second one "Bethsaida Julias," and place it on the eastern side of the Jordan, not far from the north end of the lake. Josephus says that Bethsaida was a village raised to the dignity of a town by Philip the Tetrarch, who rebuilt it and changed its name to Julias in honour of the daughter of the Emperor. Philip built himself a tomb there, and was buried there.
The question between Tell Hum and Khan Minyeh as the site of Capernaum has been made to turn partly on the presence of synagogue ruins at the former place and their absence from the latter. But this can have little or nothing to do with the decision, for the best judges believe that the synagogues date only from the second century A.D.
Nevertheless, the existence of synagogue ruins in Galilee is a very interesting fact; and it is probable that those erected in the second century would be modelled after the pattern of those which preceded them and in which Christ, in so many instances, read and taught. The synagogue ruins at Tell Hum are a shapeless heap, but the stones have been carefully examined and measured, and it becomes possible theoretically to reconstruct the building. Similar ruins are found at seven or eight other places in Galilee, and some of them—especially those at Kefr Birim—are in a better state of preservation. (See Frontispiece.) Examination shows that the Jewish synagogues were not the plain barn-like structures some people had imagined. The building faced the south, looking towards Jerusalem, the holy city. Four rows of columns ran from one end to the other, dividing the building into five aisles. At Kefr Birim one synagogue was furnished with a porch. A smaller building, at a little distance from the village, has two lambs sculptured on the lintel of the door, and beneath them is an inscription in Hebrew. The inscription has been thus read by Renan, "Peace be to this place, and upon all the places of God. Joseph
