Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

Travelling eastward to Tiberias we see a little way off the road on our left hand a hill of rather peculiar form; it looks as though it might be the crater of a volcano, with two stunted horns, one at either end. This is called the Horns of Hattin, and is noted in history as being the place where the Crusaders received their last crushing defeat at the hands of Sal-a-din, the great Saracen general, in the year 1187. But it is still more interesting to us as being the place where Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount. The tradition which makes Kurn Hattin the Mount of Beatitudes is of Latin origin, and not older than the twelfth or thirteenth century; but the place is so well adapted for the delivery of a discourse to a large multitude, that in this case we may well believe it was correctly chosen by those who first selected it. When we are at the spot we have no difficulty in reconciling the seemingly inconsistent statements of St Matthew, who says that the sermon was preached on the mount, and St Mark, who says that Christ came down from the mount, and preached in the plain. Sitting on one of the peaks or “horns” aforesaid, Jesus might begin his discourse to his disciples, and when a larger crowd began to gather, might descend to the base of the peak, while still remaining on the mountain of Hattin.

From Hattin we are soon at Tiberias, a town once beautiful and famous, but now notorious for the filth of its streets and the activity of its vermin. The Arabs say that the king of the fleas holds his court there. Josephus tells us that the city was built by Herod Antipas, and named in honour of the Emperor Tiberius. It was therefore a new city in Christ’s day, and probably at first inhabited only by Romans, Antipas himself having a palace there, adorned with figures of animals, “contrary to the Jewish law.” Moreover, as it was built on the site of an ancient burial ground, it would be regarded by the Jews as a polluted and forbidden locality. These circumstances, taken together, may account for the fact that Jesus Christ does not appear ever to have entered the city.

The former greatness of Tiberias is indicated by the extent of the walls, 12 feet in thickness, which have been traced by Dr Selah Merrill and by Herr Schumacher for a distance of 3 miles, on the south side. In the course of the wall is an old castle on the summit of a hill, 1000 feet above the town. An aqueduct, 9 miles long, brought pure water from a distance, whereas the present inhabitants are content to drink of the waters of the lake. Looking about in the town we notice some traces of its former grandeur; here a magnificent block of polished granite from Upper Egypt, there a hunting scene carved on the surface of a hard black lintel of basalt, besides old buildings, and broken shafts and columns half buried in rubbish.

From Tiberias we go north, and after a ride of 3 miles reach Medjel, which represents the Magdala of Christ’s time, and is known wherever the New Testament is read as the home of Mary Magdalene. The village is insignificant, being only a collection of huts and hovels; the people are poor and degraded, and their children half naked. Travellers approaching the place are greeted by the howling of dogs, which rush out as though they would devour them.

Tiberias and Medjel are the only places now inhabited about the lake, and the visitor is impressed with a sense of deadness and desolation. Yet the lake is beautiful, and upon its shores there were in Christ’s time no less than nine cities, while numerous villages dotted the plains and hills around. All the surrounding region was highly cultivated, and the lake itself was covered with fishing boats. There are no more than half a dozen boats now—made at Beyrout, or some other seaport town, and brought hither on the backs of camels—but the lake still swarms with fish. When a revolver was fired into the water at random several fishes were killed and floated on the surface.

The lake is surrounded by hills, except at the south end, where it touches the Jordan Valley. These hills are at such a distance from the water as to leave a belt of land, generally level, all round it, which at some points broadens out into large plains, such as those of Gennesaret and Bathia. Medjel, already mentioned, is at the southern end of the charming Plain of Gennesaret, about which Josephus goes into ecstasies on account of its exceeding great fertility. He speaks of the palms and figs, olives and grapes that flourished there, and the fish for which its streams were far-famed. The plain is but 3 miles long by 1 mile wide, and it now looks neglected; but it might be made a little paradise again, for the soil is as fertile as ever. “As we journey towards the northern end” (says Dr Merrill) “we observe on our left a strange sight. The mountain appears to have parted asunder and left a great chasm, the walls of which are perpendicular, and full of caves, which, not long before the birth of Christ, were occupied by robbers, whom Herod the Great had much difficulty in subduing. Along the bottom of that chasm, ran, in Christ’s time, the main road from Cana of Galilee, Nazareth, Tabor, and the region of the south-west, to the north end of the lake, and thence to Damascus. Christ would pass along this road in going down from Nazareth to Capernaum.”

It was probably in the Plain of Gennesaret that the multitude stood on the land while Jesus put off in a boat to be free from the pressure of the crowd while he addressed them (Mark iv. 1). In this neighbourhood, also, no doubt, was spoken the parable of the net cast into the sea.

Of all the nine cities then about the lake we should like to recover especially the sites of Capernaum and Bethsaida. Before the Exploration we had to be content with the vague statement that Capernaum was somewhere north of Tiberias. We are now able to point to two sites, and say that Capernaum was one or other of these, while these two places are but 2½ miles apart. One of these places is Tell Hum, at the head of the lake, about 2 miles west of the point where the Jordan enters the lake. Here we have ruins indicating the former existence of a town hardly smaller than Tiberias; we find a regular cemetery, and within an enclosure we have the remains of a synagogue. Besides the synagogue ruins the argument in favour of this site is found in its name: Tell means a heap, such as the place has become, and Hum is the abraded form of the name Nahum. Tradition said that the prophet Nahum lived and died here, and indeed his grave was pointed out as late as the fourteenth century. The village of Nahum would be Kefr Nahum in Hebrew; Khafarnaum, as Josephus has it; Capernaum as we are familiar with it. Sir Charles Wilson is in favour of this site. On the other hand, Major Conder is in favour of Khan Minyeh, 2½ miles from Tell Hum, along the shore southward, and right in the corner of the Plain of Gennesaret. Here, again, we have evidences of the former existence of a town, although we have no synagogue ruins. The name of the place, in this case also, supplies a strong argument. It appears that the Jews, who looked upon Capernaum as the home of Christ and the headquarters of his followers, called the disciples “Sons of Capernaum;” they also nicknamed them Diviners or Sorcerers—in their language, Minai, a name often appearing in the Talmud. Khan Minyeh, then, would seem to be the town of the Minai or Sorcerers, the early Jewish converts to Christianity; and their mother town was Capernaum. An objection might seem to lie against Khan Minyeh because of its situation in the plain, while it is said of Capernaum, “And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven? thou shalt go down unto Hades” (Matt. xi. 23). Such an expression might be interpreted morally; but if it is to be understood literally, then there is the suggestion that the town was not entirely in the plain, but spread over the rocky promontory to the north-east. Rev. Henry Brass explored this promontory in the spring of 1890, and on the highest part, about 242 feet above the lake, found “the remains of a fortification—possibly the station of the Roman Centurion (Matt. viii. 5)—and here and there traces of buildings, but everywhere broken pottery, showing that there was formerly a large population. The ruins of the Khan at the junction of the roads from Cæsarea, Jerusalem, and Perea with the great Roman road leading north to Damascus, probably mark the very spot where Matthew sat at the receipt of custom; and the outlying rocks at the foot of the cliff, to this day the favourite resort of fish, indicate the spot where Peter would naturally go to cast his hook (Matt. xvii. 27).”[40]

Before quite dismissing Capernaum from our minds, let us inquire about the site of Bethsaida. The name signifies House of Fisheries, and it is recorded that Bethsaida was on the lake and had the Jordan running past it. Before we go further let us recall what occurred after the feeding of the five thousand.

Jesus constrained his disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before him unto the other side to Bethsaida. This is St Mark’s account (Mark vi. 45). St John, speaking of the same event, says that the disciples entered into a boat, and were going over the sea unto Capernaum (John vi. 17). It would appear, therefore, that Bethsaida and Capernaum were in the same direction, looking across the lake from the place where the disciples embarked. On the morrow, when the multitude which had been fed found that Jesus and his disciples had gone away, they engaged some small boats which had come from Tiberias, and crossed over to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. They must have had some ground for believing he had gone away in that direction: at any rate, at Capernaum, “on the other side of the sea,” they found him, and so we cannot doubt that the boat had landed him at Capernaum, or near it. When, therefore, two Evangelists tell us that they came to the shore at Gennesaret, and moored the boat there (Matt. xiv. 34; Mark vi. 53), it seems plain that Capernaum itself was in the land of Gennesaret, as it would be if situated at Khan Minyeh. And yet, considering that the disciples had been instructed to go “unto the other side, to Bethsaida,” and perhaps only deviated a little through the stress of the storm, and landed at Capernaum, we can hardly doubt that Bethsaida was close by. In fact the ruins at Tell Hum may very well mark the site of Bethsaida, especially as their position agrees with the descriptions of early travellers who place Bethsaida north-east of Capernaum. For example, Willibald (A.D. 722) says, “And thence (from Tiberias) they went round the sea, and by the village of Magdalum to the village of Capernaum, where our Lord raised the prince’s daughter. Here was a house and a great wall, which the people of the place told them was the residence of Zebedæus and his sons John and James. And thence they went to Bethsaida, the residence of Peter and Andrew, where there is now a church on the site of their house. They remained there that night, and next morning went to Chorazin, where our Lord healed the demoniac, and sent the devil into a herd of swine. Here was a church of the Christians.” They afterwards went on to the sources of the Jordan at Banias.[41]