Road Found at Bethsaida from Time of Jesus
December 3, 2012 2 Comments
Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe is a road that was traveled by Jesus and the disciples in the ancient town of Bethsaida.
In conducting a dig near the Northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, which was originally meant to serve as a mission to find artifacts from the Roman period, archaeologists came across a distinctive discovery.
“We uncovered a paved street from the time of Jesus’s disciples, which runs westward through the residential area from the corner of the Fisherman’s House down toward the Jordan valley,” Nicolae Roddy of Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, one of the leaders of the dig, told the publication Popular Archaeology. “I tell people that Andrew, Peter and Phillip almost certainly walked on it because they would have had to have gone out of their way to avoid it!”
Dr. Rami Arav of the University of Nebraska has reportedly been working on excavating Bethsaida for approximately 20 years, and others like Roddy have joined in the adventure.
Bethsaida, which literally means “House of Fishing,” is mentioned a number of times in the Bible as a city that Jesus visited to preach repentance and faith in the Gospel. John 1 outlines that “Phillip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter,” and that Jesus had found Phillip in the area of Galilee and called the fisherman to follow him. Mark 8 speaks of Jesus healing a blind man in Bethsaida, and in Luke 10, Jesus rebukes the city of Bethsaida for their rejection of Him.
“Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida!” he said. “For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.”
Archaeologists state that Bethsaida is believed to be part of the kingdom of Geshur, which is mentioned in the Old Testament. King David had married Maaca, the daughter of the king of Geshur.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Do you think he (Jesus) actually said “WOE”? Very strange.
More likely that he said “woe,” than something like “tsk, tsk,” or “tut, tut.”