that is entirely possible. were these ancient artifacts the personal belongings of his mother, mary? we do know that it was a house of the kind that mary and joseph could ve lived in. i personally think it s very possible this was the childhood home of jesus. and what might the childhood of jesus tell us about jesus the man? we are looking at such an important part of human history. according to the gospels, jesus spent his childhood in the village of nazareth, in the region of galilee. today, nazareth is a bustling city of more than 70,000 people in northern israel. here, in a deep cellar beneath a 19th-century convent, lie the remains of what may prove to be one of the most extraordinary discoveries ever made, the very home in which jesus was raised. if this were in fact the childhood home of jesus, it would allow us to picture the world that jesus came from in a way that no other discovery has. how people fed themselves, what people worked at, the political
Half of the cellar, but who built and how old it remained a mystery. i began to look through pilgrimage accounts to see if there was any evidence for this large building and whether any of them told us what this church was dedicated to. the most authoritative description of early nazareth is called the de locis sanctis, the sacred locations. in addition to the biblical account, we actually only have a seventh-century pilgrim s account, and he says that there stood two churches, one church which was said to have been built over the childhood home of jesus, and the other big church in the center of nazareth, the
Church of the annunciation. today, the church of the annunciation still stands in the center of nazareth attracting tens of thousands of visitors a year. this is the traditional spot where the angel gabriel was believed to have announced to mary she was about to give birth to the messiah. as the mother of jesus, mary has always occupied a special place in the hearts of many christians. mary is really the closest to god. she is known as the queen of heaven and is foremost among all of the saints. mary s an incredibly important figure for the early church because she s a symbol for women. there s this idea of a loving individual who is seen as the special protector of the weak, of someone who protects women, who protects children, who protects elderly.