Bible Synapse

Was the home of Peter and Andrew in Capernaum or in Bethsaida?

Hard question · The life of Jesus · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate

Both true, in different senses

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The passages

Mark 1:21

Jesus and the first disciples go into Capernaum, and on the sabbath he teaches in the synagogue.

And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.

Mark 1:29–30

Leaving the synagogue they enter “the house of Simon and Andrew”, where Simon’s wife’s mother is ill with a fever.

And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her.

John 1:44

“Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.”

Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

The objection

Mark places the house of Simon Peter and Andrew in Capernaum, where Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law. John calls Bethsaida “the city of Andrew and Peter”. Critics ask which town was their home.

The answer

John tells where the brothers came from, and Mark where they lived at the time of Jesus’ ministry. John says that Philip was “of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter” (John 1:44); the Greek says that Philip was ‘from Bethsaida, out of the town of Andrew and Peter’, the usual way of naming the town a person comes from. When Jesus made Capernaum his base (Matthew 4:13), Simon and Andrew had a house there, and Simon’s wife’s mother lived with them (Mark 1:29–30; Luke 4:38).

People who grow up in one town often live and work in another, and these two towns were only a few miles apart near the north end of the Sea of Galilee. Both lived by fishing; the name Bethsaida probably means ‘house of fishing’. Perhaps Simon moved to Capernaum when he married, or for the trade, but the Gospels do not say why. Gill reads the passages just this way: the brothers lived together at Capernaum, ‘though their native place was Bethsaida’.

Still open

Where exactly Bethsaida stood is still debated. The leading candidates, et-Tell and el-Araj, are both near where the Jordan enters the lake, and some older writers thought there were two towns of that name. On any of these views it lay a short distance from Capernaum.

From the classic commentators

they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew; who being brethren, dwelt together in a house at Capernaum, where it seems they were now inhabitants, though their native place was Bethsaida, John 1:44John Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Mark 1:29 (1746–1763)