Capernaum

Capernaum: Home of Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James, John, & Matthew.

"Jesus came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days." Luke 4:31

Capernaum was the center of Jesus' preaching. This site was really the first stop with ancient archaeological evidence so it was pretty incredible, but I supposed in may ways it would pale in comparison to some of the ancient ruins that were to come. The greatest impact here is the ancient synagogue. We know that Jesus came to the synagogue in Capernaum in his teachings. The synagogue pictured here is not actually the one that He would have taught in. These ruins are from around 300 A.D. However, this later synagogue was built upon the older one that Jesus would went to, so it remains as being the site where Jesus preached. We were allowed to go in the synagogue, so when we say that we walked in the footsteps of Jesus, there is a high probability of that being literally true in this place!

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Pictured below is an ancient olive press. The rectangle block beside it was used to squeeze more oil out of the olives. This block actually rests on a screw-type structure that aided in raising the it. I found it surprising that they had developed screw equipment back in this era.