Sepphoris - The City Near Nazareth
Just four miles north of Nazareth stood one of the most important cities in Galilee: Sepphoris (Hebrew Tzippori). Although the city is never mentioned in the Gospels, its proximity to Nazareth makes it an important part of the world in which Jesus grew up. It was close enough to reach in roughly an hour's walk.
Sepphoris had already become an important administrative center by the first century BC. Following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, a revolt broke out in the city. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Roman forces under the Syrian governor Varus responded by destroying Sepphoris and enslaving many of its inhabitants.
Archaeologists debate the extent of this destruction, but what followed is clear: when Herod Antipas inherited Galilee, he undertook a major rebuilding program at Sepphoris and made it his capital. Josephus would later describe the city as the “ornament of all Galilee.”
This means that while Jesus was growing up only a few miles away in Nazareth, Sepphoris was being rebuilt. The project would have required large numbers of laborers and skilled craftsmen to construct houses, walls, streets, public buildings, and other infrastructure.
This provides an intriguing backdrop to the Gospel descriptions of Joseph and Jesus as a τέκτων (tektōn) (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3). The Greek word is often translated “carpenter,” but its meaning is broader: a tektōn was a builder or craftsman, someone who worked in construction. In the stone-built environment of Galilee, it is better to picture Joseph and Jesus as stone masons rather than simply as woodworkers.
Because Nazareth was a small village and Sepphoris, only four miles away, was undergoing extensive construction, a number of scholars have suggested that Joseph and the young Jesus may have found work there. We cannot prove that they did—the Gospels never tell us—but geographically and economically, the possibility is quite reasonable.
The ruins visible at Sepphoris today span many centuries, and some of its most impressive features—including many of the mosaics and monumental structures—date later than the lifetime of Jesus. Nevertheless, the city gives us an extraordinary glimpse into the larger world surrounding the small village of Nazareth.
Jesus did not grow up in an isolated corner of Galilee. Only a few miles from his home, a major Galilean city was rising from the ground. And it is entirely possible that, long before Jesus began teaching in synagogues and speaking about stones, foundations, houses, towers, and builders, he had spent years working with his hands as a tektōn.
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