Chorazin

Two settlement phases have been proposed based on coin and pottery findings.[1] The town was partially destroyed in the 4th century, possibly as a result of an earthquake.[2]

The settlement of Khirbat Karraza subsequently developed on the site.

Khirbat Karraza in the PEF Survey of Palestine

During Ottoman control, Khirbat Karraza was populated by the Zanghariyya Bedouin tribe and the village contained a shrine for a local Muslim saint, al-Shaykh Ramadan. The villagers used to store grain close to the shrine, certain that nobody would steal it and thereby violate the sanctity of the shrine.[3]

The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi described the site in 1992: "Some village houses still stand, together with the remains of other houses. One of the old houses has been renovated. Also remaining is the tomb of Shaykh Ramadan, around which the village shrine had been built. The tomb is collapsing and the building in which it was housed no longer exists. It is surrounded by large carob trees."[3]

The main settlement dates to the 3rd and 4th centuries. The majority of the structures found were made from basalt, a black volcanic rock found locally.[5] The town's ruins are spread over an area of 25 acres (100,000 m²), subdivided into five separate quarters, with a synagogue in the centre. Close by is a ritual bath (mikvah), surrounded by public and residential buildings. The handful of olive millstones used in olive oil extraction found suggest a reliance on the olive for economic purposes, like a number of other villages in ancient Galilee.

Decorated stone from the synagogue

A synagogue whose ruins are still visible today was built in the late 3rd century, destroyed in the 4th century, and rebuilt in the 6th century.[6]

The large, impressive synagogue which was built of basalt stones and decorated with Jewish motifs is the most striking of the surviving structures. An unusual feature in an ancient synagogue is the presence of three-dimensional sculpture, a pair of stone lions. A similar pair of three-dimensional lions was found in the synagogue at Kfar Bar'am.[7] Other carvings, which are thought to have originally been brightly painted, feature images of wine-making, animals, a Medusa, an armed soldier, and an eagle.[8] In 1926, archaeologists discovered a "Seat of Moses," carved from a basalt block. According to the New Testament, this is where the reader of the Torah sat to deliver his message to the congregation (Matthew 23:1–3).

Second synagogue?

Jacob Ory (born 1898 in Russia[9]), who excavated the site in 1926 on behalf of the British Mandate Department of Antiquities, wrote about a second synagogue ca. 200 m west of the first one, and he described it in detail. Later excavations, however, have not been able to find the remains noted by him and confirm the existence of such a building.[10]

Chorazin, along with Bethsaida and Capernaum, was named in the Christian gospels of Matthew and Luke as cities in which Jesus of Nazareth performed his mission. However, because these towns seemingly rejected his message ("they had not changed their ways"), they were subsequently cursed (Matthew 11:20-24; Luke 10:13-15). Due to this condemnation, the influential but non-canonical Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius predicted that the Antichrist would be conceived in Chorazin.[11]

The Babylonian Talmud (redacted until c. 475) mentions that Chorazin was a town specifically known for its grain (Menahot, 85a).

The English theologian John Lightfoot writing in the 17th century suggested that Chorazin might have referred to a wider area around Cana in Galilee, rather than a single city/village:

What if, under this name, Cana be concluded, and some small country adjacent, which, from its situation in a wood, might be named "Chorazin", that is, 'the woody country'? Cana is famous for the frequent presence and miracles of Christ. But away with conjecture, when it grows too bold.[12]

In his Biblical Researches in Palestine in the mid-nineteenth century, Edward Robinson visited Khirbat Karraza, but concluded it was not the Biblical Chorazin, because the ruins were not significant enough and the site was not near the shore of the Sea of Galilee, as stated by Jerome (Lacum Genesareth, in cujus litore Capernaum et Tiberias et Bethsaida et Chorozaim sitæ sint):[13]

The ruins we had been told of lie on the west side of this same valley, a quarter of a mile southwest, near its entrance into the main Wady. They consist simply of a few foundations of black stones ; the remains evidently of a poor and inconsiderable village. They are known as Khirbet Kerâzeh. We did not go to them, as there was no path; and because they were in full view. Their distance from Tell Hùm must be reckoned at about three miles. We had come to this spot, because the name Kerázeh bears a degree of resemblance to the Chorazin of the New Testament; and we hoped to find, in the ruins or the situation, something which might determine the position of that ancient place. In this we felt ourselves disappointed. The remains are too trivial to have ever belonged to a place of any importance. Chorazin, too, according to Jerome, lay upon the shore of the lake; but this site is an hour distant. shut in among the hills, without any view of the lake, and remote from any public road whether ancient or modern.

Olive oil press

"Seat of Moses" made of basalt from the synagogue

House ruin with "Chorazin windows"