In a May 5, presentation in Washington, DC, Steven Notley stated his team are convinced they have found the ancient Biblical city of Bethsaida.

Notley serves as the team leader for a group that has been excavating site known a El-Araj since 2016. It’s located on the northern bank of the Sea of Galilee.

The fishing village of Bethsaida is referred to in the Gospel of John as the home of three of Jesus’ apostles, Peter, Andrew and Philip:

The next day He [Jesus] decided to go to Galilee, and He *found Philip. And Jesus *said to him, “Follow Me.” ⁴⁴ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. (John 1:44 NASV)

Some have described Bethsaida as ‘ground zero’ for Jesus’ Apostolic team. It was not only home to the first three of Jesus’ apostles, Peter would become a key leader in the early church.

Peter would later move to Capernaum, which has been confused as being his original hometown.

According to Thayer’s, the word Bethsaida means ‘house of fish’ which described its main industry, fishing. It was a hard working, blued collared community.

But as the archaeologists worked on the site, they became increasingly convinced this is Bethsaida.

Chief among finds was a house dated to the first century. It not only had fish weights from that era, but it also had a mosaic that cited Peter as ‘chief of the apostles and keeper of the keys of heaven.’

They also found the remains of a dome or apse of an ancient Byzantine church that had been built over top of this first century home.

‘So, we have a first-century house wall under the apse,’ Notley said in an interview with EWTN News.

“It doesn’t have a plaque on it that says ‘Peter slept here,’ but from a perspective of archaeology, it doesn’t get much better than that,” Notley added.

It is believed to be the ‘Church of the Apostles’ referred to by Willibald, an 8th century Bishop who lived in Bavaria.

During a pilgrimage to Israel around 725 AD, he visited the ‘Church of the Apostles’ that he described as being built over the home of Peter and Andrew.

The church was probably destroyed during a massive earthquake that hit the region in 749 AD.

‘Since Byzantine Christian tradition routinely identified Peter’s home in Bethsaida, and not in Capernaum as is often thought today, it seems likely that the basilica commemorates his house,’ Notley said in 2021.

Unfortunately, Bethsaida has a sad but storied history.

The community witnessed several miracles. This included:

• The feeding of the 5,000 (Luke 9:10-17), that took place south of the village;
• One of Jesus’ oddest miracles, the healing of the blind man (Mark 8:22-26); and
• Jesus walking on water, that took place just offshore from Bethsaida (Mark 6:45-52).

Yet despite these miraculous displays, it was one of the villages condemned by Jesus for its collective unbelief (Matthew 11:21)