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ABSTRACT
This article investigates the early name of Nebi Samwil, a prominent site located northwest of Jerusalem. It first presents the results of the archaeological excavations conducted at the site. Then, it examines the late sources, which indicate that from the sixth century CE onward, the place was identified as Ramathaim/Arimathea, the birth and burial place of Samuel. The article suggests that Nebi Samwil was called Ramah since its foundation (the mid-seventh century BCE) and is mentioned once in the list of Benjaminite villages (Neh 11:33). Due to its prominent place and its location in an area inhabited for thousands years by Semites, its ancient name was preserved, although the site was deserted for a long time. After Arcadius transferred Samuel's bones from Ramathaim (Rentis) to Thrace, the tradition of Samuel's grave was transferred to Ramah (Nebi Samwil), and since then the place was considered Samuel's birthplace.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank my colleague and friend Prof. Elhanan Reiner of the Dept. of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University for sharing with me his vast knowledge of travelers and travels in the Middle Ages and, in particular, for clarifying the methodological problems involved with the study of the Jewish travelers’ accounts of Samuel's grave in this period. My interest in the subject arose many years ago, following an exchange with Reiner on the contribution of the Jewish sources to the transfer of the tradition of Samuel's grave from Rentis to Nebi Samwil. In the course of our discussion, he raised the possibility that Nebi Samwil was called Ramah even before the Christians’ tradition of Samuel's grave was attached to the site, which is the thesis I try to endorse in this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Nadav Na'aman is an emeritus Professor of Jewish History and Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. He finished his PhD in 1975, spent research years at Oxford, Cambridge (UK), Harvard, Philadelphia and Göttingen. In 2005-2009 he was incumbent of the Kaplan Chair for the History of Egypt and Israel in Ancient Time. In 2007 he retired from the university. He has published six books (as author) as well as over 340 articles. In 2004 he won the Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi prize for the history of Eretz-Israel, for the book ‘the Past that Shapes the Present’. In 2006 he won the Landau prize in the field of biblical and Jewish history in the biblical period. In 2012 he was elected member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Notes
1 In the early stages of research, scholars suggested some other identifications for Beeroth; see Briend Citation1992, 13–14, with earlier literature.
2 Lipschits supervised the MA Thesis of Weinberger-Stern and was able to present the number of jar handles discovered at Kh. el-Burj. The Iron Age jar handles discovered at Nebi Samwil have not yet been published and are shown only in a single photograph (Magen Citation2008a, 41). Hence, the number of the lmlk and rosette jar handles discovered there might actually be larger.
3 Victor Guérin (Citation1868, 362–384) posited that Nebi Samwil was Ramathaim, the home town of Samuel (1 Sam 1:1), and that since then the site was called by this name. Ramathaim, however, was located in Mount Ephraim, far to the north of Nebi Samwil.
4 Exceptions are Magen and Dadon Citation2003, 124–126; Magen Citation2008a, 38–43.
5 For discussion of the episode, see Savignac and Abel (Citation1912, 267–268; Lohmann Citation1918, 156; Vincent Citation1922, 401–402; Jeremias Citation1958, 44–45.
6 Bien que Jérome ne dise rien du lieu où les cendres de Samuel avaient reposé jusqu'à cette translation, il est assez plausible de croire que le fait de retrouver la prétendue dépouille du prophète ait commencé à porter un rude coup à la tradition de Rentis et à accréditer l'identification de Râmâ avec la hauteur de Néby Samouîl.
7 For the Medieval sources, see Wilkinson et al. Citation1988; Pringle Citation2012.
8 For the Jewish sources, see Prawer Citation1988, 128–168.
9 For the account of Mujir ad-Din, see Tal Citation2014, 372.
10 For the extensive settlement process near Jerusalem in the seventh century BCE, see Gadot Citation2015; Finkelstein and Gadot Citation2015; Ein Mor and Ron Citation2016; Gadot and Bocher Citation2018.
11 Magen and Dadon (Citation2003, 124–125) and Magen (Citation2008a, 38–39) are the exception.
12 Finkelstein (Citation2008) isolated the list of settlements and their inhabitants from the rest of the list and dated it to the Hasmonean period. However, the inhabitants of the settlements are an integral part of a whole. Moreover, the numbers of the Priests, Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, as well as the overall number of settlements in the province of Yehud, do not fit his dating of the list to the late Hellenistic (Hasmonean) period. Moreover, the disqualification of the family of Hakkoz (Ezra 2:61; Neh 7:63) from the priesthood does not fit this late date (see Lipschits Citation2005, 159 n. 90). Finally, if the list of priests was indeed composed in the Hasmonean period, where is the family of priest from Modi‘in who governed the state of Judea at that time, and where is Modi‘in in the list of settlements? Evidently, the lists in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 fit the Persian period, probably dating to the fifth century BCE, and are alien to the reality of the Hasmonean period.
13 For identification of the Benjaminite towns, see Myers Citation1965, 192; Aharoni Citation1967, 356; Blenkinsopp Citation1989, 331–332; Fulton Citation2015, 185–186, with earlier literature
14 Nob should be located north of Jerusalem, but its exact site is debated among scholars. For recent discussions and further literature, see Zwickel Citation1992, 91–93; Barkay et al. Citation2002, 65–66; Zissu Citation2012, 63–68.
15 For the location of Ananiah, see McGarry Citation1992, with earlier literature.
16 Note the account of 2 Sam 4:3, which relates that the inhabitants of Beeroth, Nebi Samwil's next neighbour, fled to Gittaim in the eastern Shephelah.
17 Guérin (Citation1868, 362–384) assumed continuity of name, but erroneously identified Nebi Samwil with Ramathaim, Samuel's birth place (see above, note 4).