Etymology
The modern name, Kinneret, comes from the Old Testament or Hebrew Tanakh "sea of Chinnereth" in Numbers 34:11 and Joshua 13:27, and spelled "Chinneroth" in Joshua 11:2. This name was also found in the scripts of Ugarit, in the Aqhat Epic. Chinnereth was listed among the "fenced cities" in Joshua 19:35. The name Kinneret may originate from the Hebrew word kinnor ("harp" or "lyre")), in view of the shape of the lake.
In the New Testament the term "sea of Galilee" is used in the gospel of Matthew 4:18; 15:29, the gospel of Mark 1:16; 7:31, and in the gospel of John 6:1 as "the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias", the late first century name. Sea of Tiberias is also the name mentioned in Roman texts and in the Jerusalem Talmud, and was adopted into Arabic as Buhairet Tabariyya (بحيرة طبريا).
All Bible writers use the term "sea" (Hebrew yam or Greek thalassa) except the gospel of Luke, written to Theophilus of Macedonia, where it is called "the lake of Genneseret" in Luke 5:1, from the Greek λίμνην Γεννησαρέτ, (limnen Genneseret), the "Grecized form of Chinnereth" according to Easton, who says Genneseret means "a garden of riches". The Babylonian Talmud, as well as Flavius Josephus mention the sea by the name "Sea of Ginnosar" after the small fertile plain of Gennesereth that lies on its western side.
Read more about this topic: Sea Of Galilee
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