Har Nitai
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Har Nitai (Mount Nitai, Hebrew: הר נתאי) is a mountain west of the Sea of Galilee and north of Tiberias, Israel. Due east of the mountain is Mount Arbel . Har Nitai is named after Nittai of Arbela. When looking southwest from Capernaum, on the shore of the Sea of Galillee, one cannot help but notice the beautiful cliffs of Har Nitai and Arbel.
A valley separates Har Nitai from Arbel. A stream runs through that valley.
Atop Har Nitai are a grove of trees and the ruins of an ancient settlement. The ruins are unexcavated and their identity remains unknown. The eastern boundary of the ruins is marked by the ruins of an ancient wall. Approximately 80 meters east of the wall is a sheer drop-off, or cliff. Perhaps ancient residents built the wall for safety-reasons (for example, to prevent their children from having access to the cliff). Or perhaps they built the wall to enclose a defendable area, bounded by a wall and a cliff, so that they would have a place from which to defend themselves in the event of an attack. Until an excavation is performed and evidence is unearthed, one can but speculate.
Because Har Nitai is a hilltop, with ruins and a cliff, it is a candidate for the actual site of ancient Nazareth, Israel, the town in which Jesus Christ grew-up, based on the following passage from the New Testament book of Luke:
Luke 4:29 (New American Standard Bible) "and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff."
The traditional site of Nazareth, Israel, does not fit the geographical description, above, that Luke provided in his gospel. Nor does the historical record mention the location of the traditional site of Nazareth until the time of Eusebius, circa A.D. 300, after Christianity had become legal in the Roman Empire. Perhaps Christian pilgrims to Israel mistakenly designated the wrong site as Nazareth.
