs (from Greek tetrarches, literally "governor of a fourth part") Herod Antipas and Herod Philip, the sons of Herod the Great. Thus, Jesus had easy transportation and was able to take his message to other towns around the lake and inland to the different territories of the region, and he could easily cross the border into a different political jurisdictions without running into trouble too soon with the political and religious leaders. In contrast to his Jewish-only home village of Nazareth, the population of Capernaum was highly varied: fishermen, farmers, artisans, merchants, tax collectors, Roman soldiers, all apparently living in harmony. Judging from the reconstructed homes there was little difference between the rich and poor classes, no palaces in contrast to hovels. Along with the fishing industry, and the farming of nearby plain of Gennesaret, there was also a stone-working trade. The local population carved the abundant basalt rock in the area into mortars and pestles, olive-presses and grist mill wheels. The city was self-sufficient, and was never greatly improved by the rulers, Jewish nor Roman. All great building projects went to Tiberias. Still, Capernaum was a prosperous city, and work was available. In all, it must have been a pleasant place to live. It is certainly a pleasant site to visit! Origin of the name Capernaum is actually a composite of the Semitic words caphar (also spelled kafr, meaning "village") and nahum with the "h" dropped, meaning "village of nahum." Nahum is listed as one of the so-called minor prophets, and the Old Testament book of Nahum is named for him. Also, Luke 3:25 lists a Nahum among Jesus' ancestral line. Despite this, the origin of the town's name is uncertain. According to several sources, Nahum was a common Hebrew name at the time; it means "comfort" or "consolation." Therefore Capernaum can also be translated "village of comfort," an appropriate name for the place where Jesus was welcomed after his rejection in his hometown of Nazareth. |
Though traces of occupation
were discovered dating to the 13th century BC, the history of Capernaum
begins in the 2nd century BC. Originally a small Jewish fishing village,
it grew to become an important town, but it was never fortified and had
no entrance gate like that discovered at Tiberias. It lay on a narrow plain
with the black basalt hills rising behind, some 750 feet above the shore
of the lake. The lakefront at Capernaum (right, as
it appears today, with red-domed Greek Orthodox church) was the scene
of constant activity as boats from other fishing villages stopped there
because of the rich fishing grounds between it and Bethsaida, some three
miles to the east. Capernaum appears in the Biblical record only in the
Gospels where it is mentioned 16 times in connection with Jesus' Galilean
ministry. This is not a place where "tradition" says significant
events related to Jesus' life occurred. It was his adopted home (Mark 2:1)
during his Galilee ministry. Here he lived, slept and ate. People from Tiberias
and elsewhere around the lake came here seeking him, and he went out from
here to the
synagogues of other towns. Although we are not told his itinerary
for any of these journeys, we know that he went to Gennesaret, Korazin
and Bethsaida. Here, too, he called some of his disciples, taught in the
town's synagogue and performed many healing miracles.
Eye-opening revelations await
pilgrims seeking insights into Jesus' life and ministry years. Amid a jumble
of stone flour mills, olive presses, ovens, mortars and pestles and old
chunks of columns are the foundations of homes (left),
built of black lava rock (basalt) that is characteristic of the area. This
gave the town a rather somber appearance, quite unlike the illustrations
seen in many children's storybooks, drawn by illustrators who have never
seen the real Capernaum. The Galilee region was once volcanic and the Sea
of Galilee was formed by a lava flow that dammed the Jordan River. The walls
of the humble homes were formed of large, unhewn basalt stones mortared
with mud and pebbles; only the stones used in door jambs and sills were
dressed. Archaeologists use the term "insula" to describe the
style of homes in Capernaum. An insula (a kind of city block) consisted
of several small roofed rooms clustered around a single large open courtyard.
The squat rooms were too small for gatherings; they were used solely as
shelters for belongings and for sleeping in the rainy season. The courtyard
functioned like the modern living room, kitchen, dining room, workshop,
garage and storage area all in one. Many daily activities took place in
the courtyard. Four mills (for grinding large quantities of grain) and ovens
were always found there. Here women fixed meals; here artisans worked and
probably here too people slept in the summertime on mats stretched on the
ground. Parents would sleep with their small children in the middle, snuggled
together to keep warm. Adjacent to the inner wall of the courtyard was a
bench where people could sit; above might be a thatched eve providing
shade. During the long summers, an oppressive heat hovered over the town.
Families then made a tent of branches and slept on the roof, which was,
in fact, a very important part of the house. Sometimes a trellis was put
on the roof and grape vines trained over it. It was also used for drying
fruit, grain and, in a lakeside town like Capernaum, for drying fish and
fishing nets.
Right, artist's rendering of a 1st century AD Capernaum
house, based on those excavated by the Franciscans. Home life was centered
around the courtyard, where families ate and slept, children played and
livestock were kept.
beams to protect
them from dampness, and everything was covered with packed mud for additional
insulation. The whole structure was made firm by using a stone roller. Access
to the roof was by means of a ladder or an outside staircase. In fact, we note a partial flight of stone steps alongside the remains of one structure,
leading nowhere (right foreground),
perhaps to the long-gone roof of a home. This brings an incident
in Mark 2 vividly to life:
Right,
black basalt stones of exterior wall of earlier synagogue under the white
limestone blocks of the later synagogue.
In Mark 1:23-27 Jesus
casts an "evil spirit" out of man while in the synagogue, then
enters the house of Peter and Andrew, with James and John. This indicates
that the house was nearby. That brings us to the southern part of the Capernaum
excavations. Some 84 feet south of the synagogue and very near the lake,
is a bulky octagonal concrete church (right). 
posing wall to form a sacred precinct. These changes took place concurrently
with construction of the "white synagogue" mentioned above. It
seems both the Jewish and Judeo-Christian groups coexisted peacefully.
A mosaic panel from Magdala showing
a boat of the type that once sailed on the lake (see previous page "Galilee
ministry - part 5" of this virtual tour for photo).
ng-room (apodyterium). The 26-
by 56-foot building stood on what was then the easternmost outskirts of
the town. However, its presence does not indicate that the villagers of
Jesus' day bathed publicly as the Romans did; it speaks, rather, of a Roman
occupying force that wanted to bathe there in Roman style.
black olives were picked. Farmers shook the olives
from the trees by pulling on the branches or tapping them with a stick (the
same method used today). More than half the pulp of an olive is oil; an
olive tree can yield up to18 gallons of oil annually. To minimize bruising
the fruit during transport and releasing the oil, olive presses—usually
large stone basins—were kept near the orchards.
Two or more pressings produced oil of differing quality.
A second pressing produced a
lower grade "beaten oil." The pulp-filled baskets were stacked
and placed under a heavy stone weight or a beam anchored into a wall
(left). A worker hung stone weights (like those
in the foreground) on the beam to flatten the baskets, forcing the last
of the oil into a stone vat below. Heavier weights may have been added to
produce an event lower quality oil.