RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Judea
an old sanctuary. Farther to the east are the remains of a large church, possibly those of the basilica built by Constantine. Traces of recollection of the tree in this locality were found as late as 1856. Since the thirteenth century there have been traces of a tradition of an Abraham's oak to the south, on a site possessed by the Russians. The differences in the traditions and locations assigned may be due to the fact that a grove or groves existed in the earlier times, which dwindled to a single tree perhaps as early as the time of the Septuagint.
The third group of cities of the hill country includes ten cities (Septuagint, nine), located east of the second and north of the first group. Maon, the modern Ma'in, appears as the home of the Calebite Nabal (I Sam. xxv. 2), and on the site
6. Other are remams 0f walls, caves, and cis-
Josh!Sx°v. terns- The "wilderness of Maon" (I Sam. xxiii. 24) was probably the region to the southeast. Carmel, a possession of Nabal, is the modern al-Karmal, about seven miles south of Hebron. Ziph (I Chron. ii. 42; I Sam. xxiii. 19) corresponds with the present Tell Zif southeast of Hebron, while Josh. xv. 24 refers to another place in the Negeb. Juttah (Josh. xxi. 16) retains its name and lies south of Hebron, a large village whose inhabitants possess great herds of sheep. Jezreel is treated in a special article. Of the Gibea of this region no traces remain, though the Onomasticon names it. The fourth group (Josh, xv. 58-59) includes six cities situated north of Hebron. Halhul retains its old name, an important village five and a half miles distant from Hebron. Beth-zur is regarded (I Chron. ii. 45) as Calebite, and in Neh. iii. 16 as a double district. It was an important fortress in the Maccabean wars, lying a little west of the road to Jerusalem, near a good spring where ruins attest the situation. Gedor, the modern Jedur, north of Beth-zur, is mentioned in
I Chron. xii. 7 and after the exile was inhabited by Calebites. Beth-anoth (probably meaning " sanctuary of the goddess Anath ") is possibly the modern Bat Ainun, southeast of Halhul, where ruins still exist. The other places are unidentified. The fifth group is known only through the text of the Septuagint, and includes eleven places of which eight can be placed. Tekoa appears in Amos i. 1;
II Sam. xiv. 2 sqq., xxiii. 26, and was often mentioned in the regal and post-exilic periods. The present Tekua, nearly ten miles south of Jerusalem, contains ruins of a Christian church and cisterns and tombs. Ephrathah is in the Greek text equated with Bethlehem (cf. Gen. xxxv. 19), though there is doubt whether Ephrathah was not the name of a district. Peor, in the neighborhood of Bethlehem, corresponds with the present Faghur. Etam appears in I Chron. iv. 3 and II Chron. xi. 6, and corresponds with the modern 'Ain Atan. Kulon may be the present Kaluniyeh, northwest of Jerusalem, on the road to Jaffa. Sores may be the present Saris, west of Jerusalem, south of the same road. Karem is possibly 'Ain Karim, four and a half miles west of Jerusalem. Bether is regarded as the true name for the Gibeon of Neh. vii. 25, the modern Bittir, six miles southwest of Jerusalem. The sixth
group (Josh. xv. 60) includes only two cities, Kirjath-baal (Kirjath-jearim) and Rabbah, clearly west of Jerusalem. The name of the first varies in diferent passages. It was one of the cities of the Gibeonites, the ark remained there a long time, it was the home of the prophet Uriah, and after the exile was reckoned among the possessions of the Jewish community. While its direction from various places is in different passages given with apparent exactness upon the boundary between Judah and Benjamin, and according to the Onomasticon some nine or ten Roman miles from Jerusalem along the old road to Diospolis (Lydda), the exact location is still disputed. The last portion of the Judaic territory (Josh. xv. 61-62) takes in "the wilderness," i.e., the eastern slope of the hills toward the Dead Sea. The Hebrew text mentions six cities, the Septuagint seven with very different names. Two of these are identified. The City of Salt lay probably in the Valley of Salt (II Sam. viii. 13), therefore to the south corresponding to Tell al-Milh, about fifteen miles east of Beersheba. En-gedi lay on the Dead Sea (Ezek. xlvii. 10), and, according to the Onomasticon, was a large village. The name corresponds with that of the present Ain Jidi on a terrace above the sea, near which are the remains of an old wall. It is identified with Hazazon-tamar in II Chron. xx. 2, and was one of the places of refuge of David (I Sam. xxiv. 1).
This list of places belonging to Judah includes ninety-four " cities," apart from those in the Negeb, but can not be supposed to be exhaustive. Thus the Adoraim of II Chron. xi. 9 does not appear, though it receives frequent mention in the later records. It is the modern Dura, 7. Places aD0Ut six miles southwest of Hebron. N Later" Another is the Cozeba of I Chron. iv. Records ^" Later in the history other cities appear, like the Herodia of Herod the Great, sixty stadia south of Jerusalem, with its splendid buildings and its Herodium or tower. Immediately above the coast of the Dead Sea and not quite ten miles south of En-gedi was the fortress Masada, of great importance in Herodian times and in the first century, the site of which is placed at al-Sabba, the ruins of which indicate partly Herodian origins and partly Roman. The northern part of the wilderness of Judea was from the fourth till the seventh century inhabited by thousands of recluses and monks, but to-day has only the single monastery of Mar Saba (founded by Sabas c. 478 a.d.), where are some fifty Greek monks. The names of fifty or sixty establishments for recluses or ascetics have been preserved which were located between the Dead Sea and the watershed to the west. On the west slope of the hill country the city of Eleutheropolis, very often mentioned in the Onomasticon, becomes known under its earlier name of Bethgubrin, known still as Bet-Jibrin. This city became somewhat celebrated under Christian rule, and the names of many of its bishops are on record. Its position was at the crossing of several roads between Gaza and Jerusalem, west of Hebron, near the ancient Marasha. After the Arabian conquest it lost its significance, though it is mentioned several times afterward.
Judea