Archaeologists discover Roman home of Jesus’ disciples in Israel

Archeologists digging in modern-day Israel claim they have found the settlement where three of Jesus’s apostles made their homes, according to the following report by uk.news.yahoo.com

The remains of a settlement unearted by the sea of Galilee in the Bethsaida Valley Nature Reserve is thought to be the site of the lost Roman city of Julias, Haaretz reported.

The researchers are convinced that the discovery of an advanced Roman-style bathhouse on the site indicates the existence of a city. They argue that this discovery makes the site in question the most likely to be Julias out of three possible sites in the area.

The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius mentioned that King Philip Herod, son of the biblical King Herod, transformed a settlement in the area called Bethsaida into a significant Roman city, which he called Julias after Julia Augusta, mother of the Roman Emperor Tiberius.

“Josephus reported that the king had upgraded Bethsaida from a village into a polis, a proper city,” Dr. Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret College siad to Haaretz. “He didn’t say it had been built on or beside or underneath it. And indeed, all this time, we have not known where it was. But the bathhouse attests to the existence of urban culture.”

The gospel of John names Philip, Andrew and Peter among Jesus’s followers as being from the town of Bethsaida.

Byzantine ruins had already been discovered at the site, but the archeologists have discovered an older Roman layer beneath them, 211 meters below sea level, containing pottery sheds and a mosaic as well as the bathhouse.

Two coins were also found in the Roman layer; a bronze coin dating from from the end of the 2nd century and a silver one depicting the Emperor Nero and likely dating back to 65-66 C.E.

The discovery indicates that the sea of Galilee’s water level was lower than previously thought during the Roman era.