Tiberias
Leaving Nazareth on the morning of the 8th of May, 1894, the artist and one of the editors passed through Cana of Galilee, and by twelve o’clock reached the high hill which looks down upon the Sea of Tiberias. In the picture we are looking to the east. The lake, because of its distance, appears to be a river not wider than the Mississippi. It is in reality about six miles wide where we now see it. Below us is the little city of Tiberias hugging the shore. The country rising beyond the sea is the region of the Gaderenes, where the swine ran violently down the hill into the sea. The city itself, which is a mere miniature from this point of view, is now called Tubariyeh. Herod Antipater named it Tiberias, after the Roman Emperor. According to Josephus, the building of the city began A. D. 16, and was completed A. D. 22. It was the capital of Galilee for many years, and was the most important town on the coast in the time of Christ, and the only one which has escaped the ruin of the centuries and survived with its name unchanged. Cities lined the entire coast in those early days. After the destruction of Jerusalem, Tiberias became the chief seat of the Jewish nation. The Sanhedrin was transferred hither, and the school of the Talmud developed itself there in opposition to Christianity, which was gaining ground. In 1837, on New Year’s Day, the Mohammedan quarter of the city was destroyed by an earthquake. The storms on the lake are now, as formerly, fierce and destructive. Only one year ago a tempest swept over the lake and tore from their foundations and washed into the sea thirty houses from the town of Tiberias. Of its 3,700 inhabitants about two-thirds are Jews.
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