Tiberias

A major city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, built around 20 CE by Herod Antipas and named in honor of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Though Jesus ministered extensively around Galilee, the Gospels rarely mention him entering Tiberias itself, possibly because it was built on a graveyard (making it ritually impure for observant Jews) and was associated with Herodian power. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE, Tiberias became the center of Jewish religious and scholarly life. The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled here around 400 CE, and the city remained one of Judaism’s four holy cities alongside Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed.