Holy Tour Day Four - Sea of Galilee, Chorazim n Church of the Beatitudes

Day Four - At the Sea of Galilee on a fisherman's boat. Galilee, taken from the Hebrew galil, "ring, circle" hence a district, region. This is a regional name of part of N Palestine. The area of the lower Galilee is where most of the Gospel narrative refers. Well watered by streams flowing from the North mountains, and possessing considerable stretches of fertile land in the limestone basins among its hills, it was a area of dense and prosperous settlement. It exported Olive oil and cereals, and fish from the lake.

This St Peter's fish lunch costs USD30 each pax.

The Sea of Galilee is a large fresh-water lake important for its fishing. The lake contains species of fish different in taste and appearance from those elsewhere.

It is surrounded by mountains except to the south and the plain of Gennesaret at its northwest. The soil here is fertile, the weather hot. The fertile plain on the north is remarkable in its beauty and properties, growing the walnut, date-palm, fig and olive.

We visited the Korazim National Park, remains of a Jewish town mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud as renowned for the good wheat grown here. In the NT (Matt 11:20-21) Korazim is mentioned as an unrepentant city condemned by JESUS together with Bethsaida and Capernaum. It was destroyed by earthquakes.

What lesson can we learn from here?

This town is divided into 5 quarters containing a synagogue, remains of 3 large buildings and a prominent paved square. Notice that the stones are dark in colour. The buildings are made of black basalt stones. The 2nd picture shows Peter sitting on the "seat of Moses" which was founded in the 1920s and it has an Aramaic inscription remembering Yudan.

I was very excited I could visit the Church of the Beatitudes because late last year we studied the Sermon on the Mount and it was a wonderful experience to be able to visit the Church and even sang in this building with beautiful acoustics. Located on a small hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee near Tabgha, the Mount of Beatitudes is the traditional site of Jesus' delivery of the Sermon on the Mount, probably the most famous sermon of all time.

The inside of the Church of the Beatitudes

The Ancient Galilee Boat Museum. In 1986, an ancient boat was pulled from the mud along the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was a unique and exciting find that gives us an idea of the sort of boat used during the time of Jesus,

Analyses of wood samples taken from the hulle timbers revealed that the majority of the vessel''s planks are made of Lebanese cedar, while most of its frames are oak. However, at least ten other types of wood all local to this area were used in the boat''s construction

Peter took some very nice pictures of the surroundings at the museum.

A boat of masks and a short beautiful tree with orange flowers.


We passed Gilgal, on our way to Jericho. Will soon post the pictures of the Jericho Tel, the excavation site where the story of Jericho took place.