It is wonderful to reflect how numerous are the ancient towns which encircled this little lake; speaking of the west side alone, they number more than twenty. Hidden by the cliffs we have Tiberias, or Rakkath, and Hammath (El Hummâm), Taricheæ (Kerek), Sinnabris (Sennâbreh), and Magdala (Mejdel), with Kedîsh, the probable site of the Kadesh of Barak.
On the western plateau stand Adamah (Admah), Adami (Ed Damieh), Bitzaanaim (Bessûm), Lasharon (Sarôna), Shihon (Sh’aîn), and other sites of Biblical interest. Arbela, with the synagogue of Rabbi Nitai (200 B.C.), Hattîn (the ancient Zer), Yemma (the Talmudic Caphar Yama), Kefr Sabt, (Caphar Sobthi), Seiyâdeh (the Talmudic Ziadethah), Tell M’aûn (Beth Maon), Sha’arah (Beth Sharaim), and several other towns of later times swell the long list of cities. The district is full of sacred places: Rabbi Akiba, Rabbi Meir, and the great Maimonides, were buried near Tiberias, and the supposed tombs of Jethro and Habakkuk are still shown on the hills above.
One site alone is conspicuous by its absence—the tomb of Nahum, which was known to the Jews in the fourteenth century, but is apparently now lost for ever. This loss is a subject of real regret, for could we light upon the tomb of Nahum, we could perhaps settle for ever the position of Capernaum, “the village of Nahum.”
The various scholars and explorers who have written since Robinson are divided into two parties, one placing Capernaum at the ruins near Khân Minieh, the other selecting the large site at Tell Hûm. The places are only two and a half miles apart, but modern disputants are not content with such wide limits. There is a point which strikes one as curious in the controversy. In all the arguments usually brought forward, no reference is made to the information which can be deduced from Jewish sources dating later than Bible times. To this information I would call attention.
Identification, properly so called, is impossible when the old name is lost; but in the case of Capernaum traces of the name may perhaps be recovered still. It is generally granted that the Talmudic Caphar Nahum, or “Village of Nahum,” was probably identical with the New Testament Capernaum, and it is on this supposition that the only philological claim of Tell Hûm is based; but the loss implied of an important radical at the commencement of the name Hûm, if it be supposed to be a corruption of Nahum, is a change of which we have scarcely any instance; moreover, Hûm in Hebrew means “black,” and still retains its original signification in Arabic. Tell Hûm was so named, no doubt, from the black basalt which covers the site. If we are to seek for an ancient corresponding title, I would suggest Caphar Ahim, a town mentioned in the Talmud with Chorazin, and famous for its wheat, as being probably the ancient name of the ruined site at Tell Hûm. Even if this town were standing in the time of Christ, there seems no more reason why its name should be mentioned in the Gospels, than that Taricheæ or Sepphoris should be so noticed, or that Chorazin should be mentioned by Josephus when speaking of the same district.
An investigation of the name Minieh is more satisfactory. In Hebrew it is derived from a root meaning “lot,” or “chance.” In Aramaic it has an identical meaning, and the Talmud often mentions the Minai, or “Diviners,” under which title were included not only every kind of sorcerer and enchanter, but also the early Jewish converts to Christianity.
Now this word Minai is intimately connected with Capernaum. In the Talmud there is a curious passage (quoted in Buxtorf’s great Lexicon) where “sinners” are defined as “sons of Caphar Nahum:” and these Huta (or sinners) we find from another passage, were none other than the Minai.
It is evident that the Jews looked on Capernaum as the head-quarters of the Christians, whom they contemptuously styled “sorcerers;” and the importance thus attached by them to that town, as a Christian centre, is in accordance with the expression in the Gospel, where Capernaum is called Our Lord’s “own city” (Matt. ix. 1).
The Talmudic doctors speak, then, of Capernaum as the city of Minai, and as such it continued to be regarded by the Jews down to the fourteenth century. In 1334 A.D. Isaac Chelo travelled from Tiberias to Caphar Anan (Kefr ’Anân), presumably by the direct road passing near the “Round Fountain.” He was shown on his way the ruins of Caphar Nahum, and in them the tomb of Nahum, and he remarks incidentally as to the place, “here formerly dwelt the Minai.” It is evident that he cannot be supposed, without twisting the narrative, to refer to any place so far from his route as is Tell Hûm. The site at Minieh would have been within a mile and a half of his road, and the name is apparently connected with Capernaum by his valuable note about the Minai.
The same connection is traced in 1616 A.D., when Quaresmius speaks of Capernaum as shown at a place called Minieh, and thus we are able to trace back an apparently unbroken Jewish tradition connecting Capernaum with the “Village of the Minai,” and with the ruined site of Minieh.