Bethlehem Attractions

Biblical tradition

Bethlehem is first mentioned in the account of the death of Rachel. On her way from Bethel to the south she died in giving birth to her second son Benjamin and "was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem" (Genesis 35,19).

Centuries later the widowed Ruth returned from Moab with her mother-in-law Naomi to her home town of Bethlehem. She was gleaning in a field belonging to Boaz when he encountered her. He then married her and she bore his son Obed, "the father of Jesse, the father of David" (Ruth 4,17). In due time David, Jesse's youngest son, was anointed by Samuel in Bethlehem as king (1 Samuel 16,13). Jesus, of the lineage of David, was born in Bethlehem, to which his parents had traveled from their home in Nazareth for a census in the reign of the Emperor Augustus (Luke 2,1-7), and an angel announced his birth to the shepherds in the field (Luke 2,10).

History

After the repression of the Bar Kochba uprising, in 135, the Emperor Hadrian built a temple of Adonis over the Grotto of the Nativity, which is not referred to in the Gospels but is mentioned by Justin Martyr about 155. By around 200 it had become an established place of pilgrimage, and in 325 the Emperor Constantine built a church over the grotto in place of Hadrian's temple. The plan of this church was reconstructed by R. W. Hamilton on the basis of contemporary descriptions and an excavation in 1934. A colonnaded atrium (under the present forecourt of the church) led into a five-aisled basilica with mosaic pavements and marble facing on the walls, from which three steps at the east end led into an octagon at a higher level. This stood immediately above the grotto, into which pilgrims could look down through an opening in the floor. It is not known whether the entrance to the grotto was at the west or the east end. A few decades after the building of the church, in 386, St Jerome, a native of Dalmatia, came to Bethlehem, settled in a cave adjoining the Grotto of the Nativity and composed his Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, there. Thereafter hosts of pilgrims traveled to Bethlehem from many lands, and Jerome recorded that "men sang God's praises in many different tongues". The Constantinian church was destroyed in 529 by rebellious Samaritans. St Sabas, who lived in his nearby monastery, traveled to Constantinople and sought the Emperor Justinian's support for the building of a new church. The Emperor's architect retained the original plan of a five-aisled nave but replaced the octagon by a trefoil sanctuary and omitted the atrium.

Miraculously, this church has survived to the present day. The Persians, advancing in 614 against Byzantium, spared it because they took the figures of the three kings from the East clad in Oriental garb in a relief over the entrance for fellow-countrymen. In the time of the Crusaders, who captured Bethlehem before taking Jerusalem, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel had the church thoroughly restored (1161-69). Previously, at Christmas 1100, Baldwin I had been crowned here as the first king of Jerusalem. In the 13th century the Mamelukes also left the church unscathed, but thereafter it fell increasingly into disrepair. In 1479 the roof had to be shored up, and from 1516 onwards the Turks used the marble facing in their buildings on the Temple platform in Jerusalem. In 1670, however, the Greek Orthodox church, with the permission of the Ottoman authorities, began work on the restoration of the church.

During the 18th and 19th centuries there were frequently bitter and sometimes violent conflicts between Greek Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian believers, which were still further aggravated by the intervention of the protecting powers, Russia and France. The Sublime Porte sought to settle these conflicts by means of the law on property rights originally introduced in 1757 and renewed in 1852 - a law which has outlived the Ottoman Empire and remains in force to this day.

The town

Bethlehem still retains much of the atmosphere of an Oriental country township, with its Arab markets, colorful bazaar and countryfolk driving their sheep out to pasture.

Side by side with this, however, the military presence in this Israeli-occupied area is very obvious. On the roofs of many houses can be seen soldiers on guard with sub-machine-guns, and military vehicles drive through the streets at almost hourly intervals. In the afternoon, when Arab shopkeepers close their shops in protest against the occupation, Bethlehem often looks like a dead town. The only signs of life then are in Manger Square in the town center.