Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee (Hebrew: יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, Arabic: بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth and the second-lowest lake in the world (after the Dead Sea, a salt lake),[3] at levels between 215 and 209 metres (705 and 686 ft) below sea level.[4] It is approximately 53 km (33 mi) in circumference, about 21 km (13 mi) long, and 13 km (8.1 mi) wide. Its area is 166.7 km2 (64.4 sq mi) at its fullest, and its maximum depth is approximately 43 metres (141 ft).[5] The lake is fed partly by underground springs, but its main source is the Jordan River, which flows through it from north to south and exits the lake at the Degania Dam.
"Lake Galilee" redirects here. For the salt lake in Queensland, Australia, see Lake Galilee (Queensland).Sea of Galilee
Upper Jordan River and local runoff[1]
Lower Jordan River, evaporation
2,730 km2 (1,050 sq mi)[2]
21 km (13 mi)
13 km (8.1 mi)
166 km2 (64 sq mi)
25.6 m (84 ft) (varying)
43 m (141 ft) (varying)
4 km3 (0.96 cu mi)
5 years
53 km (33 mi)
−214.66 m (704.3 ft) (varying)
Tiberias (Israel)
Names
The lake has been called by different names throughout its history, usually depending on the dominant settlement on its shores. With the changing fate of the towns, the lake's name also changed.
The modern Hebrew name Kineret comes from the Hebrew Bible, where it appears as the "sea of Kineret" in Numbers 34:11 and Joshua 13:27, and spelled כנרות "Kinerot" in Hebrew in Joshua 11:2. This name was also found in the scripts of Ugarit, in the Aqhat Epic. As the name of a city, Kinneret was listed among the "fenced cities" in Joshua 19:35. A persistent, though likely erroneous, popular etymology presumes that the name Kinneret may originate from the Hebrew word kinnor ("harp" or "lyre"), because of the shape of the lake.[10] The scholarly consensus, however, is that the origin of the name is derived from the important Bronze and Iron Age city of Kinneret, excavated at Tell el-'Oreimeh.[11] The city of Kinneret may have been named after the body of water rather than vice versa, and there is no evidence for the origin of the town's name.[12]
All Old and New Testament writers use the term "sea" (Hebrew יָם yam, Greek 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" according to Easton (1897).[13] For a different etymology, see Galilee.
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.[14] Ginosar is yet another name derived from "Kinneret".[11]
The word Galilee comes from the Hebrew Haggalil (הַגָלִיל), which literally means "The District", a compressed form of Gelil Haggoyim "The District of Nations" (Isaiah 8:23). Toward the end of the first century CE, the Sea of Galilee became widely known as the Sea of Tiberias after the city of Tiberias founded on its western shore in honour of the second Roman emperor, Tiberius. In the New Testament, the term "sea of Galilee" (Greek: 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, and in the gospel of John 6:1 as "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.[15] Sea of Tiberias is also the name mentioned in Roman texts and in the Jerusalem Talmud, and it was adopted into Arabic as (بحيرة طبريا), "Lake Tiberias".
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 used by the medieval Persian and Arab scholars Al-Baladhuri, Al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir.[16]
History
Prehistory
In 1989, remains of a hunter-gatherer site were found under the water at the southern end. Remains of mud huts were found in Ohalo. Nahal Ein Gev, located about 3 km (1.9 mi) east of the lake, contains a village from the late Natufian period. The site is considered one of the first permanent human settlements in the world from a time predating the Neolithic Revolution.[17]
Hellenistic and Roman periods
The Sea of Galilee lies on the ancient Via Maris, which linked Egypt with the northern empires. The Greeks, Hasmoneans, and Romans founded flourishing towns and settlements on the lake including Hippos and Tiberias. Contemporary Roman–Jewish historian Flavius Josephus was so impressed by the area that he wrote, "One may call this place the ambition of Nature"; he also reported a thriving fishing industry at this time, with 230 boats regularly working in the lake. Archaeologists discovered one such boat, nicknamed the Jesus Boat, in 1986.[18]
Geology
The lake lies in the center of the Jordan Valley, in the northern part of the Syrian-African rift. Several directions of tectonic movements characterize the region, mirroring the patterns typical of the entire Syrian-African rift: north–south movements, which started about 20 million years ago; stretching movements in the east–west direction, which began later, at the beginning of the Pleistocene (about 1.8 million years ago), and caused the subsidence of the lake area.
As a result of horizontal shifts in the north–south direction and subsidence of the area, a lake was formed, with an asymmetrical bottom - steeper in the east and a gentler in the west. In the southern part of the Sea of Galileean underwater cliff is present, covered by the lake's sediments. The cliff is distinct in the western part and less so in the east due to horizontal north–south movements.[29]
The Sea of Galilee in its current form was preceded by Lake Lisan, which extended from the northern Sea of Galilee to Hatzeva in the south, more than 200 km (120 mi) from the present southernmost point of the lake. Lake Lisan was preceded by Lake Ovadia, a much smaller sweet waters lake. Lake Kinneret was formed in its current form less than 20,000 years ago, as a result of tectonic subsidence and the shrinking up of Lake Lisan.[30]
The water level is monitored and regulated. There are three levels at which the alarm is rung:
Daily monitoring of the Sea of Galilee's water level began in 1969, and the lowest level recorded since then was November 2001, which today constitutes the "black line" of 214.87 meters below sea level (although it is believed the water level had fallen lower than the current black line, during droughts earlier in the 20th century). The Israeli government monitors water levels and publishes the results daily.[35] Increasing water demand in Israel, Lebanon and Jordan, as well as dry winters, have resulted in stress on the lake and a decreasing water line to dangerously low levels at times. The Sea of Galilee is at risk of becoming irreversibly salinized by the salt water springs under the lake, which are held in check by the weight of the freshwater on top of them.[36]
After five years of drought up to 2018, the Sea of Galilee was expected to drop near the black line.[37] In February 2018, the city of Tiberias requested a desalination plant to treat the water coming from the Sea of Galilee and demanded a new water source for the city.[38] March 2018 was the lowest point in water income to the lake since 1927.[39] In September 2018 the Israeli energy and water office announced a project to pour desalinated water from the Mediterranean Sea into the Sea of Galilee using a tunnel. The tunnel is expected to be the largest of its kind in Israel and will transfer half of the Mediterranean desalted water and will move 300 to 500 million cubic meters of water per year.[40] The plan is said to cost five billion shekels.[41]
Since the beginning of the 2018–19 rainy season, the Sea of Galilee has risen considerably. From being near the ecologically dangerous black line of −214.4 m, the level has risen by April 2020 to just 16 cm (6.3 in) below the upper red line, a result of strong rains and a radical decrease in pumping.[42] During the entire 2018–19 rainy season the water level rose by a historical record of 3.47 meters (11.4 ft), while the 2019–20 winter brought a 2.82 meters (9 ft 3 in) rise.[42] The Water Authority dug a new canal in order to let 5 billion liters (1.1×109 imp gal; 1.3×109 U.S. gal) of water flow from the lake directly into the Jordan River, bypassing the existing dams system for technical and financial reasons.[42]