Nazareth

The Galilean hill village where the angel Gabriel announces the birth of Jesus to Mary (Luke 1:26-38), where Joseph and Mary make their home, and where Jesus grows up. A small settlement of a few hundred in the first century, set among limestone ridges and terraced olive groves about twenty-five kilometers west of the Sea of Galilee.

Nazareth was unremarkable enough in its own day that Nathaniel could ask, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46). It was the home base of the holy family until Jesus left to begin his public ministry — for the rest of the Gospels, he is "Jesus of Nazareth."