© 2006 Jan Herca (license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0)
Gischala is also listed as one of the towns visited by the apostles. The apostles preached there on their first preaching tour of the lake in June–July 26 (UB 138:9.3). It is one of the towns visited during the first preaching tour of Galilee in January–March 28 (UB 146:0.1, UB 146:4.6). Jesus and the apostles passed nearby on their return from Phoenicia (UB 156:6.3).
This population was located in present-day Al-Jish or Jish.
The name is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Gush-halab,” meaning “large piece of land.”
It was a city that produced a very well-known fine oil, and that was produced in large quantities, so that there must have been large oil mills, according to Josephus (Autobiography 13; War of the Jews, II-21,2). It also produced fine raw silk.
It was situated on a hill that fell steeply to the east. The city was considered a very ancient fortress, before the destruction it suffered in the war against Rome in 70.
Meron is a nearby town mentioned in the scriptures. At Gischala there are some extraordinary ruins of an ancient synagogue, but from the 3rd or 4th century.
Numerous caves and passages have been found to the northwest of the synagogue, forming networks of passages for defensive purposes and to counteract sieges. They have also been found in many other towns in Galilee. On this subject, I found this information in an issue of the Jewish publication “Milim Cultural”:
Dozens of caves have been discovered in the Galilee in recent times. Most of them are under the courtyards of private houses in Arab villages. Many of them were discovered after earthquakes, and others only after the villagers became convinced that they would not be harmed by the excavations.
After intensive research and a thorough search of the entire area, accompanied by repeated reading of the writings of Josephus Flavius, a network of hidden passages was recently discovered at Gischala that can be considered to correspond to the Second Temple period.
Josephus made many brief references to the caves in which the Jews hid during the great rebellion. Describing the end of the battle at Jotapata, he wrote, “The Romans searched out where the Jews hid and killed the people hiding in tunnels and caves.” After the battle, he recounted how the Romans found forty people hiding there in a deep pit, connected to much larger caves, invisible to anyone standing above them.
A careful search determined the existence in Jeish of tunnels, some of them very long, and caves, some of them very large.
Milim Cultural
In the novel Jesus of Nazareth[1] the Master visits Gischala for the first time in the company of Peter and Andrew, and his preaching is not very well received in the city. This is something that is not mentioned as such in The Urantia Book (UB 146:4.6), but it is a logical deduction from the fact that it is mentioned that Jesus and his apostles only stayed two days in Gischala when in other towns they stayed a week or more, and that in general in these towns of northern Galilee the Master’s message was not very well received.
It was a town well known some time after Jesus because one of the Jewish leaders of the revolt against Rome, John of Gischala, was from there. Jesus undoubtedly knew his father, a certain Levi according to Josephus. Perhaps he was, according to the novel Jesus of Nazareth, one of those who did not believe in Jesus from this town. However, this character does not appear in the novel. I am not fond of forcing history when telling historical novels to bring up certain characters just because we know they existed.
One last curiosity to mention is that Dismas, the “good thief” who was crucified with Jesus, is shown in the novel[1:1] as a native of Giscala. This fact is not taken from The Urantia Book and represents my own invention. At least one inhabitant of Giscala did believe in Jesus, and he was the only person on Earth who received a direct promise from Jesus that he would one day reach Paradise (UB 187:4.1).
Flavius Josephus, Complete Works, Jewish Antiquities and Wars of the Jews, Editorial Acervo Cultural, 1961.
Flavius Josephus, On the Antiquity of the Jews and Autobiography, Alianza Editorial, 1987.
Writings of Flavius Josephus and Philo available at www.earlyjewishwritings.com.
This book is the novel «Jesus of Nazareth», a biography about the Master based on The Urantia Book that is in preparation by the author. ↩︎ ↩︎