Half the fun of Biblical archeology is finding concordances between physical remains and Scripture. The Galilee boat provides several. Built of cedar planks and oak frames, the boat measured 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide. The fore and aft probably had good-size decks. Mark 4:37 describes how a terrified disciple came to Jesus “in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow,” and told him that a great storm had kicked up on the sea. “Jesus responded, “Peace! Be still!’ And… there was a great calm.” Why did Jesus sleep in the stern, in the way of the helmsman? The relic shows that the most protected place to sleep, says Wachsmann, would have been under the large stern deck otherwise used to store a fishing net.
One poignant feature of the boat, now displayed and undergoing restoration in the Yigal Allon Museum at the edge of the sea, is the poor quality of its wood. The oak and cedar appear to have been cannibalized from other craft: either the owner was poor or wood was scarce at the time. The stretch of coast where the boat sank Wachsmann: “We believe the site was an ancient boatyard.”
And perhaps a boat graveyard, too. Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian who described his people’s revolt against the Romans in A.D. 67, wrote that the Jews of Migdal, just south of where the boat was found, raided a Roman camp and quickly retreated, only to be massacred in the city soon after. Many rebels sought escape by boat, but the next day the soon-to-be emperor Vespasian dispatched archers and infantrymen onto small catamarans. In the sea battle, the Jews “were sent to the bottom, boats and all,” wrote Josephus. Some 6,700 died. An arrowhead found inside the boat was of a type used by foreign auxiliary archer units attached to the Roman legions, so Wachsmann plans to return to the sea in search of hulls left from the Battle of Migdal. If Josephus was correct, the lopsided fight was the nautical equivalent of Masada; the mud at the bottom of the Galilee may finally be persuaded to give up the evidence.
