Chorazin, 2 miles north-west of _Tell Hum_, is called _Kerazeh_, a name easily confounded with _Khersa_, in the Gadarene country east of the lake; and this mistake Willibald appears to make.
The question is much discussed whether there were not two Bethsaidas; and those who believe there were, call the second one “Bethsaida Julias,” and place it on the eastern side of the Jordan, not far from the north end of the lake. Josephus says that Bethsaida was a village raised to the dignity of a town by Philip the Tetrarch, who rebuilt it and changed its name to Julias in honour of the daughter of the Emperor. Philip built himself a tomb there, and was buried there.
The question between _Tell Hum_ and _Khan Minyeh_ as the site of Capernaum has been made to turn partly on the presence of synagogue ruins at the former place and their absence from the latter. But this can have little or nothing to do with the decision, for the best judges believe that the synagogues date only from the second century A.D.
Nevertheless, the existence of synagogue ruins in Galilee is a very interesting fact; and it is probable that those erected in the second century would be modelled after the pattern of those which preceded them and in which Christ, in so many instances, read and taught. The synagogue ruins at _Tell Hum_ are a shapeless heap, but the stones have been carefully examined and measured, and it becomes possible theoretically to reconstruct the building. Similar ruins are found at seven or eight other places in Galilee, and some of them--especially those at _Kefr Birim_--are in a better state of preservation. (_See_ Frontispiece.) Examination shows that the Jewish synagogues were not the plain barn-like structures some people had imagined. The building faced the south, looking towards Jerusalem, the holy city. Four rows of columns ran from one end to the other, dividing the building into five aisles. At Kefr Birim one synagogue was furnished with a porch. A smaller building, at a little distance from the village, has two lambs sculptured on the lintel of the door, and beneath them is an inscription in Hebrew. The inscription has been thus read by Renan, “Peace be to this place, and upon all the places of God. Joseph the Levite, the son of Levi, put up this lintel. A blessing rest upon his work.” At the synagogue ruins of _Nebartein_, north-east of _Safed_, on the lintel of the main entrance, is a representation of the seven-branched candlestick, similar to those in the catacombs at Rome and on the rocks in the wilderness of Sinai. Here, again, is an inscription in Hebrew. During the excavations at _Tell Hum_ synagogue a lintel of one of the side entrances was found, and on its face a vase--perhaps the pot of manna--and on either side a rod or reed. Along the head is a scroll of vine leaves and grapes. The dimensions of this synagogue were 74 feet 9 inches by 56 feet 9 inches. The material was white limestone, brought from a distance, while the stone used at Kerazeh was the hard black basalt of the neighbourhood.
