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08 April, 1999

By Patrick Goodenough
CNS Jerusalem Bureau Chief

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Archeologists and volunteers from the U.S. and Israel are working on a project aimed at offering millennium pilgrims the experience of an authentic first century village in Nazareth, the reported hometown of Jesus.

Nazareth Village aims to restore the actual 20-acre area experts believe was home to Jesus and his family.

The current, fourth dig is coming to an end, and teams have in the process uncovered remains of a watch-tower, farmland terraces, a winepress and irrigation system, project director Michael Hostetler told CNS Thursday.

"The farm is confirmed [by specialists] to have been here in the early Roman period, which was around the time Jesus was here," he said.

Nazareth Village aims to recreate "a setting where people can visualize when Jesus walked this land, to bring to life Jesus' teachings and parables."

Next month work will begin on building the actual houses.

Working closely with the Jerusalem-based Center for the Study of Early Christianity, which is researching life in the Galilee at the time of Jesus, "we will use the knowledge acquired to build structures as close as possible to the originals," Hostetler said.

"We'll put up a pilot house, then invite scrutiny from scholars. With their feedback, we'll proceed."

The project has another component too, what Hostetler calls "an interactive museum, looking at Jesus' years in Nazareth, his years in Galilee and his time spent in Jerusalem."

A statement from the Indiana-based Miracle of Nazareth Foundation says this part of the Nazareth Village "will offer visitors a 'parable walk' and an opportunity to interact with Village workers in first century attire and character."

Hostetler hastens to assure that the interactive aspect will "not be a Disney-type 'Jesus-land.'. Our aim is to present the living Jesus."

For the "parable walk," story-tellers will be trained to assume the characters of contemporaries of Jesus, and relate parables and teachings to visitors. Both locals and volunteers from around the world will be used.

"People who visit Nazareth today really get no sense or feeling for what this place was like for the 30 years Jesus lived and ministered here," Miracle of Nazareth Foundation president Linda Fuller explained.

"Soon, visitors will not only be able to walk where Jesus walked but they will see and experience His reality in [the] first century Holy Land."

In the meantime, it's not only visitors from abroad the project staff hope to appeal to.

Nazareth, Israel's largest Arab town, has a diminishing ethnic Christian population. Tensions between Christians and the growing Muslim majority have spilled over into violence over the past week.

The project has not been unduly affected by communal tensions in the town, Hostetler said, but it was nonetheless "very disheartening so see people so torn that they resort to violence.

"It's critical to us that whatever we do we be a witness of the living Jesus in this community."

Project staff have been involved in ongoing consultation with church leaders in the region, "from Orthodox to evangelical to traditional to Protestant", Hostetler said, adding that the reaction had been "very, very good."

The Center for the Study of Early Christianity is an interdenominational educational institution and research center co-ordinated by Christian scholars living in Jerusalem.

The center's Stephen Pfann said the findings in Nazareth were "the most important, and perhaps the only, witness to the life and livelihoods of the ancient Nazarenes. It remains today as the last vestiges of virgin farmland directly connected with the ancient village of Nazareth."

He noted that objects such as watch-towers, cultivated terraces and wine-presses featured in Jesus' parables.

"It was here that a boy named Jesus from the village of Nazareth observed life and drew in deep impressions and images. These images were later brought to mind as He spoke in parables concerning God's relationship with man and of the great hope of His Kingdom.

Pfann said the farm, if preserved, would "freeze history in time and provide for both resident and visitor a important link for the city of Nazareth and its rich Biblical heritage."

The Miracle of Nazareth Foundation boasts among its trustees former President Jimmy Carter, former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, pastor and professional footballer Reggie White, singer Pat Boone, and Notre Dame University president emeritus Rev. Theodore Hesburgh. Its president, Linda Fuller, is co-founder of Habitat for Humanity International.