Archaeology is largely silent on the matter ... One of his first stops was Capernaum, a fishing town on the northwest shore of a large freshwater lake called, confusingly, the Sea of Galilee.

Capernaum’s synagogue, the core civic space, was where fishermen might spread messianic ideas. Mr. Cirafesi makes a convincing archaeological case for a synagogue’s existence in Capernaum in t ...