Capernaum - June 16 - Part 3

 The town of Capernaum began in the Iron Age.  By the time of Jesus, there were about 2000 people living here.  Jesus stayed here so much that Matthew called it "his own town". (Matthew 9:1)

 4th-century synagogue built on the foundation of a black basalt 1st-century synagogue in which Jesus preached.

 "The centerpiece of the excavations here is Peter's family house (Mark 1:29-31), where Jesus lived, since Mark can say of it, "After a few days, Jesus went back to Capernaum, and people heard that he was at home. (Mark 2:1)...The archaeological remains inside Peter's house include the normal accoutrements of daily life in a family home before about 50 CE.  After that time, we find only lamps and large jars, items one would expect in a public meeting hall.  The room was plastered to set it apart from any other rooms in the area, and in the plaster we found graffiti mentioning Jesus as Messiah and Lord.  Clearly there was a change in the usage of this house sometime in the mid-first century CE from a private dwelling to a public building, and the most reasonable explanation is that Peter's family home, which he shared with his brother Andrew, his mother-in-law, and Jesus (Mark 1:29-31; 2:1), became an early domus ecclesia, or house church.

It would have had a roof of mud and branches, which is the one "some people...tore off" in Mark 2:3-4 so that Jesus could heal the paralytic.  In the fourth century CE, the room was given a stronger roof with a supporting arch, and extra rooms were added around it.  It is this church that the pilgrim Egeria saw in 381-384 CE when she wrote, 'Moreover, in Capernaum the house of the prince of the apostles has been made into a church, with its original walls still standing.  It is where the Lord healed the paralytic.'

In the fifth century CE, the additional rooms were razed to make way for an octagonal church built around the venerated room, which received a mosaic floor depicting a peacock surrounded by lotus flowers, similar to the Church of the Multiplication...The modern church with it's glass floor sits atop the original and replicates its octagonal shape."  (From An Illustrated Guide to the Holy Land by Lamontte M. Luker, pages 48-49)

 View of the synagogue from inside the church.

 The red roof is a Greek Orthodox church.  A wall divides the site between the part controlled by the Catholic Church and the part controlled by the Greek Orthodox church.  The Orthodox side contains domestic homes of Capernaum.

It got a little hotter!