Capernaum: the synagogue and the village

A brief history

Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee is the village the gospels make the base of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, and Matthew calls it “his own town”. The excavated site holds a white limestone synagogue of the fourth or fifth century, built over the black basalt foundations of an earlier one, and a cluster of basalt houses. One of these was enclosed by an octagonal church in the fifth century, which is why it is identified as the house of Peter; the identification rests on that later veneration, not on anything the house itself says.

An interesting detail

The white limestone of the synagogue was brought from elsewhere: the village itself is built of the local black basalt, so the building would have stood out in the street as plainly then as it does now.