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Chorazin....
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Chorazin was a very small village about 2 1/2 miles north of
Capernaum and the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, settled about the beginning of the first century C.E. Built on a large hill, the
Sea of Galilee can be seen in the distance. Chorazin's chief claim to fame is that
Jesus cursed the town (along with
Bethsaida and Capernaum) for not responding to his miracles with belief
(Luke 10:13-15; Matt 11:20-24),
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Archaeological excavations at Chorazin have found no traces of the first century village. Most of the remains are from the thriving Jewish village of the third and fourth centuries C.E. The village is built almost entirely of black basalt, a stone found in abundance in the area. The center of the village was the village square, just east of the synagogue. The center of Chorazin was occupied by this third century synagogue (there was no evidence under it of any earlier construction). It was destroyed sometime in the
fourth century C.E. |
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Like many Jewish villages, Chorazin had a
mikvah, a ritual bath where people would go for temporary cleansing from a variety of pollutions child birth,
menstruation, touching something unclean, etc.
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Like most villages in the north
Galilee, Chorazin was dependent on the olive. Here is one of several olive mills in which the olives were mashed. A pole was inserted in the hold in the millstone and a donkey or camel
probably pulled it around and around. After the olives were mashed, they had to be pressed to squeeze all the liquid out of them. This is the base of an
olive press, probably worked with a large screw. The last step in the process is to separate the oil from the watery liquid. |
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