The "house of Peter" at Capernaum
GradeProbable
Mark tells how Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum and "entered into the house of Simon and Andrew" (). The Franciscan excavations led by Corbo and Loffreda, from 1968 on, found three layers at one spot: private houses built around the 1st century BCE; one room renovated and set apart in the 4th century; and an octagonal church built over it in the mid-5th century. The excavators concluded that the house "was venerated as the house of Peter the fisherman as early as the mid-1st century". The pilgrim Egeria, in the 380s, is reported to have seen a house-church there. Christians see a modest fishing-village house honoured by Christians from an early date, at the place where Mark sets Peter's home.
Probable. The remains are authentic. That this was the house remembered as Peter's is likely but not certain. The find shows a modest house in a fishing village that Christians venerated from an early date, consistent with Mark.
Explore the counterarguments
The early date of the veneration rests on plastered walls, lamps and graffiti whose reading is debated. Clear evidence of Christian use comes from the 4th century, and a later tradition about a site does not by itself show whose house it was.