The Nazareth Village reconstruction team faced the challenge of recreating an ancient village similar to First Century Nazareth on one of the last surviving Nazarene farmlands, less than 500 yards from the original village.
Our reconstruction model is based on the scholarly consensus that Nazareth was essentially a small Jewish village of approx 500-1000 inhabitants, farming grapes and olives in the First Century. This concept formed the basis of a rating system. The most relevant literary and archaeological sources were evaluated, weighing criteria such as historical, geographical and regional context to Nazareth, reliability and interpretability of source material, etc.
Much groundwork for the project was done by Dr. Stephen J. Pfann, of the Center for the Study of Early Christianity. Dr. Pfann and his staff surveyed a wide variety of literary sources concerning life in first-century Galilee, providing a basis for intense discussion between project specialists Ross Voss (Archaeologist), Mark Goodman (Architectural Reconstructionist) and Riyad Haddad (Architect). A program of literary and field surveys was directed towards answering a specific set of research questions.
