Capernaum: First-Century Fishing Village or Polis? Part III
The Centurion
The biblical record identifies the miracle of healing the Centurion’s servant. The fact that a Centurion is identified with Capernaum carries the implication that a garrison of soldiers were living there. A Centurion is charged with the command of one hundred soldiers. The excavations on the Orthodox side of Capernaum (Tzaferis: 4) identify a large administrative area which is believed to be built upon an earlier and similar structure. With the addition of a large bathhouse, the summary of the excavations tends to support a large group of administrative and supporting personnel, thus the probability that the centurion was in command of one hundred soldiers at Capernaum.
The Building Boom
In regards to Mark 2:1-12, it would be important to understand the architectural standards for the time and place. It would be an assumption to say that Jesus was in Peter’s house in Capernaum, but I feel safe in making that assumption based upon the historical evidences from other texts in the biblical accounts.
Peter’s home was located to be facing on the promenade of the seaport at Capernaum.
Archaeological evidences seem to indicate that the walls were not significantly thick enough to support a second floor. A second consideration is that the basalt stones in the walls were unfinished which is an indication there was no second floor.
The insulae was the standard housing structure in first-century Capernaum. An insulae was a building structure with one or two open courts surrounded by individual living rooms. Each of the insulae structures was capable of supporting many family units. Each insulae structure was equivalent to a small, self contained block within the city which was able to house up to 100 people within each structure. The standard rendition of Peter’s house in the first century appears as this:
Peter’s home was a structure built on the basis of an insulae which was common for the area. There were two courtyards in the structure with other rooms opening into these courtyards. The biblical text states that so many people were crowding the house to hear Jesus that many were still outside the house unable to fit inside the structure. This would seem to indicate that one of the courtyards was the area where Jesus was teaching.
posted by ~serapha~ at 6:44 AM
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