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Searching for Bethsaida: The Case for Et-Tell [and The Case for El-Araj]
Biblical Archaeology Review 46:2 ^ | Spring 2020 | Rami Arav

Posted on 05/03/2020 8:56:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

About 25 years ago, the Government Naming Committee for State of Israel renamed a large mound on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, which in the past had been known by the name et-Tell, as Bethsaida. The following is why they did so...

Still, to solve the problem of the location of Bethsaida, scholars in the 19th century suggested there might be two Bethsaidas: They identified the one mentioned by Josephus with et-Tell and suggested a second Bethsaida existed at some still unidentified location in the Galilee. For the second Bethsaida, Robinson suggested the site of Tabgha, which turned out to be a Byzantine site. The French scholar Victor Guèrin suggested Khirbet el-Minia, which was later determined to be an Umayyad palace (eighth century C.E.). Contrary to the testimony of Josephus, the German explorer Gottlieb Schumacher suggested that Bethsaida was separate from Julias, proposing that Bethsaida is on the large mound known as et-Tell, while Julias is perhaps at el-Araj on the shore of the Sea of Galilee...

This deep level of the lake did not surprise some geologists.1 Several years ago, they discovered that due to a severe draught and climate change in the mid-first century C.E., the level of the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea dropped to unprecedented levels. It took a century and a half to restore the level of the lakes to the level prior to the climate change. This meant that it was possible for there to have been a city on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the first century C.E. beneath the higher surface of the lake two centuries later.

(Excerpt) Read more at baslibrary.org ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: bethsaida; elaraj; ettell; godsgravesglyphs; israel; ramiarav; romanempire; rstevennotley
For 38 years (4 B.C.E.-34 C.E.), Herod Philip, the son of Herod the Great, ruled as governor of the northern Transjordan, a region stretching from Mount Hermon (on the modern Lebanon-Syria border) to the territory east of the Sea of Galilee. In about 30 C.E., he founded a city at the southern boundary of his tetrarchy on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. This new city complemented the administrative capital that he had established in the northern portion of his district at Caesarea Philippi-Paneas three decades earlier, in 3 B.C.E, near where his father had previously constructed a temple to Caesar Augustus (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 15.363). For his new, southern polis, the governor did not start from scratch. This son of Herod the Great selected the existing Jewish village of Bethsaida on the lakeshore and transformed it into his new city. He named it Julias, after the widow of Caesar Augustus and the queen mother of Caesar Tiberius.
Searching for Bethsaida: The Case for El-Araj by R. Steven Notley

1 posted on 05/03/2020 8:56:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

2 posted on 05/03/2020 8:57:32 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

B.C.E., C.E., climate change.

Clearly ‘Biblical Archaeology Review’ and ‘Searching for Bethsaida’ have very little to do with Christianity.


3 posted on 05/03/2020 9:42:43 PM PDT by A strike (" Was that wrong? Should I not have done this? " - Costanza)
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To: SunkenCiv

“Several years ago, they discovered that due to a severe draught and climate change in the mid-first century C.E., the level of the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea dropped to unprecedented levels. It took a century and a half to restore the level of the lakes to the level prior to the climate change.”

I just knew that the Israelites drove Suburbans!


4 posted on 05/03/2020 10:19:46 PM PDT by Ouchthatonehurt
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To: A strike
Clearly your comment has very little to do with Christianity, or with archaeology, so sod off.

5 posted on 05/04/2020 5:31:47 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Ouchthatonehurt
With the terrain, it just made sense. :^)

6 posted on 05/04/2020 5:32:25 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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