© 2006 Jan Herca (license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0)
Safed is one of the towns mentioned in The Urantia Book (UB 138:9.3) that the apostles visited during their period of probation before official preaching. It was here that James, a citizen of Tiberias, was born. He is known to be the father of an epileptic child whom Jesus cured.
A good orthophoto is available on Google maps. We have information about the current city on Wikipedia but nothing about the ancient city. It was famous for being a very healthy area, with pleasant summers and harsh winters. It was at an altitude of 900 meters, and had high rainfall.
The city website contains quite a bit of data.
It has and had wonderful views, as it is situated on the top of the Upper Galilee mountain. To the east is the Golan Heights (Gaulanitis), to the north is Hermon and Lebanon, to the west is Mount Meron and the Amud Valley, and to the south is Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee.
There was a legend that the Messiah would come from Safed on his way to Jerusalem, although it is not certain whether this legend existed in Jesus’ time or is more modern.
It is mentioned in Second Temple times as Tzefiya and was fortified by Flavius Josephus.
There are many caves in the area, the most famous being where Shem and Ever (the latter sometimes written as Eber), Noah’s son and great-grandson respectively, are supposed to have lived.
