Korazin (Greek, of uncertain derivation, meaning "a furnace of smoke")
has been described as "Capernaum with a view (of the lake)" Also
on the Via Maris, it was situated high on the basalt hills above Capernaum,
about 2 miles up the steep Right, looking toward the Bethsaida plain from the area of Korazin. In the Gospels, Korazin ("Chorazin" in KJV and ASV) is best known as one of the cities (together with Bethsaida and Capernaum) condemned by Jesus for failing to accept his teachings:
Remains at the site include residential buildings, streets, houses, ritual bath (mikveh), olive press and a large 4th-5th century AD synagogue (right). Built, like the rest of the town's houses, of local black basalt stone, it stood on an elevated area in the center of the town. It was approached by two flights of steps and is in the form of a basilica with three aisles (as at Capernaum). Around the walls were stone benches on which the community sat during worship services. This imposing structure is probably one of the most beautiful lesser-known ancient synagogues in Israel. It clearly attests to a mastery of stonework by its builders who ingeniously worked within the limitations of their primary building material. Basalt can become brittle and break easily, limiting the length of support beams, which averaged about six feet in length. This restricted the size of the rooms that could be built. To support these beams, internal walls were built, while in other instances a beam was placed between arched openings (six feet from the wall) and the outer wall. The rich ornamentation of the stones tell us that Korazin was not an impoverished community!
The town and the synagogue appear to have been destroyed in the latter part of the 4th century AD (earthquake?) and both were rebuilt in the 5th century AD. Jewish fishermen lived in Korazin as late as the 16th century AD. Right, excavations of the black basalt buildings at Korazin From Korazin, we backtrack to the lakeside road and head roughly 1 mile northeast to the Arik Bridge (below left), an army construction of wooden planks that takes us across the Jordan River. For those of us who grew up with images of this famed river in children's Bible story books are soon disappointed by its somewhat muddy appearance. At this point, so near its sources, it is surprising to see how small a stream it really is. Seldom more than 30 feet wide, it is often shallow enough to wade through. The Jordan enters the Sea of Galilee a few hundred yards to our right. Along the road we note a number of yellow signs with red triangles (below right) informing us in three languages of the presence of mine fields in the area. We shudder collectively when our guide Doran warns us never to venture off the road. "Obey the signs and you'll be safe!" he says, with a little more force.
Soon after the Arik bridge a left turn onto Route 888 takes us to the Jordan River Park and the north-south mound (tell) of Bethsaida. At the time of Jesus, Bethsaida was part of the pagan territory of Gaulanitis (Golan Heights), ruled by the tetrarch Herod Philip. Bethsaida is best known to Christians as the hometown of three of Jesus' disciples: Philip and the brothers Simon Peter and Andrew. Bethsaida - a lost city rediscovered Many pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land are under the impression that all of the sites mentioned in the Bible have been found and can be visited. Alas, a good number of the places in the Scriptures have yet to be positively identified; some, like Bethsaida, have only recently been located. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, Bethsaida was destroyed by two earthquakes and never rebuilt. The town simply disappeared and for years its exact location was even questioned. Researchers have uncovered 27 pilgrim accounts from the Middle Ages describing their attempts to find the city but, they simply had no idea where it had been. With no consensus reached as to its location, it simply slept, forgotten, for 1700 years. Happily, however, it has again been found, but not on the shore of the Sea of Galilee as expected.
Beginning in 1989, the State of Israel recognized et-Tel as the official
location of Bethsaida on Israeli maps and, in 1991, the Bethsaida Excavation
Project, housed at the University of Omaha, was formed to supervise recovery of
the site, which is one of the largest artificial mounds ever discovered on the
Sea of Galilee. Excavations are ongoing and it is assumed that further finds
await the archeologists' spades. In 1998, after ten years of excavation,
Bethsaida was opened to the public for the first time, and it is the only place
where one can actually see the remains of an entire city of the Biblical era
which was not rebuilt in intervening centuries. Building material wasn't removed
for use in later structures, and no churches were constructed over the ruins (as
in other Galilee cities like Capernaum and Nazareth). The ruins of the town that Right, the Jordan River as it nears the Sea of Galilee in the Jordan River Park at the site of Bethsaida. Bethsaida means "house of the hunter" or "house of the fisherman" (the latter is preferable because of its location). It was already an ancient place when Jesus visited it. During the time of King David, the thriving city served as the capitol of the kingdom of Geshur, but it was destroyed in 732 BC by the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser III. Soon after the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BC, new life was infused into the town. New markets were opened to the Phoenician coastal cities to the west. New settlers came to Bethsaida and to other places in Galilee and developed merchandise such as wine, olive oil, linen and dried fish. In 90 BC the Seleucid dynasty, which ruled over Syria and Mesopotamia, collapsed and never recovered. A few years later, the Hasmonean ruler Alexander Jannaeus invaded the former Seleucid territories and conquered Galilee and Gaulanitis. Mimicking his father's earlier actions in Idumea he forcibly converted the local Phoenician population and brought in Jewish settlers. At the time of Jesus Bethsaida was a large village covering an area of about
20 acres. The ancient city walls could still be seen so that it looked like a
fortified village. Still, it was a working-class settlement populated by hard
working people living a simple, no frill
Contemporary Jewish historian Josephus Flavius related (Antiquities
of the Jews, book 18, chapter 2:1) that the tetrarch Herod Philip, one
of the sons of Herod the Great, whose territory included the northern part
of the country (the Golan Heights), elevated the city to the status of a
Greek city-state (polis) and renamed it Bethsaida-Julias, in honor
of Julia, the rebellious and morally-lax daughter of the former Roman emperor,
Augustus, and wife of the current emperor, Tiberius. (As Julia was exiled
in 2 BC, this must have taken place before that date). Philip also built
a lavishly decorated temple on the highest spot of the town. In recent years
cult objects were found in and around
the temple, including a pair of bronze incense shovels, pottery jugs and
juglets used for ritual practices, figurines, amulets and votive objects.
The building had particularly thick walls; stones decorated with meander
and floral motifs suggest its elegance. The temple did not serve for more
than a century, however. The excavations reveal that during the 2n Right, view from Bethsaida towards the Jordan River Apparently Bethsaida was an important city in the Galilee-Golan area at this time for, according to Josephus, Philip died in the city after a reign of 37 years and was buried there with great ceremony. He had lived out his life quietly with his own domain, enjoying his final years with his wife, Salome—the same Salome who had danced for Antipas and requested the head of John the Baptist. Bethsaida is mentioned in the Gospels more often than any other town except Jerusalem and Capernaum. It is known as the birthplace of three of Jesus' disciples: Peter, Andrew and Philip. Jesus himself visited Bethsaida and performed several miracles there:
Note: The number of baskets of leftover food—twelve—is obviously related to the twelve tribes of Israel. Perhaps the symbolic message here is that this is a Messiah who cares for ALL of the Jewish people. Also, the type of basket used in this account is called, in Greek, kophinos, a large round basket for carrying items on the head, in the time honored Middle Eastern tradition.
In Mark's Gospel, Jesus cures a blind man at Bethsaida:
Mark also locates one of Jesus' most famous miracles—his walk on the water—near Bethsaida:
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and difficult route through the Wadi Kerazeh,
and was one of numerous towns that thrived in the Galilee at the time of
Jesus. In the Talmud it is mentioned as a place famous for its wheat. Standing
among the ruins of this ancient town and looking down at the blue waters
of the Sea of Galilee, 885 feet below, one can't help but be inspired.
The remains of this once
flourishing Jewish town are now a national park, under the care of the Israel
Nature and National Parks Protection Authority. The excavations stand on a low
hill above the Sea of Galiee and are spread over an area of 25 acres, subdivided
into five separate quarters. Excavations suggest the town was founded in the 1st
or 2nd century BC and concentrated mostly on the north side of the hill
("Northern Quarter"). By the late 3rd-early 4th centuries AD, it extended over
most of the hill.
With two rows of columns along its length
and one row along its width, the synagogue featured beautiful carvings (as at
Capernaum); an assortment of Jewish symbols and inscriptions in both Aramaic and
Hebrew. It had three entrances, and as was the custom at the time, the front
faced south toward Jerusalem. One of the interesting finds was a stone seat
carved from a single block of basalt where the Torah reader sat. Dubbed the
"Chair of Moses" or "Moses Seat" (right), it is inscribed in Aramaic: "May Yudan Son of
Ishmail who made this hall and its staircase be remembered for good. As his
reward, may he have a share with the righteous." It was reserved for a visitor
or the most distinguished elder of the synagogue. A reference to such a place of
honor is found in Matthew 23:
In the early 1980's, Benedictine monk and
archaeologist, Father Bargil Pixner, began his search for Bethsaida. Combing the
scriptures and other historical records (1st century AD Jewish historian
Josephus Flavius, for example) for clues, he determined that the city lay on a
100-foot rise simply called et-Tel ("the mound") (left),
one and a half miles north of the Sea of Galilee, just east of where the Jordan
River flows into the lake. In 1985 he published a landmark article in Biblical
Archaeological Review, but many experts disagreed with his conclusion, stating
that the site was too far from the lake. Excavations began at et-Tel in 1987.
Meanwhile, investigations confirmed that the Sea of Galilee may have included a
series of estuaries leading off a large lagoon just north of the present day
coast (today it is the Bethsaida plain), and that the flow of the Jordan River,
along with a series of earthquakes, caused the north shore of the Sea of Galilee
to recede. As a result, Bethsaida, which had originally been built on the shore
of the Sea of Galilee, came to be situated to the north. Furthermore, of all the
candidates for Bethsaida, only et-Tel was occupied in the Roman period (37
BC-324 AD).
Jesus knew can
be studied in the same condition as when it was abandoned. No major restorations
have been done; the dirt has simply been cleaned up so ruins remain in much the
same condition that they were during Jesus' lifetime. Thus, Bethsaida provides
scholars and pilgrims with a first hand look at life at the time of Jesus and
his disciples. At Bethsaida Christian pilgrims can literally walk on streets
that Jesus walked.
s way of life—nothing too fancy about
the homes or public buildings in this seaside town. This was a fishing village,
most of the families living there were supported by the "fish of the sea." From
this period, several private houses in a residential quarter were excavated.
Constructed of basalt and probably two stories high, they included a paved, open
courtyard surrounded by several rooms. In one of the houses, dubbed the "House
of the Fisherman"
(right), lead fishing net weights,
anchors, needles and fishhooks were found, attesting to a fishing-based economy.
It is impossible to know if this house was ever home to the fishermen disciples
Peter, Andrew or Philip. But, it is a perfect example of the type of house in
which the apostles would have hosted their rabbi*, Jesus.
In another structure, dubbed the "House of the Winegrower"
(right), excavators discovered
a wine cellar with wine jars and hooks for pruning vines. Here, too, they
found three bent nails (probably from the door hinges) and an iron key (a
symbol of Peter), a replica of which was given to Pope John Paul II while
on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the spring of 2000. In yet another house,
which archaeologists named "Salome's House" after the mother of
Apostles James and John, was found a wine cellar, wine jars, an oven and
two basalt stones used for grinding grain. There is, however, no known connection
between this house and Salome.
d century
AD it went out of use and a private house was built over it. Bethsaida's
status as a polis, together with this temple, suggest that it was
one of the centers of the Roman emperor-worship cult.| A "watch" was a period of time during which a guard detail was on duty, at the end of which others relieved them. After the Jews became subject to the Romans, they adopted the Roman custom of dividing the night into four watches. The "fourth watch" was the last time period leading up to the sunrise. |
m on the water, he almost walks past them! Was this
a test of faith?