The Mount of Beatitudes
Matthew says only that Jesus “went up on the mountain” and sat down to teach (Matthew 5:1). No Gospel names the spot, but tradition has long pointed to the gentle slopes rising above the lake’s northwest shore between Capernaum and Tabgha – close to Jesus’ home base, open to the water, and shaped like a natural amphitheater. The terrain itself fits the scene: a crowd spread across the grass of a hillside, a teacher’s voice carrying downhill, the lake glittering behind.
Whatever the exact acreage, what was said here is the most famous sermon ever preached: the Beatitudes, salt and light, the fulfillment of the Law, the Lord’s Prayer, the lilies of the field, the house on the rock (Matthew 5-7). Luke records a closely related sermon “on a level place” (Luke 6:17) – perhaps a plateau on this same hillside.
The octagonal Church of the Beatitudes, one side for each Beatitude, has crowned the hill since 1938, and its gardens still look down the slope the crowds may once have covered.
In the New Testament
- The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)
- The Sermon on the Plain, its companion (Luke 6:17-49)
- Jesus regularly withdraws to the hills above the lake to pray (Mark 6:46)