Proof Found: El-Araj is Biblical Bethsaida

ROBERTO TORRES-CEDILLO (Host):

"I'm standing about 500 meters from the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, in an excavation site that has momentous implications for Israel and for our faith. And I'm standing and joined here by Dr. Marc Turnage. Mark, it's a pleasure to be with you and to learn from you. And I just been fascinated by what you've been sharing. Tell us a little bit about what is so important about this site and how it relates to archeology and our faith."

DR. MARC TURNAGE (Archaeologist):

"So we're actually at the site of L'Orange, also called Data Beck. Going back into the 19th century, as European and American explorers began to rediscover the Holy Land, they identified two sites as possibly being the site of which we know from the Gospel of John was the home of Philip, Peter and Andrew. Excavations that have been done at both of these sites over the last 40 or 50 years have demonstrated that this site, L'Orange is in fact being cited that we both know from the Christian Byzantine tradition, but also we have here a first century Jewish fishing village, which is what we need to identify the home of Peter, Philip and Andrew."

ROBERTO:

"Yeah. Talk about the artifacts that were found here that kind of prove and really support this view that this is a place where fishermen from the first century would have been living."

DR. TURNAGE:

"Well, first of all, we're inside of the Byzantium right now. Just over here in our excavations a couple of summers ago, we found a large mosaic medallion inscription that says, in Greek, that this church is being dedicated to the place of the apostles, which identifies this as being dedicated to Peter. We know from both Byzantine and later Christian sources that they identified a church to Peter at Beit Saida. So we think that it's pretty positively that we are standing inside of that Byzantine church. And typically churches like that are connected to earlier tradition. 
In other places in this site that we've excavated down to first century level, we found lead fishing weights by the hundreds. We found coins that date back to the first century. We found stone vessels which are indicative of a Jewish site. We found certain types of oil lamps that go back to the first century that were only manufactured in Jerusalem. So we know that Jews living here, fishermen, Jews living here, are making pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This is a site where you have the convergence of both Jewish history and the faith of Jesus and the development of Christianity."

ROBERTO:

"That's amazing. Give me goosebumps. Thank you, Mark, appreciate the work. Thank you."