Capernaum, excavated

Jesus’ ministry base has been dug. The excavators (the Franciscans Corbo and Loffreda, 1968–86, with Tzaferis in the eastern field) describe an unwalled lakeshore village of about 10–12 acres: houses of unworked basalt fieldstone, walls too weak for a second story, with packed-earth floors and thatched roofs, rooms clustered around shared courtyards for extended families; population put at no more than ~1,500. One block near the shore is unusual: its largest room was re-plastered, its pottery shifts from household wares to lamps and storage jars, and later pilgrims scratched prayers into the plaster, some naming Peter, with a 5th-century octagonal church finally built directly over it. The excavators argue this is the remembered house of Peter, Jesus’ base (Mark 2:1); the caution: the name rests on the veneration trail, not an inscription. The white synagogue standing today is dated by most to the 4th–5th century; whether its basalt foundation is the 1st-century synagogue the centurion built (Luke 7:5) is argued both ways in the literature, no winner here.