Jesus and the Birth of Christianity

Shepherds and flocks of sheep, as pictured here, are frequent themes in the Hebrew Bible – David, who’s native town was Bethlehem was a Shepherd. Goats, sheep, and shepherds also comprise the socio-economic context in some Gospel stories.

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph is looking west and shows a reconstruction of the Second Temple itself (after King Herod's renovations). The Holy of Holies would…

The main source of the Jordan River is located near Banias (Caesarea Philippi), 1,312 feet above sea level. It drops down into the Huleh Valley and then down to the Sea of Galilee and from there down to the Dead Sea (1,300 feet below sea level). This…

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph is looking from north to south at the Antonia Fortress, which sat at the north edge of the Temple Mount complex (the Temple…

Tiberias was founded by Herod Antipas in 20 CE and has been continuously occupied since then. It is located on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. At the top of the picture one sees the modern city of Tiberias which sits on the ruins of the Arab…

This photograph shows the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, originally commissioned in the 4th century CE by the emperor Constantine and built under the supervision of his mother Helen over a cave that they identified as the site of the birth of…

This photograph shows the landscape around the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus spent nearly all of his life.

This map shows the region of Galilee. The circle is around the city of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. The arrows point to the places that Jesus went during his ministry: toward Tyre and Sidon, on the Phoenician coast, and around the Sea of Galilee.

This map of Israel/Palestine in the time of Jesus shows the locations of Bethlehem and Nazareth, the two central sites associated with the birth of Jesus. Note also the anachronism in the previous statement: the region was not called 'Palestine'…

This map shows the gradual expansion of the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean between the years 100 BCE and 150 CE. Red areas indicate Roman control in 100 BCE; yellow areas indicate the extent of the empire at the time of Julius Caesar's death…

This photograph shows a page from the Codex Sinaiticus, which was created in the 4th century CE. The extant pages (400 of an estimated 730) contain the oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament. It was found at St. Katherine's Monastery in the…

This photograph shows a page from the Codex Vaticanus, which was created in the 4th century CE and is arguably the most important ancient manuscript of the Greek Bible. Codex Vaticanus originally contained both the Old and the New Testaments, but…

This photograph of the modern city of Nazareth, in Lower Galilee, shows the Church of the Annunciation, which was originally built in the 4th century CE by Helen, the mother of the emperor Constantine. It stands over the place where, according to…

This aerial view of the Temple Mount, which is looking west, shows not just the massive Temple Mount complex and the Dome of the Rock, but also the Al Aqsa Mosque (to the left, at the south end of the Temple Mount complex) and the eastern wall of the…

In this photograph of the Old City of Jerusalem after a winter snow, the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock are visible in the distance (to the east), as is the Mount of Olives in the background and the hills of the Judaean desert to the far right.…