Finding the Last, Lost City of the Gospels

A lecture by Dr. R. Steven Notley

Date: Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Location: Ezell 241, Lipscomb University

Since the middle of the 19th century, scholars have conjectured regarding the location of Bethsaida, home of Peter, Andrew, and Philip. Two locations have figured prominently in that discussion: e-Tell and el-Araj. In 1987 Rami Arav initiated the Bethsaida Excavation Project at e-Tell, where he excavated for over 30 years and claimed to have found both an Iron Age city and New Testament Bethsaida. More recently, after a successful shovel survey in 2014, we launched our excavations at el-Araj in 2016. In this presentation we will consider Yohanan Aharoni’s three principles of site identification as a measure for both sites. We will present the results of 8 seasons at el-Araj, evidence for it as a Jewish fishing village that was transformed into a small polis and conclude with the discovery of a legendary Byzantine church that was reportedly built over the house of St. Peter.

Dr. R. Steven Notley

R. Steven Notley is the Dean of Religious Studies at Pillar College in Newark, New Jersey. Previously he was the Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins on the New York City campus of Alliance University (2001-2023). He received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University, where he studied with David Flusser. Notley lived sixteen years in Jerusalem with his wife and four children, during which time he was the founding chair of the New Testament Backgrounds program at the Jerusalem University College. He has been leading groups of students and laypeople to Israel and the eastern Mediterranean region for over 35 years. He is the author of many books and articles. He continues collaborative research and publication with Israeli scholars in the fields of historical geography, ancient Judaism and Christian origins. Among his list of publications, he collaborated with Flusser on the historical biography, The Sage from Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius (Eerdmans 2007); with Anson Rainey (Tel Aviv University) the monumental biblical atlas, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical World (Carta Publishing 2005); with Ze’ev Safrai (Bar Ilan University) an annotated translation of Eusebius’ important description of Roman Palestine, Eusebius, Onomasticon: A Triglott Edition with Notes and Commentary (Brill 2005). He rejoined Safrai for their second work, a pioneering collection and translation of the earliest rabbinic parables that provide the literary and religious context for the parables of Jesus, The Parables of the Sages (Carta 2011). Since 2016 he has served as the Academic Director of the El-Araj Excavation Project in its search for first-century Bethsaida-Julias, the lost city of the Apostles.

Directions and Parking

Directions

GPS Address
The best address to use with your GPS is 3906 Belmont Blvd, Nashville, TN 37204. This will get you the closest to the building in which our conference is being held (#2 in the yellow circle), as well as the best options for parking.

Driving North on Belmont Blvd
If you come in driving north on Belmont Blvd, you will turn onto Belmont Blvd from Shackleford Rd. After you turn onto Belmont Blvd, you will take the second possible right onto campus, where you will find parking available to your left, right, and straight ahead.

Driving South on Belmont Blvd
If you come driving in south on Belmont Blvd, after you pass Glen Echo Rd, you will take the third possible left onto campus. You will find parking available to your left, right, and straight ahead.

Parking

The conference is being held in the Ezell Building, which is #2 in the yellow circle on the map. You may enter this building through several doors, including through the Shinn Event Center (#1 on the map).

The map shows the different areas of parking available all around the conference location, though please note that the day of the conference is also a regular school day for the university and so parking can be sparse if you arrive after 8 AM.

If the lots to the left and right of the recommended entrance to campus (see the directions above) are full, please continue straight ahead to the Arena West Parking Garage (#48/P2 in the yellow circle on the map) as this will be your best bet for close parking.

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