The Capernaum Synagogue

Capernaum (Kfar Nahum, "Village of Nahum") sits on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, the fishing town that became Jesus's base of operations during his Galilean ministry — the home of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and the site of the synagogue where Jesus taught (Mark 1:21, John 6:59) and the house from which he healed the paralytic let down through the roof (Mark 2). The site was identified in the 19th century but excavated systematically only from 1968 onward by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land under Virgilio Corbo and Stanislao Loffreda. The 4th-century white limestone synagogue still standing at the site sits directly atop an earlier basalt synagogue whose walls are visible at the foundation level — the basalt structure is dated by ceramics and coins to the 1st century AD. This is almost certainly the building Mark and John describe; Luke 7:5 records that a Roman centurion built a synagogue for the Jewish community at Capernaum, a detail the basalt foundations are consistent with. A second focal site, dubbed by the excavators the "House of Peter," lies a hundred meters south: an octagonal Byzantine church of the 5th century, built over a 4th-century basilica, built over a private house of the 1st century AD. The 1st-century house was venerated almost from the first generation; by the late 4th century the pilgrim Egeria reported it was already shown as Peter's home. The identification of the basalt structure as the very synagogue where Jesus taught remains debated — some scholars place a 1st-century synagogue elsewhere on the site — but no rival candidate has prevailed. Sources: Stanislao Loffreda, Recovering Capharnaum (1985); Virgilio Corbo, Cafarnao I: Gli Edifici della Citta (1975); James F. Strange and Hershel Shanks, "Has the House Where Jesus Stayed in Capernaum Been Found?" BAR 8:6 (1982); Anders Runesson, Donald D. Binder, and Birger Olsson, The Ancient Synagogue from Its Origins to AD 200 (2008).