{"id":15056,"date":"2026-05-20T10:27:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=15056"},"modified":"2026-05-20T10:27:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:27:06","slug":"archaeologists-make-amazing-discovery-of-lost-biblical-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/05\/archaeologists-make-amazing-discovery-of-lost-biblical-town.html","title":{"rendered":"Archaeologists Make Amazing Discovery of Lost Biblical Town"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15059\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15059\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15059\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/05\/Bethsaida_credit-Left-Public-Domain-Right-Adobe-Stock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15059\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Public Domain | Right: Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Archeologists have given an update on excavations on a site that could be one of the most important Biblical cities mentioned in the Bible. Steven Notley, the academic director of the El Araj Excavation Project, gave a presentation where he essentially confirmed that the site known as El Araj was once the ancient city of Bethsaida. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gotquestions.org\/Bethsaida-in-the-Bible.html\">Bethsaida<\/a> is mentioned in the New Testament as the birthplace of three of Jesus\u2019s disciples: Phillip, Peter, and Andrew. It was also the scene of a number of Jesus\u2019s miracles, including Jesus walking on water and healing a blind man. Some also believe it may have been the site where Jesus fed the 5,000. Mentions of Bethsaida became less frequent after Jesus returned to Heaven, with some archaeologists believing the city may have been renamed Julias after Caesar Augustus\u2019s daughter. This name change is mentioned in \u201cAntiquities of the Jews\u201d by first-century CE Jewish-Roman historian Josephus: \u201cPhilip [son of Herod the Great] advanced the village Bethsaida, situated at the lake of Gennesareth, unto the dignity of a city, both by the number of inhabitants it contained, and its other grandeur, and called it by the name of Julias, the same name with Caesar\u2019s daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Notley listed out a number of finds that led his team to believe the site is Bethsaida, where excavations had begun in 2016. In 2018, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a Byzantine-era basilica said to have been in Bethsaida. Excavations at the basilica revealed a mosaic with the inscription \u201cChief of the apostles and keeper of the keys of heaven, intercede for him and his children George and Theophano.\u201d Archaeologists also uncovered a first-century house beneath the basilica\u2019s apse in 2023. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/ruins-revealed-by-wildfire-boost-galilean-sites-claim-as-new-testaments-bethsaida\/\">A wildfire<\/a> last year burned away thick brush that had previously hindered some of the researchers\u2019 efforts, enabling them to uncover evidence of columns at the site. \u201cAfter the fire, we carried out a ground survey and saw that the site was much larger than we realized. We identified remains of private houses as well as architectural elements typical of public buildings, including pillar drums, two Corinthian capitals, two Doric capitals, and several cornices,\u201d Prof. Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret College, who was leading the excavation in 2025, told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/ruins-revealed-by-wildfire-boost-galilean-sites-claim-as-new-testaments-bethsaida\/\"><em>The Times of Israel<\/em><\/a> at the time of the fire.<\/p>\n<p>The site, according to Notley, matches a description by Willibald, an eighth-century bishop of Eichst\u00e4tt in Bavaria, Germany. In 725 AD, Willibald traveled to Jerusalem and wrote about a church that had been built over the home of brothers Peter and Andrew. \u201cSo, we have a first-century house wall under the apse,\u201d said Notley. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have a plaque on it that says, \u2018Peter slept here,\u2019 but from a perspective of archaeology, it doesn\u2019t get much better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Archeologists have given an update on excavations on a site that could be one of the most important Biblical cities mentioned in the Bible. Steven Notley, the academic director of the El Araj Excavation Project, gave a presentation where he essentially confirmed that the site known as El Araj was once the ancient city of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":15059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Archaeologists Make Amazing Discovery of Lost Biblical Town<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Archaeologists say El Araj may be biblical Bethsaida, hometown of Peter, Andrew and Philip, based on key excavation finds.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/05\/archaeologists-make-amazing-discovery-of-lost-biblical-town.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Archaeologists Make Amazing Discovery of Lost Biblical Town\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Archaeologists say El Araj may be biblical Bethsaida, hometown of Peter, Andrew and Philip, based on key excavation finds.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/05\/archaeologists-make-amazing-discovery-of-lost-biblical-town.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-20T14:27:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" 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