24-05-2025
Experts claim to have pinpointed exact location where Jesus turned water into wine
Archeologists say they've pinpointed the place where Jesus turned water into wine.
In what would become a turning point in the history of Christianity, the miraculous feat is said to have taken place during a wedding in the town of Cana of Galilee.
Now experts claim to have zeroed in on the exact spot - and it is not the one visited by thousands of pilgrims each year.
Although the true location has been disputed, digs at the ruined village of Khirbet Qana, eight miles northwest of Nazareth, suggest this lesser-known site could be the real location.
Archeological evidence from the site shows that Khirbet Qana was the site of a well-connected Jewish village during the time of Jesus's life.
However, the best evidence for Khirbet Qana is the discovery of a hidden Christian worship site in an underground cave system, which dates back to the third century AD.
Archeologists even claim one of these hidden churches contains two of the vessels that might have held the water Jesus turned into wine.
The real Cana of Galilee
According to the Bible, Jesus performed his first miracle while attending a wedding in the town of Cana of Galilee.
During the wedding, Jesus's mother, Mary, pointed out that the party had run out of wine.
Upon hearing this, Jesus transformed six vessels of water used for 'ceremonial washing' into fine quality wine.
In the Bible, we are told very little about the village of Cana except that Jesus went there for this wedding and on at least one other occasion.
From this, we know that the real Cana must be in Galilee, close enough to Nazareth for Jesus to make the journey, and have been home to a sizable Jewish population.
Since the Middle Ages, the town of Kafr Kanna, located three miles northeast of Nazareth, has claimed to be the real site of Cana.
The town is home to the 'Wedding Church' which claims to hold the real water pots used by Jesus in his miracles and is visited by thousands of tourists and pilgrims each year.
However, Dr James Tabor, a Bible scholar, archeologist and distinguished fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says that Kafr Kanna's status is more likely to be due to its location than historical fact.
Dr Tabor says: 'I think what's happening in the Middle Ages is that pilgrims want convenience. They're coming to Nazareth and they want to see it all.
'To see the other place, Khirbet Qana, you have to climb this unbelievable hill so, to have pilgrims trek up that in the heat of the Middle East, it's just not going to happen.
'It's so much more convenient to just go a few miles down the road and find "the other Cana." '
The problem is that no excavation has actually found evidence of Jewish settlement beneath Kafr Kanna dating back to the Roman period.
This makes it quite unlikely that this town could have been the place referred to by the author of the signal source in the Gospel of John.
Dr Tabor says that the location that the archeological evidence truly points to is the much harder-to-access site of Khirbet Qana.
Since 1998, a group of archeologists originally led by the late Professor Douglas Edwards and now by Dr Tom McCollough, of Centre College, has been excavating the nearby site of Khirbet Qana.
In a research paper published in the Biblical Archaeology Review, Dr McCollough revealed that the now-abandoned site was once home to a thriving Jewish settlement between 323 BC to 324 AD.
The fact that Khirbet Qana's settlement was Jewish is confirmed by the presence of a Roman-period synagogue or study hall known as a Beth Midrash and six coins printed by the leaders of the Jewish 'Maccabean' revolt.
Excitingly, Dr McCollough and his team also found evidence of several bathhouses or miqva'ot.
These not only indicate the presence of Jewish culture but also align with the biblical account of Jesus's miracle which says the water jars were for 'ceremonial washing.'
However, what makes Khirbet Qana the most promising site for the real location of Cana of Galilee is the presence of early Christian artifacts.
Dr McCollough has found an extensive network of Christian worship sites in a cave system hidden beneath the village.
These chambers date from Byzantine times through the Crusader period, from 415 to 1217 AD, and some are decorated and lined with plaster.
One of the cave chambers even bears Christian graffiti depicting crosses, giving the names of pilgrims or even saying 'Kyrie Iesou' or 'Lord Jesus.'
Most excitingly of all, the archeologists discovered an altar in one of the caves made of an upturned sarcophagus lid.
Above it was a shelf containing two large stone vessels which were believed by early Christians to be the very vessels Jesus used to turn water into wine.
Dr McCollough writes: 'There was space for another four. Six stone jars would have held the water that Jesus turned into wine.
'All this suggests that Khirbet Cana was regarded as New Testament Cana from a very early time.'
Why was Cana important to Jesus?
What makes this discovery so interesting is Cana might have been hugely important to the historical Jesus and his followers.
This is possible because the account of Cana actually comes from an even more ancient part of the Bible.
Dr Tabor says that the Gospel of John contains a separate, older narrative called the 'signal source' which the later gospel writer built on.
According to Dr Tabor, there are hints in this narrative that Cana was potentially the 'headquarters' of the early Jesus movement or even a personal 'retreat' for Jesus himself.
Not only was it the site of his first miracle, but the scant pieces of evidence we have also seem to hint at a more personal connection.
The fact that his mother Mary is involved in the planning of the wedding suggests that it was likely a 'family affair,' perhaps even the wedding of one of Jesus's four brothers.
The signal source narrative then records that Jesus came back to Cana again after causing trouble in Jerusalem by clearing out the moneylenders in the temple.
The Gospel of John even points out that one of Jesus's followers, Nathaniel, was originally from Cana.
Dr Tabor says: 'It could well be his village headquarters – a place he felt very much at home where he could be safe and peaceful.'
What would it be like to drink wine with Jesus?
Although it might seem odd, wine would have played a major role in the life of Jesus and his disciples.
At a time when potable water was less common, brewed and alcoholic drinks were a great source of sterile water and calories, as well as part of social and community life.
That might make you wonder what it would have been like to drink the wine Jesus made or that was served at the Last Supper.
Luckily, thanks to the work of some curious archeologists, we actually have a pretty good idea.
Dr Paulina Komar, an archeologist from the University of Warsaw and expert on Roman wine, told that wine in Jesus's day would have been very different to what we have now.
Dr Komar says: 'The Romans could make good wines, good according to our standards, but they would have been different than most good wines today.'
Instead of aging in wooden barrels, wine was made by the Romans in clay jars that were often buried underground.
This required the grapes to be macerated, kept partially intact, which has a similar effect on the taste to adding boiled-down grape syrup called defrutum in modern wines.
'Clay jars allowed for micro-oxidation, which changed wine taste – less fresh green and yellow fruits, more dried fruits, apricot jam and slightly nutty aromas typical of today's sherry,' says Dr Komar.
Roman wine was also quite a lot stronger than the wines we have today due to the wild yeasts and very sugary grapes, reaching between 15 and 16 per cent alcohol content.
Grape encounters: Unlike modern wine, the wine Jesus would have drunk was made in clay pots buried in the ground. Experts say this would have given it a similar flavor to today's sherry or Georgian qvevri wines
In the Gospel of John, upon drinking the wine, Jesus made the host remark: 'Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.'
Dr Komar says: 'If it was a good wine, it would probably have been similar to modern Georgian qvevri wines, or amber wines in general. Bad wine would have been simply bad with a high concentration of acetic aldehyde and acetic acid.
'Posca - that means wine that almost turned into vinegar mixed with seawater - was most likely the last drink of Jesus and was typical for poor people, as well as some legionaries and slaves.
'This is most probably why in antiquity wines were spiced with a number of different herbs and spices such as pepper, thyme, rose, wormwood.'
WHY IS JESUS DEPICTED IN DIFFERENT WAYS?
No physical description of Jesus is found in the Bible.
He's typically depicted as Caucasian in Western works of art, but has also been painted to look as if he was Latino or Aboriginal.
It's thought this is so people in different parts of the world can more easily relate to the Biblical figure.
The earliest depictions show him as a typical Roman man, with short hair and no beard, wearing a tunic.
It is thought that it wasn't until 400AD that Jesus appears with a beard.
This is perhaps to show he was a wise teacher, because philosophers at the time were typically depicted with facial hair.
The conventional image of a fully bearded Jesus with long hair did not become established until the sixth century in Eastern Christianity, and much later in the West
Medieval art in Europe typically showed him with brown hair and pale skin.
This image was strengthened during the Italian Renaissance, with famous paintings such as The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci showing Christ.
Modern depictions of Jesus in films tend to uphold the long-haired, bearded stereotype, while some abstract works show him as a spirit or light.
