Sea of Galilee – Aerial View *

The Sea of Galilee is Israel’s only fresh water lake, a water-sport recreation center and a source of fresh fish and potable drinking water. It is also the lowest freshwater lake on Earth.

Sea of Galilee – Aerial View

One of the most beautiful areas in Israel the north-west part of the Sea of Galilee. One can paddle through a secret water fall. Visit the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish and the ancient Kfar Nahum Synagogue. There is an amazing view of Mount of the Beatitudes (Happiness) on one side the Sea of Galilee. You can even see the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon with some snow on top. [Film by Tzvika Berenstain and Victor from Israel from the Sky]

Sea of Galilee

The Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake in Israel, approximately 53 km in circumference, about 21 km long, and 13 kmwide. Its area is 166.7 km²  at its fullest, and its maximum depth is approximately 43 m . At levels between 215 metres  and 209 metres  below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth and the second-lowest lake in the world (after the Dead Sea, a saltwater lake). The lake is fed partly by underground springs although its main source is the Jordan River which flows through it from north to south.

Sea of Kinneret

The modern Hebrew name comes from the Hebrew Bible, the main source of the Christian Old Testament, where it appears as the “sea of Kinneret” or “Kinnerot”. Kinneret was listed among the “walled cities” in Joshua 19:35. Popular etymology of the name presumes that the name of the lake Kinneret and the name of the city of Kinneret excavated at Tell el-‘Oreimeh may originate from the Hebrew word kinnor (“harp” or “lyre”) in view of the shape of the lake.

Lake of Gennesaret

All Old and New Testament writers use the term “sea” (ים – Yam – θάλασσα), with the exception of Luke who calls it “the Lake of Gennesaret” (Luke 5:1), from the Greek λίμνη Γεννησαρέτ (limnē Gennēsaret), the “Grecized form of Chinnereth”.

Sea of Ginosar

The Babylonian Talmud, as well as Flavius Josephus mention the sea by the name “Sea of Ginosar” after the small fertile plain of Ginosar that lies on its western side. 

Sea of Galilee, Lake Tiberias

In the New Testament the term “Sea of Galilee” (θάλασσαν τῆς Γαλιλαίας, thalassan tēs Galilaias) is used in the gospel of Matthew 4:18; 15:29, the gospel of Mark 1:16; 7:31.

Sea of Tiberias

The gospel of John 6:1 uses “the sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias” (θαλάσσης τῆς Γαλιλαίας τῆς Τιβεριάδος, thalassēs tēs Galilaias tēs Tiberiados), the late 1st century CE name. Sea of Tiberias is also the name mentioned in Roman texts and in the Jerusalem Talmud, and was adopted into Arabic as Buhairet Tabariyya  (بحيرة طبريا), “Lake Tiberias”.

Sea of Minya

From the Umayyad through the Mamluk period the lake was known in Arabic as “Bahr al-Minya”, the “Sea of Minya”, after the Umayyad qasr complex whose ruins are still visible at Khirbat al-Minya. This is the name employed by the medieval Persian and Arab scholars Al-Baladhuri, Al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir.