A poor fishing village, home-town of Peter and Andrew, as well as the base of Jesus' Galilean ministry, located on the north-western shores of the Sea of Galilee.
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The remains of the synagogue in Capernaum
The origin of 'Kefar-Nahum' ("the village of Naum" in Hebrew) is unknown. The first really serious occupation of the site occurred in 2nd Cent BC and became important when Herod the Great's kingdom was divided up among his sons after his death when it became the possession of Herod Antipas. It was the first town travellers coming from his brother Philip's territory encounter, and so was equipped with a custom station. It was here where Jesus first met Matthew at his job and summoned him to be his disciple (Matt 9:9). The village also sported a synagogue in which Jesus preached "as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law" (Mk 1:22). Lk 7:5 suggests that the village was so poor that the synagogue was built with the generosity a Gentile centurion. Only the foundations of that synagogue remain; upon it was built a later one (see photo above).
Jesus moved to the village, so Luke tells us, after the residents of Nazareth rejected him. Matthew saw Jesus' move to Capernaum as a fulfilment of Isa 9:1-2 which promised that on the people of Zebulun and Naphtali "a light has dawned" (Matt 4:12-16). For Jesus it was as close to a home as he ever had—Matt 9:1 refers to the village as Jesus' "his own town," and Mk 2:1 as his "home"—and the village was the site of many of Jesus' miracles and much of his teachings as well, possibly in Peter's house. Despite all these manifestations of divine visitations, the village too earned our Lord's chastisement for its unbelief, "And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you." (Matt 11:23-24; Lk 10:15).
The village continued to be a center of Christian presence after the death of Jesus. Archaeologists have uncovered a building which had all the features of a home prior to the 1st Cent but was subsequently enlarged and modified for public use with plastered walls inscribed with graffiti, some of which mention Jesus as Lord and Christ. Later still, it was modified again into an octagonal church. Based on these developments, it has been suggested that this was very likely Peter's house which would naturally have become a center for the Christians settled here. But tensions between the Christian and Jewish residents resulted in mutual vandalism and eventual destruction of the church and synagogue. An earthquate in 746 did further damage to the village, from which time it went into decline. A report from the 13th Cent counted only "only seven houses of poor fishermen there."
Visitors to Capernaum today will find that most of the remains are black in colour. That is because most of the buildings were built of the locally plentiful volcanic rocks called basalt. It is a relatively soft rock, which meant that the houses could only support light roofs. This helps to explain how it was possible for the men who brought their paralytic friend to see Jesus but could not make it through the crowd could have "made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralysed man was lying on" (Mk 2:4; Lk 5:19).
Online Resources :
☰ Capernaum, the Town of Jesus. Youtube
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