Capernaum
A fishing town on the north-west shore of the Sea of Galilee. Matthew calls it the home of Jesus during his ministry, and the Gospels set much of his teaching and healing in its synagogue and houses.
Matthew says that Jesus left Nazareth and lived at Capernaum “by the sea”, and later calls it “his own city” (Matthew 4:13) (Matthew 9:1). Mark sets there the first Sabbath of the ministry, in the synagogue and in the house of Simon Peter and Andrew (Mark 1:21–34); see Jesus Begins His Ministry in Galilee. In Luke the elders of the town say that a centurion built their synagogue (Luke 7:1–5), Matthew appears to place a tax office there (Matthew 9:1, 9), and John sets the discourse on the bread of life in its synagogue (John 6:59). Jesus is also reported to have said that the town would be brought low for failing to repent (Matthew 11:23–24).
Josephus, who commanded in Galilee in AD 66–67, tells of being carried injured to “a village named Cepharnome” after a skirmish near Julias, by the Jordan (Josephus, Life 403), and gives the name Capharnaum to a spring that watered the plain of Gennesaret (Josephus, Jewish War 3.519). The town is identified with the ruins at Tell Hum on the north-west shore, a few kilometres west of the point where the Jordan enters the lake.
What happened here
- c. AD 28–29, estimated dateJesus Begins His Ministry in Galilee
Mark and Matthew tell how, after John’s arrest, Jesus returns to Galilee, announces that the kingdom of God is at hand, calls four fishermen and makes Capernaum, on the lake, the centre of his teaching and healing.
- c. AD 29 or 32, estimated dateThe Feeding of the Five Thousand
In a lonely place by the Sea of Galilee, all four Gospels relate, Jesus feeds a crowd of about five thousand with five loaves and two fish. John adds that the crowd wanted to make him king, and the discourse on the bread of life.