Finding Bethsaida

September 13, 2026

For nearly two thousand years, the exact location of Bethsaida, the fishing town the Gospels name as home to three of Jesus' apostles and the setting of some of His most remarkable miracles, has been lost to history. Now, after ten years of painstaking excavation on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the archaeologist leading the dig says he is "100 percent" certain he has found it.

The Excavation

The El-Araj Excavation Project, led by archaeologist Mordechai Aviam and academic director Dr. R. Steven Notley, dean of religious studies at Pillar College in New Jersey, has been digging at the site of Khirbet el-Araj, on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, since 2016. This year's excavation season, the tenth, opened new areas of the site and uncovered additional Roman-period remains and pottery, adding to a decade's worth of accumulating evidence.

The dig is entirely privately funded and relies on volunteer excavation seasons each year, a labor of love that has slowly, patiently pieced together the story of an ancient town buried for centuries.

What They Found

Over ten years, the team has uncovered an extraordinary range of finds: thousands of lead fishing weights, stone vessels associated with Jewish settlement, a Roman-era bathhouse, and a Byzantine basilica containing an inscription referencing "the Chief of the Apostles and the Keeper of the Keys of Heaven," a clear reference to the Apostle Peter. Beneath that church, researchers found the remains of Roman-period homes, on a site early Christian tradition held to be the very location of Peter and Andrew's house.

Interestingly, a wildfire that swept through the area cleared away thick underbrush and allowed researchers to properly survey the site's full size for the first time, revealing the ancient settlement spanned at least 15 acres, far larger than previously understood. Over 200 coins have also been recovered and are currently being studied to help precisely date the different phases of the settlement.

The finds tell a story researchers didn't necessarily expect. Frescoed walls and fine glassware uncovered at the site push back against the common scholarly assumption that first-century Galilee was a poor, illiterate backwater, suggesting instead a town of real substance and sophistication during the very years Jesus walked its streets.

A Striking Match with Scripture

Bethsaida is named directly in the Gospels, and its connection to Jesus' ministry runs deep. It was the hometown of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip.

"Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter." - John 1:44 (ESV)

The town is also the setting of one of Jesus' most striking healing miracles, the restoration of sight to a blind man, accomplished in two stages.

"And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him." - Mark 8:22 (ESV)

Nearby, on the outskirts of Bethsaida, Jesus fed the five thousand, one of the few miracles recorded in all four Gospels.

"On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida." - Luke 9:10 (ESV)

And yet scripture also records something sobering about the town, a rebuke from Jesus Himself for its unbelief, despite having witnessed His power firsthand.

"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes." - Matthew 11:21 (ESV)

According to Notley, the two categories of evidence researchers would expect to find at genuine Bethsaida, a first-century Jewish fishing village, and its later transformation into a small Roman city, have both turned up clearly at El-Araj. "Since 2016, we have not uncovered a single thing that would challenge or question the identification of the site as Bethsaida," Notley has said. "Instead, everything we find each season, the evidence gets stronger and stronger."

Appropriate Caution From the Researchers

To their credit, even the excavation team is careful about the limits of certainty on Peter's home. As Notley himself acknowledges regarding the traditional site of Peter's home beneath the Byzantine church: "Can you be absolutely certain this is Peter's home? No, I can't say that... You're not going to find a plaque that says, 'Peter slept here, Peter lived here.' But in archaeological terms, it's about as good as you can get."

It's also worth noting that this identification, while increasingly confident, is not without scholarly debate. A rival site, et-Tell, located further inland, has been championed by archaeologist Rami Arav, who led excavations there for more than thirty years starting in 1987. Et-Tell has extensive Iron Age remains, but critics note it lacks the clear first-century fishing-village evidence found at El-Araj, and its Roman-period activity appears to belong to a later resurgence rather than the town's original character during Jesus' lifetime. The debate over Bethsaida's true location has, in fact, continued since the nineteenth century. Good scholarship holds space for that ongoing conversation, even while the weight of evidence at El-Araj continues to grow.

Why This Matters

For believers, discoveries like this are a quiet gift. They remind us that the Gospels were never abstract stories set in an imagined "somewhere." They describe real fishing villages, real towns with real names, real streets a blind man was led through, real hillsides where thousands once sat down to be fed. Bethsaida was a real place, with real Roman bathhouses and real frescoed walls, where real fishermen who would go on to become Peter, Andrew, and Philip once lived ordinary lives before an extraordinary calling changed everything.

As a company rooted in the Holy Land ourselves, conceptualizing, designing, and hand-finishing pieces meant to draw believers closer to scripture, we find these discoveries deeply meaningful. The ground beneath the Sea of Galilee continues to testify, town by town, stone by stone, to the reality of the Gospel accounts, and we count it a privilege to create heirloom pieces from this same soil, meant to carry that testimony into homes for generations to come.