Archaeologists at a Hippos excavation site near the Sea of Galilee may have found the site where Jesus performed a miracle by feeding five thousand people using only five loaves and two fish.
During excavations at the Byzantine era Burnt Church at the Hippos National Park in Israel, scientists from the University of Haifa discovered 1,400 year old mosaic on the church floor which depicts the feeding of the 5,000 miracle. The Burnt Church is one of the seven churches destroyed as part of the Sasanian conquest in 614 CE.
The miracle is mentioned in all four of the canonical Gospels and some historians regard it as one of the more ancient traditions associated with Jesus. Based on the Gospel of Mark, Jesus and his disciples withdrew to a “deserted place” in the Galilee region after the death of John the Baptist in order to rest but were met by a crowd of people who had followed them there.
While the disciples advised to send the people away since it was late and there was nothing to eat, Jesus asked them to gather the food that they had. Coming up with just five loaves of bread and fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the bread, and had the loaves and fishes evenly distributed among the people.
The same story can be found in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John.
Dr. Michael Eisenberg, who oversaw the excavation, said “Nowadays, we tend to regard the Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha on the northwest of the Sea of Galilee as the location of the miracle, but with careful reading of the New Testament, it is evident that it might have taken place north of Hippos within the city’s region.”
There are several mosaics from the Burnt Church that appear to refer to the miracle story, including one that depicts Jesus performing the miracle and another showing twelve baskets filled with bread.
