Mount of Beatitudes

The Mount of Beatitudes is the traditional name for the hillside where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7), which opens with the eight Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3–12). Matthew describes Jesus ascending a mountain and sitting to teach (Matt. 5:1), while Luke's parallel account places the teaching on a level place (Luke 6:17), which may indicate a plateau on the hillside. The precise location has not been identified with certainty. Christian tradition since at least the fourth century has associated it with the hill now known as Karn Hattin (the Horns of Hattin), southwest of the Sea of Galilee. A rival tradition places it on a gentle hill called the Mount of Beatitudes (Har Karkom) near Capernaum and Tabgha on the northwest shore of the lake, where a Franciscan church commemorates the site. The Sermon on the Mount delivered there — covering ethics, prayer, righteousness, and kingdom living — constitutes the fullest body of Jesus' ethical teaching in the Gospels.