Galilee and Armageddon

While covering the war in northern Israel - in other words in upper Galillee - I took a morning to visit the ruins of Capernaum, the town where Jesus lived and where many of his disciples came from. Nearby is a Benedictine monastery with this famous mosaic of bread and fishes on the floor of a church, commemorating the spot where Jesus fed the multitudes with five loaves of barley bread and two fish.
Nearby, is the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount, saying "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." There is a chapel built on the hill, but it was closed. I took this picture from the crest of the hill outside the chapel's walled garden.

I went swimming in the Sea of Galilee near the spot where Jesus called to Peter and his friends to haul in their net and bring the fish ashore where he was waiting with a fire.

This is the stone beneath the altar where tradition has it that Jesus set the basket of bread.

These are the ruins of Capernaum.

Another view of Capernaum taken from a modernist church built over the site of a 4th century basilica that was built around what is by tradition believed to have been Peter's house.

I stopped along the Sea of Galilee after returning from Har Megiddo - called in Greek, Armageddon. I met this archeologist there. His name is Israel Finkelstein. He is a controversial figure in Israeli archeology because he insists that the monuments attributed to Solomon there were actually built a century later. The implication is that King David and King Solomon were actually minor kings and not the rulers of a great unified kingdom as tradition holds. Many people don't like hearing that.


The ruins of 30 ancient cities are piled one on top of the other at Megiddo, creating a "tel," or mound such as those that one finds all over the middle east. Here in the pit are the remains of a 4,000 year old temple complex. Armageddon, of course, is the site of the final battle between good and evil according to the book of Revelations.