I’ve discovered the home where Jesus lived as a child: British archaeologist

There is a strong case that a well-preserved 1st-century house excavated at Nazareth was the childhood home of Jesus.

Is this the house of Jesus in Nazareth? Archaeologist Ken Dark suggests it could be. Picture: Ken Dark

There is a strong case that a well-preserved 1st century house excavated at Nazareth was the childhood home of Jesus, a British archaeologist has claimed.

Ken Dark, professor of archaeology and history at Reading University, said a 19th century identification of ruins at the Sisters of Nazareth Convent as the house of Joseph had been dismissed out of hand by archaeologists in the 1930s and rejected by scholars ever since.

However, his findings, after 14 years of fieldwork and research at the site in northern Israel, confirm for the first time that the convent stands over a 1st century dwelling that was believed from at least the 380s to have been where Jesus grew up.

The house, of which significant portions survive — including a rock-cut staircase probably included storage rooms around a courtyard and a roof terrace. Professor Dark said the excellent craftsmanship and a structural understanding of rock were consistent with it having been built and owned by a tekton — a carpenter, stonemason or builder — which was the original Greek description of Joseph’s occupation in the gospels.

Professor Dark’s new book, The Sisters of Nazareth Convent: A Roman-period, Byzantine and Crusader Site in Central Nazareth, also indicates that a cave church decorated with mosaics was built in the hillside directly adjacent to the house’s remains in the 4th century — at the time when Christianity was adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine.

Professor Dark said the fact that the church was bigger than the nearby Church of the Annunciation — at the site where Byzantine-period Christians believed the Archangel Gabriel visited Mary with news that she would give birth to “the Son of the Highest” — underscored its perceived significance.

Professor Dark emphasised that while there was no proof that the house was that of Jesus, there never could be for any archaeological site, given the lack of evidence such as inscriptions at the homes of 1st century Galilean craftsmen.

He added: “On the other hand, all the reasons to doubt that it might possibly have been, have gone — this is exciting stuff.”

The Times