Capernaum, the town of Jesus

[Music] in the last two episodes we've been to two towns that jesus had cursed korazim and Bethsaida but there is a third town the town which was the center of Jesus ministry in Galilee the town where Peters mother-in-law lived the town of Capernaum located on the northwest side of the lake of Galilee the ruins of Capernaum are divided into two sites the Franciscan and the Greek Orthodox [Music] unlike Jerusalem and other touristy ancient places in Israel Capernaum seems to be untouched still in its raw form [Music] [Applause] [Music] just by walking here and looking at the lake the hills the mountains we felt connected to its history it is as if we could almost see Jesus walking on these shores looking at the same Hills [Music] he's so serene and quiet [Music] it's the perfect place to bring a Bible and the street in the morning and besides the breathtaking nature Capernaum has fascinating ruins the 4th century synagogue built on top of the original one where Jesus taught a house which is believed to be the house of Simon Peter the Apostle the ruins of the old city and much more [Music] so join us in this episode as we explore this fascinating place [Music] [Music] when Sergey and I started today this is the first place he took me to and we walked here it was beautiful and I loved it [Music] [Music] Capernaum is divided into two parts with an entrance point this behind me is the Israeli national park of Colonel this is the meeting point for tourists to build a nice park with benches restrooms and Information Center where tourists can come either by boat or by car and start their journey and exploration of the ancient ruins of Capernaum right from here but the ancient town of Capernaum is divided in the two parts in the Franciscan and the Greek Orthodox we purchased the land back in 1908 Franciscans owned two-thirds ancient ruins and the Greek Orthodox owned the rest of the land we start our journey at the Franciscan site where archaeologists discovered the ancient synagogue and the house of Apostle Peter capernum does pretty far back there are ruins that date to the times before Abraham however it wasn't until the 4th century BC that it was expanded and later the Romans built its streets in straight lines like we see in other Roman cities parallel to the main Roman Imperial highway which ran by the shore of the Sea of Galilee by the 5th century this place became pretty big about 1,500 people lived here and they had a beautiful synagogue and today from the ruins what we see is actually only third of what used to be here [Music] I'm standing by the fourth century synagogue that is built on top of the synagogue where Jesus thought he did a lot of miracles here He healed the Centurions servant he healed Peters mother-in-law he healed the man possessed with demons Juana wrote his favorite passages comes from this place when many of the followers of Jesus find his teachings hard to accept and they leave him Jesus turns to the disciples and asks are you gonna leave me too and Simon Peter answered Lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life [Music] every visitor who comes here is told that this is the house of fear how do we know for sure we know that this was a famous fishing village we know that it was a central place we know Jesus came and preached here from the Gospels but how do we know this is the exact place of Peters house inside when they started excavating this place they actually found walls that belonged to the 1st century to the times of Jesus and they also found that these walls have been turned into a church so it was a house that was turned into a church later now during the excavations they found hundreds of graffiti on the walls dedicated to the Lord and some even say they found the name of Peter as well so based on all these findings and all this information we come to the conclusion that this is the house of Peter so the winning Franciscans bought this property they wanted to continue the tradition of converting Peters house in through church building into a bigger Church and a bigger Church to decide we're gonna build a church here where the house of Peter was but how do you do it without destroying the ruins well it's actually a pretty cool construction it's a hanging building on the pillars on the top and it's also octagonal church that you can walk inside of it and then look down into the house of theater drama class in the middle of the church [Music] [Music] [Music] so this section belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church what's interesting about it is that they've got this 8 is dunams of land that has not been excavated all these are untouched ruins from the times of Jesus are still to be excavated I wonder if we can go to the church and ask anybody if we can get into the field and see the ruins [Music] after speaking to the Orthodox priest he'll explain to us why they didn't excavate the ruins here he said they're in excavating because they want to keep this site a church and everyone ought to keep it humble they want to keep it more conservative they want to keep it for prayer and at the public tourist place so it doesn't make sense of what he's saying and we respect that but and too bad I wish we could just go there and see what's here you said the houses are the same as on the other side but I'm sure there's some treasure buried here to be excavated in our first date we walked from the park to here because it is so close it's just a minute away of walk and from the souvenir shop here Sergio bought me a ring on the first day quick wouldn't you think I wasn't saying anything they're just trying to catch dinner it's not working out a thing they like me you do for me so behind the church you got this nice location where you can sit on the bench read your Bible look at the lake and here's a tip that you won't find on any other channel this is a great place for swimming I don't have the beach perfect clean water let's go and take a dive rules are only a recommendation for Sergio

Channel: Sergio & Rhoda in Israel

Views: 754,871

Rating: 4.8899965 out of 5

Keywords: Sergio and Rhoda, Israel, Travel, Bible, Travel in Israel, Israel Tour, Capernaum, Kefar Nahum, Kfar Nahum, National Park of Kfar Nahum, SnR, National Park of Capernaum, Jesus Ministry, Ministry of Jesus

Id: ifTro5uRaT8

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 30 2018