Nazareth & Galilee

After visiting Masada and the Dead Sea we settled into Tel Aviv where we spent a few days. We took an excursion to Nazareth and Galilee and learned a lot!  Nazareth was the town where Jesus spent most of his childhood.   We first visited the Annunciation Church. The church was built over the cave that they think was Mary's home when the angel came to her and announced she would give birth to the Son of God.

We enjoyed all of the different countries interpretations of Jesus and Mary.

Let's go inside...

The new modern church was built on top of a church that dates back to around 350 AD, and you can even see the original ruins and baptismal font.

The modern church built around it has a beautiful and very large mosaic!

There were a few more interpretations of Mary inside the church, here was the one from good ol' USA

We learned that for the past 2,000 years the city of Nazareth has been rebuilt on-top of old city ruins from the time of Christ.  The city underground is connected through interlocking tunnels, that are mainly closed off to the public.

Underneath the Church of Saint Joseph we were able to visit the ruins of a rich Jewish family.  

Our guide explained to us that they know it was a rich Jewish family because they found a private Mikvah inside the house. A Mikvah looks like a miniature swimming pool and is a place where you go to purify yourself.

On our way to Capernum we went to an area called Tabgha to visit a Spanish Monastery.  This monastery was built around the multiplying stone where Christ performed one of his most well known miracles.  Jesus after hearing of his cousin John the Baptists death came here to mourn by himself but a large group of people followed him. He had compassion on them and healed their sick while they stayed into the evening listening to him. The apostles came to him and said he needed to disperse the multitude as they were far from food with nothing to eat.  Jesus took the food that they had, which was 5 loaves of bread and two small fish, and multiplied it to feed the 5,000 who were present.

The mosaic floors are amazing, and still in tact over thousands of years!

In Capernum we saw ruins of the oldest known Christian church dating back to 100AD.  They believe that it is on top of Peter's house where Jesus lived for 3 years.  Archaeologists know that it was a Christian church because there were pictures and carvings of fish everywhere, which was an early Christian symbol.

Right on top of the church they have build a new church, and you can look down through the center of the floor and see the ancient ruins. 

Across from the church are ruins of an elaborate Jewish synagogue from the same time period.  It is very elaborate because the Jews wanted to keep their members, and were afraid of losing people who could convert to Christianity.  

There was at first no evidence that this was actually a Synagogue, because they never discovered where the Torah was stored.  Later, they did find evidence of wall carvings that shows that the Torah was in fact on a mobile cart, and they found lavish ornate decorations like Jewish stars to signify that it was a Jewish Temple.

We got to enjoy some of the lovely sea breeze from the Sea of Galilee before heading to our last stop for the day...

Our last site for the day was in Yardenit, where the Jordan River flows out to the Sea of Galilee towards the Dead Sea.  This area is where we visited the famous Baptismal Site of Jesus.  The area looks just like the background of every painting we have seen of Jesus being baptized by John.

I had to get a picture of Jordan on the Jordan

...and one of us

We had a great day exploring, back to Tel Aviv to explore why so many people go there to visit!