Another interesting bit of info came up at the Jesus Mysteries forum. The village of Bethany as descrbed in the NT and later Jewish works appears to be a work of fiction. There is no known reference to the city in historical documents. There were no known walled cities (as described in NT)in the vacinity of Jerusalem that could have been the village by another name. The only possible location was not walled but was in the direction and distance from Jerusalem described in John, it was called "Lazarium". Early christian writers believing the NT to have a historical foundation linked Bethany with Lazarium for this reason. The word "Bethany" appearsto be an Aramaic pun for "house of dirt (lowly) worker". These elements, the name "Lazarus" from Lazarium and the story about Martha choosing to do house work rather than spiritual are further evidence that the writers of the NT were engaging in storytelling rather than reporting history.
Bethany real place?
by peacefulpete 17 Replies latest watchtower bible
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mizpah
peacefulpete:
First...no Nazareth.... Then....no Bethlehem And now....no Bethany.
I think you are trying too hard...haha Mispah
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Zoewrex
Next there will be no ... Jehovah..........then what?
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mizpah
One thing we know for sure. One day there will be no peacefulpete, mizpah or zoewrex...unless Jehovah and his promises remain.
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Nosferatu
Bethany is real. She was kinda bushy.
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NeonMadman
The fact that we don't know where a place was doesn't mean that the place was fictional. It's easy to forget that the books of the New Testament were written at a time when people who witnessed the events recorded in them were still alive, and could easily have debunked any overtly false information. Assuming that the writer knew that he was writing a fictional account that he intended to pass off as real history, it would make no sense at all for him to include place names that his contemporaries would know did not exist. Doing that would only destroy the very credibility he was trying to establish. Logically, there must have been some place at the time that was known as Bethany, whether a city, a village, or perhaps even just a family estate.
For the record, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary identifies Bethany as being "a village on the east slope of the Mount of Olives, 15 stadia (approximately 3 km. [2 mi.]) east of Jerusalem. ... Bethany may be identified with the Old Testament village of Ananiah mentioned at Neh. 11:32. Its contemporary name is el'Azariyeh, a name preserving in part the name of Lazarus." (1987 ed. page 139)
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peacefulpete
Neon...your comments of course have a measure of truth. The question is not whether it is possible that a yet undiscovered/undocumented walled city at the edge of Jerusalem might yet come to light, but rather the text itself is suggesting that the place was a literary creation. This coupled with the absence of evidence in support of the historicity of Bethany makes a compelling case. I will post another article about Arguments from Silence.
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NeonMadman
The question is not whether it is possible that a yet undiscovered/undocumented walled city at the edge of Jerusalem might yet come to light
I don't see where the text says that it was a walled city. It would appear to have been simply a village. Or, it could have been part of a city (sort of in the way that Greenwich Village, Little Italy and Hell's Kitchen are, not cities or towns in themselves, but areas of New York City). My point was that, while I have no problem with viewing the Bible text critically, I see no reason to doubt simple statements such as place names in the absence of any disconfirming evidence - particularly when, as I pointed out, contemporary readers could easily have exposed the alleged deception.
This coupled with the absence of evidence in support of the historicity of Bethany makes a compelling case.
What absence of evidence? I cited the Eerdmans article to demonstrate that, apparently, they have a pretty good idea where Bethany was, and that it has been identified both with an older village mentioned in Nehemiah as well as a present-day settlement. It really doesn't make much sense to cite an "argument from silence" while at the same time ignoring the information that exists.
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peacefulpete
Ok, a bit of confusion. The assumption of some scholars is that the NT Bethany is the same village as a Bethpage referred to in Late Jewish works. It is in these works that Bethpage is described as a walled town. I should have left that part out as it was speculative. The other tentative identification with Lazarium or Beth-Anaias has lead some less cautious reference works to place the NT Bethany in a specific location. The Jewish Encyclopedia is more honest. This illustrates the long history of confusion about Bethany and it's identification. Early Christian (2-4th century) writers linked it with at least 4 different villages. Because of the assumption of historicity within Orthodox Christian circles coupled with the identification with these existing places that has prevented earlier writers from recognizing the place as a literary creation. The work of modern researchers has uncovered reasons to believe that the NT stories resemble other religious works of the time in utilizing mythology while blending in a mix of reality such as names of real people and events. In this case perhaps the Name of an existing town (Lazarium) seemed a convenient coincidental homonym with the Egyptian story of Osiris ressurecting EL-Azurius ( who had 2 sisters with similar names as the NT counterparts). The author then may have used the location of Lazarium as the setting for his story while renaming the place Bethany which appears to have been a pun on the phrase "house of dirt(lowly) worker". This method of midrash was typical of the time and genre.
Of course I may be wrong.
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NeonMadman
Of course I may be wrong.
Glad to hear you admit it.
The information you present sounds rather speculative to me, and I'm inclined to disbelieve it on the basis of what I've already written. If the gospels were complete fabrications, or mixtures of myth with fact (and I don't believe they are), it would still make no sense whatsoever for the writers to fabricate place names or other information which could be easily debunked by contemporary readers. It would be as if I wrote an allegedly historical account of my world travels, and included a chapter about the night I spent in Shangri-La on my way back from the Emerald City. Anyone who read my book could easily label it as a fraud, and the whole work (including the parts that might actually be true) would be brought under suspicion.
As I was thinking about this yesterday after posting my previous comments, another thought occurred to me, regarding the transitoriness (if that's a word) of place names. A few years ago, I couldn't have told you where Ashleyville was. As it turns out, I grew up there, and spent the first 20+ years of my life living there. It is in the town of West Springfield, MA. If you look on a map of WS, you'll see a section labeled Ashleyville. I never knew I lived in Ashleyville, but apparently I did. No one in my family, none of my neighbors, none of my friends ever referred to where we lived as Ashleyville. I went to elementary school at John Ashley School, but its location was never referred to as Ashleyville. In fact, I never heard the name Ashleyville until I noticed it on a town map. Now, without a doubt, at some time in the past, the area must have been commonly known as Ashleyville, and it made its way as such onto the map, where it remains to this day. West Springfield has only been a town for less than 300 years, and somehow, within that amount of time, the name Ashleyville has passed completely out of use. I can easily imagine some archaeologist in 1500 or 2000 years reading a document that refers to events happening in Ashleyville, and questioning whether such a place ever really existed. Apparently it did and does, but you couldn't prove it by me.