Religion: Jews, Christians, and Muslims
At night, across the Sea of Galilee from Hippos, we can see the lights of
Tiberias. When our little church at Hippos was in use, Tiberias across the lake
was a center of Jewish culture and faith.
 Jews
believe in one God who demands justice and mercy from people, and asks people to
pay attention to his sacred writings. Scholars in Tiberias at the time of our
church were working on a version of ancient Jewish sacred writings that Jews and
scholars still use today.
Christianity developed from Judaism. Christians follow the teachings of
Jesus, who grew up in Nazareth, about 40 kilometers west of Hippos. Jesus taught
on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Christians accept some Jewish teachings,
but most also believe that Jesus is the son of God who died and rose from the
dead so that God will forgives the sins of believers.
The Byzantine Empire had many kinds of Christians. They disagreed about
whether Jesus was man or God. They wanted to be left alone to worship in their
own way, but the emperor tried to impose one belief.
Angels and Demons
 One
practice of Byzantine Christians was to pray before icons — paintings
representing Jesus, his mother Mary and other saints. The images are painted in
such a way that, when we look at them now, sometimes the eyes seem to move.
Byzantine Christians believed in angels and demons. Angels warded off demons,
particularly as people lay dying.
Relics — bones believed to be from saints — were also important to Byzantine
Christians, who sometimes traveled long distances to visit churches and pray
over relics. Our little church has a reliquary, or place for keeping relics —
but the reliquary was empty when we found it.
In Byzantine times, many men and women joined monasteries, where they lived
simple lives devoted to prayer and good works. In such communities, women could
learn to read and write. They sometimes taught men to read and write as well.
Our Northeast Church may have been a monastery for women, though we're not sure.
(listen to audio
about Hippos and Jesus)
Two Prophets
 Our
church would have been a place of alarm and refuge in 614 CE when Persians under
rulers called Sassanids invaded Palestine and captured Jerusalem. At Kursi, just
six kilometers north of Hippos, archaeologists found a mass grave at a monastery
— and a telltale Persian sickle-type sword.
These Persians were longtime enemies first of the Romans and then of the
Byzantine Empire. They were Zoroastrians, whose prophet Zoroaster lived before
1000 BCE. Zoroastrians believed in one god, Ahura Mazda, who promises to raise
his followers from the dead at the end of the world. Meanwhile, spirits of evil
and good battle on earth, and all must join the fight.
 At
the time of the Sassanid invasion, 1,200 kilometers to the southeast, another
prophet was preaching a new religion: Islam. Its followers call themselves
Muslims.
Islam teaches that there is one God, Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.
Allah is just and merciful. He wants people to repent and follow his laws. If
they do, they will go to paradise when they die.
Muslim armies began to spread the new faith. Byzantine forces took Jerusalem
back from the Sassanids in 629 CE, but lost it to Muslim Arabs in 638 CE.
Hippos survived the Muslim invasion. We know because we found a decanter
there — a pitcher — in a Muslim style known as Ummayad. Christians may have
lived at Hippos for more than 100 years under Muslim rule before the earthquake
of 748 CE destroyed the city.
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