Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
– John 1:44 (ESV)
Early this week, the Center for the Study of Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins and Nyack College announced the discovery of what could be a reliquary that once held remains of the apostles Philip, Andrew and Peter. The find adds fuel to the debate over the true location of the biblical city of Bethsaida in Israel.
Three weeks ago, we did a Thinker Update that in part highlighted the dispute over the site of Bethsaida, the city the New Testament links with three of Jesus’ apostles and the area where most of his Galilean ministry took place, including many of his miracles. There are two major sites competing for the designation of “Bethsaida.” We were looking forward to the ongoing discussion as new finds come to light. We did not have to wait long.
Professor Mordechai Aviam, one of the leaders of the excavation conducted by the Institute for Galilean Archeology at Kinneret College, revealed that a 300-kilogram (about 660 pounds) basalt block has been found that is consistent with the form of other known reliquaries. The block has three smooth compartments carved on top and was found at the site of el-Araj on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee where Aviam believes Bethsaida once stood.
Its discovery was somewhat of an accident.
“We didn’t find it in the excavation,” Aviam told Haaretz magazine, “It was found in the debris of an Ottoman-era, two-story house built by a rich man from Damascus, who owned all the land locally in the late 19th century.” As is commonly seen at archaeological sites, older material had been repurposed by locals for use in their newer buildings.
Reliquaries are cases or containers often used as shrines, where ancient holy relics were kept. These sacred relics could include bones, clothing, possessions or other artifacts associated with a person or event.
Another artifact found in the rubble of the house was a lioness also carved in basalt. Aviam proposes it was made by the Jewish population of el-Araj, perhaps sometime around the 4th to 6th century.
The reliquary is believed to have originally been associated with a nearby Byzantine church being excavated, which was active during the 5th century. Gilded-glass mosaics and imported marble discovered there in past seasons point to it being very ornate and important church.
Holy relics were extremely popular in Byzantine churches. The excavators believe this reliquary would have been positioned in line with the common practice of placing them in the ground below the altar, because the bottom of the stone was rough and not meticulously carved like the top. The three niches connect to the idea that it honored three people.
Aviam related the account of an 8th century pilgrim to the Holy Land named Saint Willibald whose travels were written down. The record had him visiting the Church of the Apostles in Bethsaida during a trip around the Sea of Galilee. “Then they went to Bethsaida, the native place of Peter and Andrew. A church now occupies the site where their home once stood,” the report states.
“Willibald only mentioned the church of two apostles, Peter and Andrew: he didn’t mention Philip,” Aviam noted. Considering the location and the three niches he continued, “We suggest, cautiously, that this could be the reliquary of Peter, Philip and Andrew. This could have been the reliquary of the Church of the Apostles.”
The prominence of Bethsaida in the Gospels still draws Christian visitors to this area daily, and by the thousands, to tour Jordan Park near where the Jordan River enters the Sea of Galilee. This is where the other leading candidate for Bethsaida is located, at a place called et-Tell. Unlike el-Araj, et-Tell is located over 1.5 miles inland from today’s shoreline. There, the Bethsaida Excavations Project is directed by Professor Rami Arav from the University of Nebraska at Omaha under the auspices of the Hebrew Union College.
Arav is adamant that his site of et-Tell is the correct location for Bethsaida. “We have known for the past 30 years that Bethsaida is in the Jordan Park. We’ve identified it correctly,” he stated, noting that his site has been officially designated “Bethsaida” by a government committee in charge of naming sites.
One of the central issues in the debate is where the shoreline of the sea would have been in the 1st century when the apostles lived there and when (according to Josephus) it was expanded by the Romans. Arav believes a lagoon existed at that time and for centuries afterward, which would have put et-Tell on the shore of the sea, and el-Araj under water.
Aviam disagrees. “But it wasn’t. We found a Roman-period layer too, and Roman coins.” The Roman layer was uncovered about 10 feet below the modern surface. Aviam believes el-Araj existed near the current shoreline from the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD. “The entire assemblage allows us to securely propose this as the location of the village of Bethsaida,” he said: It is “a fishermen’s village on the shore of Lake Kinneret, which during the 1st century expanded and became an urban settlement, to which the [Roman] bathhouse belongs that is now being exposed in the excavation.”
As reported in the el-Araj excavation press release, Dr. R. Steven Notley of Nyack College summed up the case for el-Araj being the Roman city of Bethsaida Julias visited by Jesus and home to three Galilean fisherman who became apostles.
“The current excavations have demonstrated beyond any question that the site of el-Araj was settled in the Roman period and was not underwater as the archaeologists of et-Tell have claimed,” Notley stated. “Since our settlement is situated between et-Tell and the Sea of Galilee, we have strengthened our claim that el-Araj is the leading candidate for the fishing village of Bethsaida, home of the Apostles. Not only have we uncovered buildings and artifacts from this early period, we have unearthed more evidence from the later Byzantine church…”
These debates reveal the normal biases seen in the academic world and in every area of life. Of course, everyone favors their own thinking, or they wouldn’t hold to it. Often, tentative results and conclusions based on very incomplete data are not given the appropriate cautious tone they deserve.
Over time, what begins as a cautious proposal has a tendency to soon be declared as the only viable option by the overly confident. Paradigms then become set in cement. Soon, the standard view can become the measure for what is legitimate science, and what is fanciful fiction. Long-held understandings are often correct, but especially in matters of ancient history, they can also be wrong.
It is refreshing to see a more measured attitude expressed by Professor Aviam and the el Araj team. Although Aviam is a leading proponent of el-Araj, he said, “I don’t say that el-Araj is Bethsaida, but I think it’s a better candidate than the other site.”
Here at Patterns of Evidence, we continue to strive to use the findings of top scholars, but give due caution to the conclusions drawn from those findings. A maxim given by Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog is that archaeology is 10% data and 90% Interpretation. It is also true that where data is often sparse, there is all the more need to refrain from holding conclusions too tightly, whether new ideas or the standard view.
We continue to look forward to new finds from Bethsaida and elsewhere that inform our understanding of the ancient world, the Bible, and our own time. Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Reliquary found in el-Araj, carved out of basalt rock, which Dr. Mordechai Aviam suspects had housed relics from the bodies of apostles Peter, Andrew and Philip (credit: Dr. Mordechai Aviam, El Araj Expedition)
