Road Trip: Sea of Galilee

The last day of our road trip was spent on the north side of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinnereth).  We drove from Haifa to Tiberias and then to the small town of Tabgha and Capernaum.  Since it was the Sabbath and Tiberias was a ghost town, we had a lunch of hummus and pitas outside the local gas station/mini-mart.  If you don't plan Sabbath meals ahead of time you take what you can get. 

The hills were a brilliant green and a welcome contrast to the brown desert we had been in for the past three days.  I am told that even these hills go brown in summer (just like California) and that now is basically the best season for any place in Israel.  "Go see the Galilee while it's green!  Go to the Golan while the waterfalls are flowing!  Go to the desert while it's still cool enough to hike!" Listening to all of this "advice" you get the feeling that in just a few months Israel will become a very hot and boring place.

For now, however, spring is here.

We went to the Galilee to see the "town of Jesus."  In the gospels Capernaum is referred to as the home base for Jesus' ministry.  It was the home of Andrew and James (the "fishers of men") and the home of Peter.  Archeologists uncovered some very interesting ruins along the shore of the lake including a Byzantine church centered around a 1st century room that tradition has held was the house of Peter.  The church created a series of octagonal walls around the sacred space but they preserved one wall of the original house, which you can see today.  A small town surrounds the church ruins and it is thought that this is the town where Jesus lived.  I was looking for signs that said "Jesus Slept Here" but there were none to be had.  Veronica bought her dad a vial of dirt that said "holy land" and that's about as funny as the gifts got.

At any rate, the rough basalt town was not what I expected.  Living in Israel and having seen Monty Python's Life of Brian, I expected Jesus to have grown up in a city of the gleaming white limestone that is so abundant here.  The real Capernaum with it's rough dark basalt walls, not hewn, but "assembled" didn't fit the picture I grew up with. It was probably even smaller in its day than Nazareth and was afforded no protection.  It was a simple lakeside village where people built with what they had lying about which was volcanic rock.  The rocks were too weak to support windows so it must have been dark indoors.  The rocks were also too weak to support heavy roofs so the roof that was moved so that the roof that was moved so that a paralytic might be lowered in front of Jesus was probably just a light thatch of palm branches.  It was amazingly humble.

The black stones stand out in stark contrast to a beautiful white synagogue (also in ruins but somewhat restored) which was built during the 4th or 5th century.  More about the site can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capernaum

House of Peter



Town Ruins



Synagogue





Today there is a Catholic church built over the ruins of Peter's house such that it looks like a UFO.  You can look through the floor at the original room.



Looking through the floor of the church into the House of Peter



We also visited the Mount of the Beatitudes.  It is a nice church on a hill just north of Capernaum with a good view over the water.  It's plausible to imagine the crowds gathered on the grassy plain to listen to a rabbi's teachings.  It was very pleasant since we caught the site just as it reopened for tour buses.

It was a nice end to a good trip with good friends.