It appears that little has been done. Disintegration and destruction carried out over many years by fighting between local Christian and Muslim residents.
Bethlehem plays a significant role in the Old Testament, the history of Israel, and before they entered Egypt and slavery, and after the Exodus. She appears in the Old Testament as the Euphrates, where Rachel's beloved matriarch of the Jewish people, beloved wife of Jacob, died during childbirth, Rachel's Tomb, a place of pilgrimage for Jews and Muslims.
In the Bible it is called "Bethlehem of Judah" belonging to the tribe of Judah , to distinguish it from other Bethlehem, who was in the North in Zebulon. It is believed that there are at least years before Christ was born. Bethlehem figures in the history of the Bible, both before the Israelites entered Egypt and slavery, and after the Exodus, and their return. The events of The Book of Ruth will be held in the region of Bethlehem. Ruth and Boaz were ancestors of King David, who himself was born It was depicted as an important staging and rest stop for travelers from Syria and Palestine going to Egypt.
The letters also signify that it was a border city of mid-Palestine and an outpost looking out towards the desert. The Philistines had a garrison stationed in Bethlehem because it was a strong strategic point. They entered the land of the Canaanites, mingled with its people and settled in the southern coasts between Jaffa and Gaza.
The Philistines had achieved military supremacy over the greater part of the country around BC, and called it Palestine. The narrative of the Old Testament mentions Bethlehem in the first book of the Bible when Jacob, son of Abraham , and his family were journeying to the city of Hebron passing by Bethlehem Ephrata Genesis There, his wife Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin, and he buried her by the side of the Bethlehem Road where her tomb has been a shrine to this day: "And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.
The name of Bethlehem Ephrata "the fruitful" itself suggests a pastoral and agricultural life. The tale of Ruth, the Moabite, and Boaz suggests an atmosphere of idyllic rusticity that is still obvious today Ruth Ruth's grandson was King David of whose lineage Christ was born. A decree of Caesar Augustus, ordering the taking of a census in all the provinces of the Roman Empire, brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Micah, spoken years before: "And thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler of his people" Mikha Emperor Hadrian in AD profaned the sanctity of the Grotto of the Nativity and turned it into a pagan shrine.
From Hadrian's time until the reign of Constantine, the population worshipped Adonis in the cave where the infant Jesus was born. Palestine, consequently, was officially pagan as was the whole Roman empire until when Constantine proclaimed Christianity as the religion of the state.
In the year the Bishop of Jerusalem, St. Maccarius, took the opportunity of acquainting the Emperor Constantine with the neglected condition of the Holy Places in his diocese. Thus, the Emperor ordered the construction, at public expense, of monumental churches to commemorate the three principal events of Jesus' life: Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection.
One of these was a church enshrining the scene of the Nativity. Christian traditions were so clear and deeply rooted that there was no problem in locating the correct place. Among the trees, not far from the village, was a cave which the local people and their parents had known for generations to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
The cave was made the center of a scheme for the church and work began the following year AD. Toward the end of the 4th century, Bethlehem became a very important center of monastic life. In AD St. Jerome arrived from Rome with a group of pilgrims. He came to Bethlehem to continue his work in the atmosphere of monastic life. He devoted himself to the tremendous task with which Pope St.
Damasus had entrusted him, namely to review all old Latin translations of the Bible and produce a new version, the Vulgate, based on original Hebrew and Greek texts. Two Roman ladies of noble origin, St. Paula and her daughter Eustochium moved to Bethlehem in to lead an ascetic life along with St. They founded the earliest monastic community in Bethlehem which has lasted, with some interruption, to this day.
Paula used her riches to build a hospice for pilgrims and two monasteries, one for St. Jerome and his followers, and the other for herself and the nuns. When the Roman empire was divided in into two empires, eastern and western, Palestine was attached to Byzantium, the eastern part. In the following years the life of the Latin-speaking communities of Bethlehem faded from view, eclipsed by the growth and more spectacular austerities of an eastern monasticism.
As a result, the town of Bethlehem prospered and its population increased with the spread of churches, monasteries, and convents in Bethlehem itself, and the surrounding areas.
Under his reign Palestine witnessed a time of prosperity and expansion for its churches and for monasticism. Afterwards, in , the Samaritans rebelled against the Byzantine state and overran the country, plundering and destroying as they went.
Churches and monasteries, towns and villages were all pillaged or gutted by fire. The walls of Bethlehem and its main church were destroyed. The revolt was soon quelled. At the same time the church was rebuilt in a grand style.
The town wall and the defenses of the monasteries were repaired. A few years later the country was invaded by the Persians. According to an oral tradition, they did not cause any damage to the Church of the Nativity because they saw the pictures of the three Magi dressed as Persians, carrying gifts to Christ at his birth. Outside and above the roof of the narthex, the gable end overlooking the atrium was decorated with a mosaic scene of the birth of Christ with his mother holding the Child to her breast.
The relations between 'Umar and the ecclesiastical authorities were friendly and a written agreement was granted to the Patriarch Sofronious. The tolerant policy was maintained by Umar's successors till In that year a fanatic Caliph, al-Hakim, the one who had destroyed the Holy Sepulcher, declared a real persecution against Christians.
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