Located mid-way between Capernaum and Tabgha, major centers of Jesus’s ministry, this cove has been noted for its acoustical properties.

Mark 4 records a time when Jesus was teaching a large crowd and pushed out in a boat in order to speak to them. Some suggest this cove is an ideal location for teaching the crowds.

An acoustical study of the cove was done by B. Cobbey Crisler and is published as “The Acoustics and Crowd Capacity of Natural Theaters in Palestine” in Biblical Archaeologist (Dec 1976: pp. 128–41). He concludes that 5,000–7,000 people could fit in the area below the road. More than double that could fit in the entire area of the hillside.

This audio file was recorded from approximately the position from which this photograph was taken. The speaker is standing on the shoreline (near the tree). This sound file has not been edited in any way and will give you some idea of how the sound carries.

From this vantage point, a person on the shoreline is a mere speck. I’ve done this experiment more than a dozen times and every time the idea that sound will carry from the water’s edge to the top of the slope is greeted with skepticism. How can you hear him when you can hardly see him?

Does it work? Can a person stand at the top of the hill and hear a speaker at water’s edge?  On a non-windy day when there are not cars passing by on the road, the answer is yes. Again and again, groups scattered across the hillside have heard the speaker’s voice, distinctly and without trouble in understanding each word. Furthermore, conversations between distant people are quite possible in this cove.