October 2019 – Working together near the Sea of Galilee, archaeologists from America and Israel have unearthed bits of a mosaic floor believed to be part of the first century Church of the Apostles.
Ancient Bavarian texts, including one from Bishop Willibald in 725 A.D., indicated the large and magnificent church was built in Bethsaida over the house of disciples Peter and Andrew. Using those texts, along with information from previous excavations in present-day el-Araj, archaeologists from Israel’s Kinneret College and Nyack College in New York uncovered a large portion of the church’s southern aisle.
Their findings erased previous doubts about the actual existence of the Church of the Apostles while emphasizing the historical impact of the Christian community established in ancient Bethsaida.
