Lenten Journey with Jesus

Week 3: Tour of Capernaum

When you hike up Mount Arabel, a small mountain you will see Capernaum and the surrounding area around the Sea of Galilee, a real site to behold. On a clear day you can see for miles, you can see all the way up to the Golan Heights which is now controlled by Syria but at one time was part of Israel.

You can also see Capernaum from here too. Capernaum is a famous village in the New Testament and next to Bethsaida was Jesus’ base of operations. It was a wealthy area since it was directly located on the coast of the Sea of Galilee and would have been the home to fisherman as well as merchants and tradespeople. Capernaum was also located on a famous road called the Via Maris, or the Way of the Sea and was an old trade route for merchants who traveled up and down the area from Jerusalem all the way to Damascus. At every stop they traded news, information, as well as products such as gold, silver, bronze, spices, linens, and food. Along the Via Maris were toll booths set up by the Roman government to collect taxes. Some scholars think that Matthew’s toll booth was not too far from Capernaum. No one will know for sure but we do know that this was a well populated area.

Archeologists have unearthed quite a bit from the ancient world. They found a very old synagogue there as well as what some scholars have said is Peter’s house. What is amazing is that we think many of these villages were poor and of course many were but Capernaum had paved roads, a nice synagogue as well as some bigger homes. We also know that fishing was quite lucrative during the time of Jesus and the disciples, especially Peter, James, and John for example sacrificed quite a bit to leave Capernaum and follow Jesus. We have to remember that if a fisherman owned his own boat it meant that he had to maintain it, purchase supplies for it such as sails, new boards, buy food, hire helpers, maintain the fishing nets and equipment, this was no small operation. These were small business owners who left their work and followed Jesus and literally became “fishers of men” as the gospels say.

We know however that Jesus did spend a lot of time with the poor, orphan, widow, lame, and blind. Outside every village Jesus would have encountered poor people begging on the side of the road. Lepers and those with severe sickness were not allowed inside the village so that they wouldn’t contaminate the rest of the place. They were banned, exiled, never allowed to return. Large leper colonies started outside the city gates. When visiting Capernaum one of the amazing things is you realize how close these villages were to one another; Magdala, Capernaum, Bethsaida, are within easy walking distance and only a few short minutes by car.