Tiberias, To Be Scene of Final Redemption

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

  Kinneret or Kineret is the Hebrew name of the Sea of Galilee, the largest freshwater lake in Israel.  I visited Tiberias sometime between 1981-1985.  We sat outdoors in the open cafe and watched boats in the huge lake with fishermen.  Of course we had a fish dinner.  It was lovely.  

As early as Roman times, this thriving recreation spa, built around 17 natural mineral hot springs more than 600 feet below sea level, welcomed visitors from every part of the ancient world. Built by Herod Antipas (one of Herod the Great's three sons who divided up Palestine after their father's death), the city was named Tiberias in honor of the Roman Emperor Tiberius.     

Tiberias plays an important role in Jewish history. It was part of the land bequeathed to Naphtali (Joshua 19:35). The Sanhedrin (the High Court of Israel during the period of the Second Temple) relocated to Tiberias from Sepphoris (Safed). In the Mishnaic and Talmudic period, Tiberias was an important spiritual center. The Mishna was completed in Tiberias in 200 C.E. under the supervision of Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nasi ("Judah the Prince"). The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in 400 C.E.

Tiberias was founded in 18 CE so it was a new city when the Sanhedrin made the decision in 29 CE to convene in Tiberias in our last days or final redemption.  It was King Herod Antipas who founded it and named it in honor of the Roman emperor Tiberius who reigned from 14 to 37 CE.                             

In the year 3789 (29 CE), the moral character of the Jewish people had declined to the point that the great Jewish court, the Sanhedrin, removed themselves from their respectful place on the Temple Mount and went into exile. This automatically downgraded their spiritual and legal status and they were no longer authorized to judge cases involving capital punishment. That had become the duty of the Romans. 

                                             

I don't know about the  moral decline, but the Romans had been occupying Jerusalem and everything was in question.  After the destruction of the Second Temple in 586 BCE and the failure of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE), the Great Sanhedrin moved to Galilee, which became part of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina.                             

   Sanhedrin: Supreme Court and legislators of 71 rabbis, led by the Nasi, usually a descendant of Rabbi Hillel and an Av Bet Din-a Cohen. Despite what people may think, there is no evidence for the existence of it being a political body except during the troubled decades which preceded the destruction of the Temple. The Sanhedrin ended before the end of the 4th century CE, probably due to the declarations of the Roman rulers, outlawing Judaism.  The Romans saw Judaism as a competitor to their new religion, ,switching from polytheism to worship of Jesus.  

The Sanhedrin traveled to ten different places in exile, the last being Tiberias. According to tradition, in the final redemption, the Sanhedrin will first reconvene in Tiberias, and only from there will they will proceed to the Temple. May it be speedily in our days! Little did they know that the Temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed by fire within 41 years.                         

Herod Antipas (20 BCE-39 CE), son of Herod and Malthace of Samaria  

After his father's death, he became a tetrarch of Galilee and Perea.  He married Herodias, wife of his brother, Herod. This was an offense against the Mosaic Law as Antipas had John put to death.  This marriage led to a disastrous war in 35-36 against Aretas IV, king of the Nabateans, who was the father of Antipas's 1st wife now divorced by him.  During emperor Caligula's reign, Antipas was accused of plotting against Rome and was exiled to Gaul, where he died. Gaul was today's  France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, and parts of Northern Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, particularly the west bank of the Rhine.  That's a big swatch of land!  

The emperor, Tiberias, expelled the Jews from Rome in the year 19 on account of a fraud perpetrated on a Roman matron sympathetic to Judaism.  4,000 young Jews were sent to Sardinia to fight the brigands. Palestine was harshly administered under his rule.  It was during his rule that the crucifixion of Jesus occurred.  So Herod honored him with a city.  Oy vey!                                  

Tiberias, the city, soon became the principal Jewish city on the lake.  Its inhabitants took part in the war with Rome but without enthusiasm, surrendering to Vespasian, a Roman emperor from 69 to 79 at the 1st opportunity.  Vespasian was sent by Nero in 67 to subdue the Judean rebellion and by 68 he had conquered Galilee, Transjordan, and the Judean coast before suspending operations on receiving the news of Nero's death.  In 69 he became emperor, and the campaign was concluded by his son, Titus.

Vespasian patronized Josephus, the Jewish general who was captured and given a chance to live if he wrote the history of that period which he did, being a main reference for the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple in 70.  The Talmud speaks of Vespasian's favorable treatment of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai.  

The seat of the patriarchate was transferred to Tiberias in the 3rd century, and the town was a center of Talmudic scholarship and also was the capital of Jewish Palestine until the transfer of the academy to Jerusalem in the 7th century.  It was then known as Maaziah and was a main center of the activity of the Masoretes, those who preserved the body of traditions regarding the correct spelling, writing and reading of the Hebrew Bible..                  

  Israel Facthe Sea f Gali shaped like a harp, kinnor in Hebrew, but this is not where the name of the lake comes frm.           Israel Fache Sea of Galilee is apeke a harp, kinnor in Hebrew, but this is not where the name of the lake comes from.

The Sea of Galilee is shaped like a harp, kinnor in Hebrew, but this is not where the name of the lake comes from.  Israelis call the Sea by the biblical name Kinneret.  This was the name of a city on the northwestern edge of the lake during the Canaanite and Israelite periods. The reference to the Sea of Tiberias is attributable to the newer riparian city.

In 1099, Tiberias was taken by the Crusaders and after the 13th century, remained a fishing village until it was rebuilt in the 18th century by the emir Dahir el-Omar. North of the Roman site, a previous attempt by Joseph Nasi to re-establish it as a Jewish center had failed.  

After his death in 1204, the great Jewish sage Maimonides was buried in Tiberias. His tomb is on Ben Zakkai Street, a short distance from the town center. The street's namesake, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, is also believed to be buried nearby. Yet another shrine is the Tomb of Rabbi Akiva.                                           

         Shopping area in Tiberias

A Samaritan center existed in Tiberias in the middle of the 4th century. The Crusaders later captured the city and made it the capital of the Galilee, but Saladin retook the city for the Muslim Empire in 1187. The city suffered a decline until it was revived by the Ottoman Turks. After the city was built up over a period of about a century, it was devastated by an earthquake in 1837.

As a result of the big earthquake of 1837, part of the population of Safed moved to Tiberias, as it lay down the mountain below Safed,  which thereafter had a Jewish majority.  The development of Jewish colonies around the Sea of Galilee and of the hot springs south of the city has enhanced its importance. The early Zionist pioneers established some of Israel's first kibbutzim at the turn of the century in this area. After the establishment of the state, newcomers flocked to the city and the population quadrupled. Today, it is home to about 30,000 people. The population in 1990 was 31,200.  I visited a Safed home that had been dug out of the earthquake and bought by an American couple who were able to bring it to the 21st century.  It was beautiful and a rarity, for the common accommodations were apartments.  To live in a house was rare.                                        

The Talmud tells us that Tiberias, or Tiveryah (טבריה) in Hebrew, is related to the Hebrew word for navel, tabur (טבור), and is so named for its location in the center of the Land of Israel. Others cite a tradition that the name “Tiveryah" stands for the words tovah re'iyatah (טובה ראייתה), “her sight is goodly,” and is so named due to both its physical beauty—its beautiful gardens and orchards, and its location at the banks of the Kinneret—and its spiritual beauty, as it was a major center of Torah learning.

Tiberias is a city that is 2,003 years old, and very much a Jewish city now after being a Muslim center.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3656661/jewish/Four-Holy-Cities-of-Israel-What-and-Why.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanhedrin

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/tiberias