Dock on the Sea of Galilee
At least one third, maybe half of the original twelve disciples of Jesus worked as commercial fishermen. He would make them fishers of people, instead of fish, Jesus told them in his recruiting pitch. Excavations of first-century wharves, mooring stones, fish vats and even a wooden boat confirm the gospels’ depictions of the lake’s bustling fishing industry. See chapter 4. (Photo: Merit Webster)
Path to the Mountain
After asking all of his disciples on their north-country retreat who people thought he was, Jesus predicted he would suffer, much to their dismay. Soon after, he took his core team of three disciples on a high mountain hike. There he revealed his glory and on the way down predicted he would rise from the dead, but they did not get what he meant. See chapter 3. (Photo: Merit Webster)
Vineyards in the North
Still today vineyards are cultivated in the northern region where Jesus grew up, so no wonder vine imagery figured in his teachings. The night of his arrest, he served wine to his disciples and compared it to the blood he soon would shed for many, echoing an epic messianic prophecy from Isaiah. See chapter 9. (Photo: Merit Webster)
Temple Mount
The golden Dome of the Rock is a shrine on the temple mount, built by an Islamic ruler in the seventh century AD. It probably sits on the exact site where the inner sanctum of the first and second Jewish temples stood. That land—containing a large rock formation—was purchased from a farmer by David, the second king of Israel, and key ancestor of Jesus. See chapter 8. (Photo: Merit Webster)
Western Wall
The wall and terrace form a place of earnest prayer for Jews in Jerusalem. Not a temple wall, it is a retaining wall built to enlarge the grounds of the temple area’s hilltop plaza by Herod, the cruel, paranoid king reigning at the time Jesus is born. See chapter 8. (Photo: Merit Webster)
Scene of Jesus’s Burial
This mosaic decorates a wall in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The tomb burial of Jesus by a member of the Jewish elite–while the frightened disciples hide–finds strong attestation in the historical evidence. See chapters 1 and 10. (Photo: Merit Webster)
Sepulchre Sunshine
Sunlight radiates through the upper arched windows of the Church of the Holy Sepluchre in Jerusalem. Built over the tomb where it was thought the body of Jesus had lain, the church likely sits on the accurate site, located outside the city walls in the first century. See chapter 1. (Photo: Merit Webster)
Modern Coast at Tel Aviv/Jaffa
The disciple Peter already was at the coast at Joppa (Jaffa) staying at a friend’s beach house when he received an invitation to go further north to the Roman regional capital of Caesarea Maritima. A Roman commander stationed there with a historically verified regiment asked him to bring to his non-Jewish friends and family a message from God—which turned out to be news of how the death and resurrection of Jesus gives new life to believers from any ethnicity. See chapter 4. (Photo: Merit Webster)
