Tiberias,

2 definitions found

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Tiberias
     a city, the modern Tubarich, on the western shore of the Sea of
     Tiberias. It is said to have been founded by Herod Antipas (A.D.
     16), on the site of the ruins of an older city called Rakkath,
     and to have been thus named by him after the Emperor Tiberius.
     It is mentioned only three times in the history of our Lord


     (John 6:1,23; 21:1).
     
       In 1837 about one-half of the inhabitants perished by an
     earthquake. The population of the city is now about six
     thousand, nearly the one-half being Jews. "We do not read that
     our Lord ever entered this city. The reason of this is probably
     to be found in the fact that it was practically a heathen city,
     though standing upon Jewish soil. Herod, its founder, had
     brought together the arts of Greece, the idolatry of Rome, and
     the gross lewdness of Asia. There were in it a theatre for the
     performance of comedies, a forum, a stadium, a palace roofed
     with gold in imitation of those in Italy, statues of the Roman
     gods, and busts of the deified emperors. He who was not sent but
     to the lost sheep of the house of Israel might well hold himself
     aloof from such scenes as these" (Manning's Those Holy Fields).
     
       After the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), Tiberias became one of
     the chief residences of the Jews in Palestine. It was for more
     than three hundred years their metropolis. From about A.D. 150
     the Sanhedrin settled here, and established rabbinical schools,
     which rose to great celebrity. Here the Jerusalem (or
     Palestinian) Talmud was compiled about the beginning of the
     fifth century. To this same rabbinical school also we are
     indebted for the Masora, a "body of traditions which transmitted
     the readings of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, and
     preserved, by means of the vowel-system, the pronunciation of
     the Hebrew." In its original form, and in all manuscripts, the
     Hebrew is written without vowels; hence, when it ceased to be a
     spoken language, the importance of knowing what vowels to insert
     between the consonants. This is supplied by the Masora, and
     hence these vowels are called the "Masoretic vowel-points."
     

From Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's) [hitchcock]:

  Tiberias, good vision; the navel