Inside the Western Wall Tunnels in Jerusalem
What Are the Western Wall Tunnels?

The prayer plaza shows you about two hundred feet of Herod’s retaining wall. The wall [...]

03
Nov
People floating in the Dead Sea at dawn, the lowest point of dry land on earth, Israel
What Is it Like Visiting the Dead Sea?

The lowest place on the face of the earth, roughly ten times as salty as [...]

02
Nov
Panoramic view of the Monastery of St. George in Wadi Qelt, Judean wilderness
What Happened in The Judean Wilderness and Wadi Qelt?

A twenty-mile band of bare chalk hills between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, close enough [...]

31
Oct
A waterfall at Ein Gedi falling down a rock face thick with ferns and green growth in the middle of the Judean desert
What Is Ein Gedi?

Waterfalls and green canyons in the middle of the harshest desert in the country, a [...]

30
Oct
A wooden boat on the Sea of Galilee at sunset, Israel
What Is It Really Like to Visit the Sea of Galilee?

A freshwater lake thirteen miles long, sitting seven hundred feet below sea level in a [...]

29
Oct
Columns with carved capitals inside the reconstructed Talmudic-period synagogue at Katzrin, with basalt walls behind and a seated figure at a low table in the hall
What Is Katzrin?

A Golan village rebuilt on its own foundations, with a basalt synagogue, an olive press, [...]

28
Oct
The black basalt Church of the Primacy of Peter at Tabgha standing at the edge of the Sea of Galilee, with waves breaking on the shore beside it
What Is Tabgha?

Warm springs run into the lake here, which drew the fish, which drew the fishermen. [...]

27
Oct
The cliffs of Mount Arbel rising above the Sea of Galilee, Israel
What Is Mount Arbel?

A cliff nine hundred feet above the lake, a pass that carried the main road, [...]

26
Oct
Farmland at Nazareth Village, a re-created first-century village in Israel
What Is Nazareth Village?

A surviving parcel of ancient farmland inside the modern city, with terraces, a rock-cut winepress, [...]

24
Oct
The Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Galilee, Israel
What Is There to See in Nazareth?

A hillside town of a few hundred people in the first century is now the [...]

23
Oct
The Old City of Jerusalem viewed from the terrace of the BYU Jerusalem Center
What Is the BYU Jerusalem Center?

A building of white arches on the slope of Mount Scopus, looking straight across at [...]

22
Oct
The Old City of Jerusalem at sunset, Israel
What Are the Four Quarters of the Old City?

Jerusalem’s walled city covers about a third of a square mile and holds four communities, [...]

21
Oct
The excavated stepped street and pool area at the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, with a canopy over the dig and the houses of Silwan rising behind
What Is the Pool of Siloam?

For centuries pilgrims were shown a small Byzantine pool. Then a sewer repair crew broke [...]

20
Oct
The Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel
Can I Visit the Dome of the Rock?

The golden dome you photograph from every rooftop in Jerusalem is a shrine built in [...]

19
Oct
Panoramic view of the Old City of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives
Why Visit the Mount of Olives?

One overlook explains the whole city. The same ridge is where Jesus came down on [...]

17
Oct
The ruins of the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem
What Is the Pool of Bethesda?

John describes a pool with five porches. For centuries that was treated as symbolism rather [...]

16
Oct
The Southern Steps leading up to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem
What Are the Southern Steps?

Almost every site in Jerusalem comes with a qualification. The staircase into the temple comes [...]

15
Oct
Aerial view of the excavated site of Sepphoris in the Lower Galilee, showing the Roman theatre cut into the hillside and the remains of the town above it
What Is Sepphoris, and Did Jesus Ever Go There?

The capital of Galilee sat an hour’s walk from Nazareth and was being rebuilt from [...]

14
Oct
The ridge of Gamla in the Golan Heights, with the excavated synagogue and town wall visible on the slope below the summit
What Is Gamla, and Why Is It Called the Masada of the North?

A first-century Jewish town on a ridge shaped like a camel’s back, destroyed by Rome [...]

13
Oct
View of Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee in Israel
Why Does the Sea of Galilee Have a Roman Emperor’s Name?

Herod Antipas built Tiberias on a graveyard, and observant Jews avoided it. Centuries later it [...]

12
Oct
The Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights seen across the Galilee region of Israel
What Is Chorazin, and Why Was It Cursed?

Jesus named three towns in a single warning. Two of them are famous. The third [...]

10
Oct
The excavated synagogue at Magdala on the Sea of Galilee, with its stone benches, a standing column and a carved stone block at the centre of the hall
What Was Found at Magdala?

In 2009, workers preparing to build a hotel on the shore of Galilee uncovered a [...]

09
Oct
The colonnaded street at Beth Shean with the tell rising behind it, a row of columns still standing along the paved way
What Is Beth Shean?

A mound holding twenty layers of cities sits above the largest excavated Roman town in [...]

08
Oct
Panoramic view of the caves of Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, Israel
What Is Qumran, and What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls?

A modest ruin above the Dead Sea, eleven caves, and the manuscripts that closed a [...]

07
Oct
The preserved hull of the first-century Galilee boat displayed in a darkened museum gallery, its wooden ribs and planking lit from above
What Is the Galilee Boat?

A drought in 1986 dropped the lake far enough to expose a fishing boat buried [...]

06
Oct
Panoramic view of the Sea of Galilee from its eastern shore, northern Israel
Where Was Bethsaida?

The hometown of Peter, Andrew, and Philip has two candidate sites about a mile and [...]

05
Oct
The mud-brick Canaanite gate at Tel Dan, one of the oldest arched gateways in the world, northern Israel
What Is Tel Dan, and Why Does It Matter to Old Testament History?

A gate you can walk through that was built four centuries before Moses, the altar [...]

03
Oct
The southwest face of the Carmel ridge at sunset, seen across farmland from the coastal plain
What Happened on Mount Carmel?

Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest about rain, during a drought, on [...]

02
Oct
Ancient mudbrick ruins at the site of Jericho
What Can You See at Jericho?

The oldest walled town yet found sits beside a spring in the Jordan Valley, and [...]

01
Oct
The Valley of Elah in winter, looking across green fields toward the surrounding hills of the Shephelah
Where Did David Face Goliath?

The Valley of Elah is a real place with two named hills, a brook full [...]

30
Sep
Ancient ruins of Megiddo, the site the book of Revelation names Armageddon, Israel
What Is Megiddo, and Is It Really Armageddon?

More armies have fought at this one hill than almost anywhere on earth, and the [...]

29
Sep
Panoramic view of the Caesarea Maritima coastline and its ancient Roman ruins, Israel
Why Did Herod Build a Harbor at Caesarea?

He built a world-class port on a coastline with no natural harbor, using concrete that [...]

28
Sep
Panoramic view of Masada from Mount Ben Yair with the Dead Sea beyond
What Is Masada?

A desert palace, a Roman siege you can still see from the top, and a [...]

26
Sep
Caesarea Philippi at Banias, northern Israel
Why Did Jesus Take His Disciples to Caesarea Philippi?

Jesus walked His disciples roughly thirty miles north, to the most aggressively pagan place in [...]

25
Sep
The Church of the Beatitudes above the Sea of Galilee, traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount
Where Was the Sermon on the Mount?

One Gospel puts the sermon on a mountain and another puts it on a level [...]

24
Sep
The white limestone synagogue at Capernaum, Israel
What Can You See at Capernaum?

Jesus made this fishing village His base of operations, and two buildings a hundred feet [...]

23
Sep
Inside Hezekiah's Tunnel beneath Jerusalem, Israel
What Is Hezekiah’s Tunnel?

A quarter-mile water channel cut through solid rock in a hurry, around 701 BC, still [...]

22
Sep
Panoramic view of the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem at sunset
What Is the Western Wall?

The wall is a surviving piece of the platform Herod built to enlarge the temple [...]

21
Sep
Ruins on the slopes of the Kidron Valley seen from the steps to Hezekiah's Tunnel, Jerusalem
What Is the City of David?

Original Jerusalem was a narrow ridge outside today's Old City walls, smaller than many shopping [...]

19
Sep
The Temple Mount, also known as Mount Moriah, in the Old City of Jerusalem
Where Exactly Did the Temple Stand on the Temple Mount?

Three serious proposals put the Holy of Holies in three different places on the same [...]

18
Sep