Capernaum: Jews and Christians in the Ancient Village from the Time of Jesus to the Emergence of Islam

This book is about the history of Jews and Christians, and their interaction, in Capernaum from the time of Jesus until the Byzantine-Islamic transition in Palestine in the seventh century. Based on multidisciplinary research into both the literary and archaeological sources, the book addresses socio-historical questions that have vexed current scholarly and popular understanding of how this small Galilean town developed into an important place for both Jews and Christians in antiquity as well as today. The book engages issues such as the following: the invention of Capernaum as a modern pilgrimage-tourist site under the authority of the Franciscan Custodia Terrae Sanctae; the nature of the historical Jesus’s relationship to the town; whether or not a synagogue stood in Capernaum during the time of Jesus; whether or not Jewish followers of Jesus lived in Capernaum during the second and third centuries; and how the architecture of the town’s domestic and monumental landscapes functioned to shape Jewish and Christian identity individually and interactively. These questions are investigated within their local, regional, and empire-wide contexts to construct a picture of the ways in which Jews and Christians lived and related to each other in Capernaum and how their relations were affected by the arrival of Islam in Palestine.