Biblical and Historical Sites

Beersheba in Hebrew can mean “well of the oath or covenant,” or, in another tradition, “well of seven.”  It is located nearly midway between the southern end of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean.  It is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. It was the area where a well was dug […]

Beit She’an is a city in the North District of Israel which has played an important role historically due to its geographical location at the junction of the Jordan River Valley and Jezreel Valley.       Beit She’an’s location has often been strategically significant, essentially controlling access from the interior to the coast, as […]

Bethany, a small village in Palestine, is a couple of miles over the hill on the eastern side of the Temple Mount, and farther along on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. Bethany was the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, from the New Testament.  They were close friends of Jesus of Nazareth. […]

Bethel in Hebrew means “house of God.” Its former name was Luz – the royal Canaanite city (Genesis 28:19).  It was located in the central hill country of Palestine, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem.  The area was conquered by the tribe of Ephraim.  When Abram entered Canaan, his second encampment was formed between Bethel […]

Bethlehem is a village in Judea six miles south and slightly west of Jerusalem. It is first mentioned in Genesis (35:19) as Ephrath, the burial place of Rachel, Jacob’s wife. It becomes the setting for most of the book of Ruth (David’s great-grandmother). David is born in this area and his anointing as king occurs […]

BETHSAIDA Long ago, Bethsaida was thought to be located near the present-day shore of the Sea of Galilee; however, not all biblical archaeologists believed that to be true. In 1987, Dr. Rami Arav, an Israeli archaeologist, spent ten days examining what he thought was the real location. He found a large mound called et-Tell, about […]

Between the years 22 B.C.E. and 9 B.C.E., Herod the Great created a magnificent city along the northwestern Mediterranean seacoast of Palestine and called it “Caesarea Maritima” after Caesar Augustus, his patron. The man-made harbor was a triumph of ancient engineering, the first large-scale harbor ever built in the open sea. It was engineered using […]

Caesarea was located two miles east of the large city of Dan, twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee, and forty miles southwest of Damascus. The region was known as Lower Gaulanitis (the modern area of the Golan Heights). Gaulanitis included the territory east of the Jordan River and north of the Sea of […]

Cana was a village in Galilee mentioned exclusively in the Gospels. There are two probable sites of this village, one “Kefr Kenna” and one “Khirbet Qana.” Kefr Kenna was the known site for pilgrims up through the medieval times. It’s about four miles from Nazareth and on the road from Capernaum to Bethsaida. “The precise […]

The town lies on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, about two-and-a-half miles from the entrance of the Jordan River into the Galilean Sea. It was the last town before the border between Galilee and Gaulanitis to the east. As a border town, large revenues of taxes would have been collected at this […]