Historical Information about Holy Sites in the Holy Land
Mount Tabor, Qumran, Mary's Well, Mount of Beatitudes, Tabgha, Cana of Galilee, Capernaum, Mount of Temptation, Grotto of Nativity, Ein Karem, Shepherd's Field, The Holy Sepulchre, The Basilica of the Annunciation
Mount Tabor
The Mount of Transfiguration. The Franciscan Church of the Transfiguration was built in 1924. The ruins include Byzantine and Crusader basilicas and a 13th century fortress wall.
Qumran
Community center of the Essenes who produced the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. They lived in natural caves in the adjoining cliffs, in tents, and in underground chambers cut in the soft marl. They gathered here for all the religious and economic activities of the sect. The well-preserved ruins, situated on a little plateau on the north-west shore of the Dead Sea. The Essenes had been forced to abandon the site as the result of military action in the days when Herod the Great fought for his kingdom 40-37BC . They returned after some years to continue their monastic form of life until the Romans expelled them in AD68. They hid their Scriptures in eleven of the caves around their settlement. Two Bedouin shepherds discovered the scrolls in 1947, since then more than 400000 manuscripts and fragments, have been discovered. The scrolls are on exhibit at the Shrine of the Book and in the Israeli Museum and in the Rockefeller Museum
Mary's Well
Mary's Well is Nazareth’s biggest spring and its only natural water supply.
Women used to come to this spring to draw water and do the washing,Mary might have also come to it.
Mount of Beatitudes
In 1938 the Franciscans built The Church of the Beatitudes on the mountain where tradition holds that Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. The octagon formation of the church represents the eight beatitudes
Tabgha
The Greek word Heptapegon means (the place of seven springs) , and it was corrupted in Arabic into Tabgha. The village of Tabgha houses,The Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, the Church of the Primacy of Peter and the Church of the Sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes