A team of archaeologists now says a site on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee is the ancient town of Bethsaida, the biblical settlement where Jesus healed a blind man, fed thousands, and called his first disciples. Excavation director Steven Notley declared that a growing body of evidence has "essentially confirmed" that El-Araj, a low-lying patch of ground long buried under sediment and scrub, is the town named more than a half-dozen times in the Gospels.
Notley made the announcement during a May 5 presentation in Washington, D.C., capping nearly a decade of digs that have turned up Roman-era pottery, fishing weights, a Byzantine basilica, and a mosaic inscription bearing a direct connection to the Apostle Peter. The Daily Mail reported on the findings this month, detailing the layers of evidence that link El-Araj to one of the most frequently mentioned, and most hotly debated, locations in the New Testament.
For believers and historians alike, the identification matters. Bethsaida was the hometown of Peter, Andrew, and Philip, three of Jesus's earliest followers. If El-Araj is indeed that town, it anchors key Gospel events to a specific, physical place on the map.
Excavations at El-Araj began in 2016 after archaeologists identified the site as a possible match for Bethsaida. The theory gained momentum quickly. In 2017 and 2018, teams uncovered Roman-era remains, fishing weights, and the ruins of a large Byzantine basilica believed to be the long-lost "Church of the Apostles."
Fox News reported that archaeologists from the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archaeology and Nyack College identified El-Araj as a leading candidate for the lost biblical city of Bethsaida-Julias. Excavators found Roman-era pottery, coins, including one from the reign of Emperor Nero, a Roman wall, and a mosaic floor associated with a Roman bathhouse, all pointing to an urban settlement consistent with the ancient city of Julias.
The excavation team stated plainly: "The results of this season's excavation indicate that el-Araj should now be considered a leading candidate for the lost city of Jesus' Apostles."
That early confidence has only deepened. In 2021, excavators uncovered a mosaic inscription that strengthened the connection to St. Peter. Notley said at the time:
"This discovery is our strongest indicator that Peter had a special association with the basilica, and it was likely dedicated to him."
Then, in 2025, a wildfire tore through the area and exposed walls, structural mounds, and fragments of Roman-era pottery that had been hidden for centuries. Archaeologists also uncovered fishing tools and evidence of a Roman bathhouse, exactly the kind of infrastructure you would expect in a town that first-century historian Flavius Josephus documented as an active settlement around the Sea of Galilee.
The physical layout of the site tells its own story. Beneath the apse of the Byzantine basilica, researchers found a house wall dating to the first century A.D. A second wall dates to the second or third century. The basilica itself sits directly on top of these earlier structures, a pattern consistent with early Christians building churches over sites they considered sacred.
Notley described the find to EWTN News in direct terms:
"So, we have a first-century house wall under the apse. 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."
That dry understatement carries weight. Byzantine Christian tradition routinely placed Peter's home in Bethsaida, not in Capernaum, as many modern scholars have assumed. Notley pointed to this tradition as further support for the identification, noting that "it seems likely that the basilica commemorates his house."
The discovery of biblical sites has long fascinated people of faith. Readers who followed the recent claims about underground scans revealing tunnels inside a suspected Noah's Ark site in Turkey will recognize the same pattern: physical evidence that lines up, sometimes remarkably well, with ancient scriptural accounts.
The historical record offers an independent thread. Around 725 A.D., an eighth-century bishop named Willibald described visiting Bethsaida during a pilgrimage. He reported seeing a church built over the home of Peter and Andrew, a description that matches what archaeologists have now unearthed at El-Araj.
Researchers believe that church was destroyed in an earthquake in 749 A.D. and later buried beneath sediment and vegetation, which explains why the site disappeared from the historical record for more than a millennium. The wildfire that swept through in 2025 stripped away enough of the overgrowth to reveal structural remains that had been invisible for centuries.
The New York Post reported early in the excavation process that finds beneath the Byzantine structure included Roman-era pottery, a late second-century bronze coin, and a silver denarius of Emperor Nero dated to 65, 66 A.D. The presence of Roman coinage and bathhouse features suggested El-Araj was an urban site, not a rural fishing hamlet, consistent with the ancient city of Julias, which historical sources say was an upgraded version of the village of Bethsaida.
Bethsaida appears in the Gospels as the setting for some of the most recognizable episodes in Jesus's ministry. The Bible says Jesus healed a blind man there, fed thousands of people nearby, and later rebuked Bethsaida and neighboring towns for failing to repent despite the miracles performed in their midst.
The town also produced three of the twelve apostles. Peter, Andrew, and Philip all came from Bethsaida. Peter, originally named Simon, was a fisherman who became one of the first followers of Jesus and the early leader of the Church. Christian tradition holds that he later died a martyr in Rome around 64 A.D. during the reign of Emperor Nero.
In an era when faith is often treated as a private hobby rather than a public inheritance, the physical confirmation of biblical places carries a particular kind of weight. It is one thing to read about Bethsaida in a Gospel passage. It is another to stand on the stone floor of a house that may have belonged to Peter himself.
That intersection of faith and the public square has been visible in recent weeks. President Trump recently called on Jewish Americans to observe a national Sabbath as America nears its 250th birthday, a reminder that religious tradition still has a place in civic life, even as secular culture pushes it to the margins.
The identification of El-Araj as Bethsaida is not without loose ends. The Step 1 extraction notes several gaps: the exact wording of the full mosaic inscription beyond the excerpt quoted by Notley has not been published. The specific archaeological institution behind the excavation, beyond Notley's affiliation with Nyack College and the Kinneret Institute, is not fully detailed in available reporting. And no formal excavation report or peer-reviewed publication has been cited as the basis for the "essentially confirmed" claim.
These are the kinds of questions that matter in archaeology, where preliminary announcements sometimes outpace the formal publication process. But the cumulative weight of the evidence, first-century house walls, Roman-era coins, fishing implements, a Byzantine basilica built directly over a domestic structure, and an eighth-century pilgrim's eyewitness description, is substantial.
Notley himself acknowledged the limits of what archaeology can prove. No plaque says "Peter slept here." But the convergence of text, tradition, and physical remains is, in his words, about as good as it gets.
The broader Christian world continues to grapple with how faith intersects with public life and institutional leadership. Pope Leo XIV recently called on global leaders to seek peace, a reminder that the Church's voice still carries into geopolitics, just as the stones of Bethsaida still carry into the present.
There is a reason discoveries like this resonate far beyond academic journals. For millions of Christians, the Bible is not a collection of myths set in imaginary places. It is a record of events that happened to real people in real towns, towns that can, in principle, be found, excavated, and examined.
El-Araj may now be the strongest candidate for one of those towns. The fishing weights, the Roman coins, the basilica built over a first-century house, the mosaic honoring Peter, and the eyewitness account of an eighth-century pilgrim all point in the same direction.
None of it will settle every debate. Archaeology rarely does. But for those who take the Gospels seriously, and there are far more of them than the cultural establishment likes to admit, the ground beneath El-Araj is speaking clearly enough.
When the stones start talking, the wise thing to do is listen.
