Of the situation of Tiberias.

III. Those things which we learn from the Talmudists concerning the situation of this place cannot be produced, until we have first observed certain neighbouring places to Tiberias; from the situation of which, it will be more easy to judge of the situation of this.

In the mean time, from these things, and what was said before, we assert thus much: That you must suppose Tiberias seated either at the very flowing-in of Jordan into the lake of Gennesaret,--namely, on the north side of the lake, where the maps place Capernaum [illy]; or at the flowing out of Jordan out of that lake, namely, on the south side of the lake. But you cannot place it where Jordan flows into it, because Josephus saith, Tiberias is not distant from Scythopolis above a hundred and twenty furlongs,--that is, fifteen miles; but now the lake of Gennesaret itself was a hundred furlongs in length, and Scythopolis was the utmost limits of Galilee southward, as we shewed before.

Therefore we are not afraid to conclude that Tiberias was seated where Jordan flows out of the lake of Gennesar, namely, at the south shore of the lake; where Jordan receives itself again within its own channel. This will appear by those things that follow.

We doubt, therefore, of the right pointing of Pliny. Certainly we are not satisfied about it; and others will be less satisfied about our alteration of it. But let me, with their good leave, propose this reading, "On the east Julias, and Hippo on the south. Tarichea, by which name some call the lake, on the west. Tiberias, wholesome for its warm waters." Which reading is not different from Pliny's style, and agrees well with the Jewish writers: but we submit our judgment to the learned.