After 2,000 Years, Archaeologists Say They May Have Found Where Jesus Walked on Water

For two thousand years, believers around the world have read the Gospel account of Jesus walking across the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee to reach his terrified disciples. Now, a team of archaeologists say they have identified the very town from which that miracle is believed to have taken place, a discovery that has quietly been unfolding for nearly a decade along the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

The site in question is called el-Araj, located on the northeastern edge of the Sea of Galilee. Archaeologists working there believe it is the long-lost biblical town of Bethsaida, the fishing village mentioned repeatedly in the New Testament as the home of Jesus’s apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip, and the backdrop for some of his most famous miracles.

According to the Gospels, Bethsaida was the town near which Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee during a storm, astonishing his disciples who were struggling against the wind in their boat. It was also near Bethsaida that Jesus is said to have healed a blind man and fed a multitude of five thousand people with just a handful of loaves and fish.

The excavation at el-Araj has been led by Professor R. Steven Notley of Nyack College and Professor Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret Academic College, working together through the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archaeology. Their work began in earnest in 2016 and has produced a steady stream of findings that they say build a compelling case for el-Araj’s identification as Bethsaida.

One of the most significant discoveries came in the form of a Byzantine-era church, believed by the excavation team to be the Church of the Apostles, a structure mentioned by early Christian pilgrims as having been built over the house of Peter and his brother Andrew. The mosaic floors of that church, buried for nearly fifteen hundred years, have now been uncovered.

Notley explained that the identification is rooted in historical pilgrim accounts, including that of the Bavarian bishop and saint Willibald, who visited the region in the year 725 A.D. Willibald recorded that a church stood in Bethsaida, built directly over the home of the two apostles, giving archaeologists a crucial historical anchor point for their search.

“It is always remarkable to bring these beautifully decorated floors to light after being buried for almost 1500 years,” Notley said of the mosaic discovery, capturing the sense of wonder that has accompanied years of painstaking excavation work at the site.

The identification of el-Araj as Bethsaida is not without controversy, and fairness demands that be acknowledged. For decades, the leading candidate for Bethsaida had been a separate site called et-Tell, located roughly a mile and a half further from the shoreline. Archaeologist Rami Arav has spent thirty years excavating et-Tell and remains convinced that his site is the true location of the biblical town.

The case for et-Tell was strong enough that the Israeli government officially recognized it as Bethsaida around 1995. However, as excavations at el-Araj progressed, that certainty began to erode. Israeli authorities have since stepped back from a firm designation, instead labeling the broader area encompassing both sites as the Bethsaida Valley Nature Reserve.

The core dispute between the two camps centers on geography and water levels. Bethsaida is described in ancient sources as a fishing village, which by definition should sit directly on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Et-Tell’s distance from the modern shore has always been something of a puzzle for supporters of that identification.

Researchers at el-Araj argue that their site resolves this problem. They say their excavations have demonstrated that the lake did not extend inland far enough to reach et-Tell during the Roman period, contrary to claims made by supporters of that site. This would leave el-Araj sitting directly on the ancient lakeshore, exactly where a fishing village should be.

“The current excavations have demonstrated beyond any question that the site of el-Araj was settled in the Roman period and was not underwater as the archaeologists of et-Tell have claimed,” Notley said, laying out the scientific basis for his team’s confidence in the identification.

Adding to the intrigue, researchers have also pointed to a curious linguistic clue. The Arabic name for the site, el-Araj, translates roughly to “the lame man.” Scholars believe this may trace back through centuries of scribal transmission to the biblical account of Jesus healing a lame man, a story historically associated with the region, offering yet another thread tying the modern site to its ancient biblical namesake.

Excavation reports over the years have chronicled a steady accumulation of evidence supporting the Bethsaida identification, including fishing implements, coins, and remnants of a Roman-era settlement predating the Byzantine church. Each season of digging has added another layer to the case, even as skeptics in the archaeological community continue to push back.

For Christians, the significance of this discovery goes well beyond academic debate over ancient geography. Bethsaida is not a minor footnote in the New Testament. It is named as the hometown of three of Jesus’s twelve apostles and the setting for miracles that form the bedrock of Christian teaching about Christ’s divine power.