One or more of the Sabbatical Year Earthquakes of 749 CE is said to have caused catastrophic destruction in Tiberias, including the collapse of major religious buildings and the ruin of important installations associated with the city’s thermal springs. According to Michael the Syrian, the earthquake destroyed the city almost entirely, sparing only the house of a man named ‘Isa. He reports that thirty synagogues collapsed and that the famous thermal baths— described as a remarkable complex of buildings constructed over a healing spring—were also destroyed. The account describes elaborate facilities built above the spring, including structures designed to accommodate the sick who came to drink its purgative waters.

A closely parallel description appears in Chronicon Ad Annum 1234, which likewise states that the earthquake destroyed the city of Tiberias except for the residence of a man named ‘Isa Galba. This chronicle also reports the collapse of thirty Jewish synagogues and the destruction of the baths complex, emphasizing that the healing spring and the associated buildings used by visitors seeking cures were completely ruined.

Other historical traditions emphasize the scale of casualties associated with the disaster. Writing in Arabic, Agapius of Manbij states that many people perished in the earthquake, especially in Tiberias, where he claims that more than 100,000 people died. Although this figure is clearly exaggerated, it reflects a tradition that viewed the event as an exceptionally destructive catastrophe in the region.

The memory of the disaster also appears in Hebrew literary tradition. The text known as Ra'ash Shevi'it (רעש שביעית) evokes the catastrophe in poetic language, describing fear, dark chaos, and the destruction that struck the city of Tiberias, where both the old and the young were said to have perished in the disaster.