General background

Abstract

In the course of history, the lake has received many names. ‘Kinneret’ seems to be the most ancient and is frequently found in the Old Testament (Deut 3:17, Joshua 11:2, 12:3, 13:27). The ancient town Kinnarot is also mentioned (Joshua 19:35, I Kings 15:20). In the period of the Talmud (Third and Fourth Centuries A.D.), the lake is designated according to the names of the ‘new’ towns in the vicinity of the lake, that is, towns founded during the period of the Second Temple: Sea of Tiberias (founded in 18 A.D.), Sea of Ginosar, and Waters of Ginosar. In the New Testament, the lake is called Sea of Genesareth, which is simply one alteration of Ginosar, and Sea of Galilee. Nun (1977) reports that the Talmudists, investigating the origin of the name Kinneret, related it to the fruit of the Ziziphus, called in Hebrew ‘kinar’. According to them, the fruit of the town Kinneret was as sweet as the kinar. However, another Hebrew word, ‘kinor’ (meaning violin), was thought by later Talmudists to be the origin of the name Kinneret. Their version was then that ‘the fruit of Kinneret was as sweet as the voice of the violin’. The discovery, in 1928, of the ancient Canaanite town of Ugarit on the northern shore of Syria brought a new and unexpected solution to the problem of the origin of the name Kinneret. Letters dating back to 1600 B.C. tell the story of a righteous man who prayed to the gods to have a son. The gods promised him a son who would live forever if no evil could be found in him, but he sinned and was killed.