Bible Questions and Answer

Capernaum was known as Jesus' home base during His ministry. Matthew even calls it "his own town." After leaving Nazareth, Jesus moved there, and many of His best-known miracles happened in or near it. He healed Peter's mother-in-law, a paralyzed man lowered through a roof, a centurion's servant and a man with an evil spirit in the synagogue. Peter, Andrew, James and John fished there, and Matthew collected taxes there. A Roman centurion had built its synagogue for the Jewish people, Luke says. Yet despite all this, many didn't repent, and Jesus warned, "And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades." The town later declined and was abandoned. Today its ruins are famous for a white limestone synagogue from the 300s or 400s, built on top of an older black basalt foundation that may be the synagogue Jesus taught in, and for a modern church built over what's believed to be Peter's house.