During His ministry, Jesus chose to live in Capernaum, a small town on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum served as a military post for the Roman army. It stood along the busy international trade route called the Via Maris (Way of the Sea). It was an ideal choice as the base for Jesus' ministry because travelers from around the world could hear about what the unconventional Rabbi was teaching as they traveled through the area on the HIStoric road.

Some of the people living in Capernaum were tektons (builders) who worked with stones like Jesus and Joseph. As an area prone to volcanic activity, the Galilee has large deposits of volcanic rock known as basalt. Basalt was an ideal material to use for the production of certain food processing tools. Two of these were olive crushing and pressing tools. The olive press was called a 'gethsemane'.

The synagogue pictured here is made of limestone, not the black basalt common to the region. This limestone had to be carried to Capernaum at great expense. It dates to the late 1st Century AD. This is an interesting synagogue because it is constructed directly on top of the basalt foundation of the previous synagogue. As a city generally only had one synagogue, it is likely that Jesus taught His fellow citizens of Capernaum in the building that preceded this one!

The area around Capernaum was home to a variety of people groups. Religious zealots, pagans, devout and secular Jews all had opportunities to listen to Jesus' radical life-changing message when they came to Capernaum for a visit. After hearing Him, some of them left everything they knew behind and followed Him for the rest of their lives. They called Him their Rabbi. Jesus called them His friends.