EWTN News reports that Steven Notley, academic director of the El Araj Excavation Project, presented findings at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., on May 5, 2026, claiming that ongoing excavations at El Araj in Israel have “essentially confirmed” the site as the biblical Bethsaida — the hometown of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip. The article highlights the discovery of a first-century house beneath the apse of a Byzantine-era basilica, which Notley says matches the eighth-century account of Bishop Willibald of Eichstätt, who described a church built over the home of Sts. Peter and Andrew. A mosaic inscription reading “Chief of the apostles and keeper of the keys of heaven” was also uncovered. The article further notes that a wildfire inadvertently aided the dig by clearing underbrush and revealing previously hidden structures. Melissa Overmyer, a Catholic evangelist, testified that such experiences in the Holy Land turn “Bible stories into Bible realities.” The entire spectacle — from the language of “confirmation” to the evangelical fervor of lay volunteers — reveals a disturbing trend: the substitution of archaeological sensationalism for the supernatural certitude of faith.
The Illusion of “Confirmation”: Archaeology Cannot Prove Revelation
The central claim of this article — that excavations have “essentially confirmed” the identification of El Araj as Bethsaida — is a textbook example of the argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority) dressed in academic robes. Steven Notley, however credentialed as a scholar, is not an organ of the Church’s Magisterium. His “confirmation” rests on pottery shards, fishing weights, and the alignment of a first-century wall with a Byzantine apse. Yet nowhere does the article acknowledge the fundamental epistemological truth: divine revelation does not require archaeological validation. The Gospel of John (1:44) records that Peter, Andrew, and Philip were from Bethsaida. This is the Word of God, inspired and inerrable — not a hypothesis awaiting peer review.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), condemned the modernist proposition that “the natural sense of the Gospel texts cannot be reconciled with the teaching of Catholic theologians” (proposition 32) and that “non-Catholic exegetes have grasped the true sense of Holy Scripture better than Catholic exegetes” (proposition 19). The entire framework of this article — in which the authority of Scripture is implicitly subordinated to the findings of excavation teams — is a manifestation of the very rationalism the Church has condemned. Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, explicitly rejected the notion that “human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood” (proposition 3) and that “all the truths of religion proceed from the innate strength of human reason” (proposition 4). Yet here we have a Catholic media outlet presenting archaeological evidence as though it were necessary to shore up the credibility of the Gospel narrative.
The language is revealing. Overmyer declares that the dig turns “Bible stories into Bible realities.” This phrase is theologically catastrophic. The Gospels are not “stories” awaiting transformation into “realities” by the spade of an archaeologist. They are divinely inspired historical accounts, and their truth is guaranteed by the authority of God Who cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). To speak of “Bible stories” in this casual, demeaning manner is to echo the modernist error condemned by St. Pius X: “The prophecies and miracles set forth and recorded in the Sacred Scriptures are the fiction of poets” (Lamentabili, proposition 7, echoing the Syllabus). The very vocabulary betrays a naturalistic mentality that has seeped into Catholic discourse like poison into water.
The Cult of Tangible Proof: A Symptom of Modernist Apostasy
Why does the post-conciliar Catholic world exhibit such desperate enthusiasm for archaeological “confirmations”? The answer lies in the spiritual bankruptcy of modernism. When the faith is reduced to a human institution, when the supernatural certitude of divine revelation is replaced by the shifting sands of historical-critical method, the faithful are left grasping for something concrete — pottery, mosaics, walls — to reassure them that their religion is “real.” This is not faith; it is credulity masquerading as devotion.
The true Catholic position was articulated with crystalline clarity by Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus (1893): the Scriptures are “written wholly and entirely, all in every part, under the dictation of the Holy Ghost” and “can contain no error whatsoever.” The Church has never needed archaeology to vindicate the Gospel. The martyrs did not die for “Bible stories” awaiting confirmation; they died for the living Christ, Whose words are truth itself (John 17:17). The enthusiasm for El Araj is not a sign of vibrant faith but of a faith so weakened that it must lean on crumbles of first-century masonry.
Moreover, the article’s treatment of the Byzantine basilica and its mosaic inscription — “Chief of the apostles and keeper of the keys of heaven” — is presented as though this archaeological find somehow reinforces the doctrine of papal primacy. But the doctrine of Peter’s primacy does not rest on a mosaic floor. It rests on the words of Christ Himself: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church” (Matt. 16:18). To imply, even subtly, that a physical artifact strengthens this doctrine is to commit the modernist error of subjecting divine revelation to historical criticism — precisely what St. Pius X condemned in Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), where he exposed the modernist tendency to treat dogma as a product of “Christian consciousness” evolving over time rather than as immutable divine truth.
The Volunteer Dig: Lay Enthusiastism Replaces Supernatural Life
The article actively recruits lay volunteers for the excavation, noting that the project is “entirely privately funded.” This detail is not incidental. It reflects the broader post-conciliar pattern in which lay activism replaces the supernatural life of grace. The Second Vatican Council’s Apostolicam Actuositatem (1965) unleashed a flood of lay “participation” that has, in practice, secularized the Church’s mission. Instead of calling the faithful to prayer, penance, sacramental life, and the pursuit of holiness, the post-conciliar apparatus invites them to dig in the dirt.
This is not to say that Catholic archaeology is inherently illegitimate. The Church has a noble tradition of archaeological scholarship, from the excavations of the Roman catacombs under Benedict XIV to the work of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. But there is a vast difference between disciplined scholarly work conducted under the authority of the Magisterium and the kind of popularized, media-driven spectacle described in this article. The latter serves not the faith but the cult of experience — the modernist heresy that religious truth is found in subjective experience rather than in the objective deposit of faith.
Melissa Overmyer’s testimony is a case study in this error. She does not speak of grace received in the sacraments, of conversion through prayer, of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. She speaks of the experience of being in the Holy Land, of touching the physical remains of antiquity. This is religiosity without religion, sentiment without substance. It is the “cult of man” condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium — the substitution of human experience for divine truth.
The Primacy of the Supernatural: What the Article Dares Not Say
What is conspicuously absent from this article? Any mention of the supernatural dimension of the events recorded at Bethsaida. Jesus performed miracles there — healings, the feeding of the five thousand (Luke 9:10-17), the restoration of sight to a blind man (Mark 8:22-26). These are not “Bible stories” awaiting archaeological confirmation; they are divine acts performed by the Incarnate Word, attested by inspired Scripture, and believed by faith. The article’s silence on these miracles is deafening. It speaks of pottery and mosaics but not of the Creator of the universe walking on Galilean soil.
This omission is not accidental. It is symptomatic of the naturalism that pervades post-conciliar Catholicism. Pope Pius IX condemned the proposition that “all action of God upon man and the world is to be denied” (Syllabus, proposition 2). St. Pius X condemned the reduction of revelation to “man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Lamentabili, proposition 20). The article’s exclusive focus on the material — walls, pottery, mosaics — at the expense of the miraculous is a practical application of these condemned errors. It is Catholicism drained of the supernatural, reduced to a heritage tourism enterprise.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), declared that Christ’s kingdom “is primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters” and that the reign of Christ extends over “all men” — not merely over first-century pottery. The Church’s mission is not to excavate ancient towns but to “teach, govern, and lead all to eternal happiness” (Quas Primas). When Catholic media outlets devote their energies to archaeological publicity rather than to the proclamation of Christ the King’s social reign, they betray the very mission entrusted to them by the Divine Founder.
Conclusion: Faith Needs No Spade
The El Araj excavation may or may not be the site of Bethsaida. That is a question for legitimate scholarship to resolve, and it is not the purpose of this critique to adjudicate the archaeological evidence. What is objectionable is the theological framework within which this evidence is presented: a framework in which divine revelation is implicitly subordinated to material proof, in which “Bible stories” require archaeological transformation into “realities,” in which lay Catholics are recruited for dirt-digging rather than for the pursuit of sanctity.
The true Catholic response to the Gospel is not excavation but faith — the supernatural virtue by which we believe, on the authority of God revealing, all that He has revealed and proposes to us through His Church (Council of Vatican I, Dei Filius, cap. 3). The apostles did not need a first-century wall to confirm their calling; they left their nets and followed Christ (Matt. 4:18-22). The Church did not need Byzantine mosaics to proclaim Peter’s primacy; she proclaimed it from the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14-41).
Let those who wish to dig, dig. But let no Catholic be deceived into thinking that a pottery shard can do what only grace can accomplish: transform a soul from darkness to light, from death to life, from unbelief to faith. Non novi nisi per fidem — we know only through faith. The spade of the archaeologist is no substitute for the Cross of Christ.
Source:
Bethsaida excavation turning ‘Bible stories into Bible realities’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 07.05.2026