Bethlehem lies 10 kilometres south of the city of Jerusalem, in the fertile limestone hill country of the Holy Land. Since at least the 2nd century AD people have believed that the place where
Church of the Nativity
This church in Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem (in the West Bank), was built over a cave known as the birthplace of Jesus Christ. You can go down the steps into the cave, where you will see an altar and a silver star, marking the exact place of the nativity.
Bethlehem (/ˈbɛθlɪhɛm/; Arabic: بيت لحم Bayt Laḥm; Hebrew: בֵּית לֶחֶם Bēṯ Leḥem) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of Jerusalem. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate, and has a population of approximately 25,000 people.
Jesus Christ is thought to have been born in Israel's Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph, who were engaged at the time of Jesus' birth, were his parents. When they arrived in the city, the inn was full, so they were given the option of staying in the stable where Jesus was born.
A Rich Past of Settlement. Of the two Bethlehems in Israel – one near Jerusalem and the other up north – the former receives most of the fame while the latter maintains relative anonymity.
The town of Bethlehem of Judea, about six miles south of Jerusalem, has always been considered the birthplace of Jesus. According to the New Testament, Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem of Judea at the time of Jesus' birth and later moved to Nazareth up north.
Although born in Bethlehem, according to Matthew and Luke, Jesus was a Galilean from Nazareth, a village near Sepphoris, one of the two major cities of Galilee (Tiberias was the other).
Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.
University of Cambridge Professor Colin Humphreys has argued in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society that a comet in early 5 BC was likely the "Star of Bethlehem", putting Jesus' birth in or near April, 5 BC.
According to legend, Jesus Christ was born on the night between 24 and 25 December in the year 0. Christians all over the world therefore traditionally celebrate the birth of the Messiah and Son of God on this date as Christmas.
He was born of a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world. All of his friends, associates, colleagues, disciples, all of them were Jews. He regularly worshipped in Jewish communal worship, what we call synagogues. He preached from Jewish text, from the Bible.
Nazareth (/ˈnæzərəθ/ NAZ-ər-əth; Arabic: النَّاصِرَة, an-Nāṣira; Hebrew: נָצְרַת, Nāṣəraṯ; Syriac: ܢܨܪܬ, Naṣrath) is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In 2021 its population was 77,925.
Jesus' name in Hebrew was “Yeshua” which translates to English as Joshua.
Golgotha, also called Calvary in Latin, is usually said to be connected to the traditional site of Christ's Crucifixion, now in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem., This site is within the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.
According to many scholars, Golgotha and the ancient site of Mount Moriah may be the same area. In other words, scholars believe that Jesus may have been crucified near Moriah or at its summit.
“The real reason for the selection of Dec. 25 seems to have been that it is exactly nine months after March 25, the traditional date of Jesus' crucifixion. … As Christians developed the theological idea that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same date, they set the date of his birth nine months later.”
Birth of Jesus
From the age at which Jewish maidens became marriageable, it is possible that Mary gave birth to her son when she was about thirteen or fourteen years of age.
The Adamic language, according to Jewish tradition (as recorded in the midrashim) and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden.
What is the first language? Sumerian can be considered the first language in the world, according to Mondly. The oldest proof of written Sumerian was found on the Kish tablet in today's Iraq, dating back to approximately 3500 BC.
In Nazareth, Jesus spoke Aramaic's Galilean dialect. Jesus's last words on the cross were in Aramaic: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
He may have stood about 5-ft.-5-in. (166 cm) tall, the average man's height at the time.
By contrast, the apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter, from the 5th or 6th century, has a long account of Joseph's peaceful death, aged 111, in the presence of Jesus (aged about 19), Mary and angels. This scene starts to appear in art in the 17th century.
The scholar, an expert in Christian origins, added: "He would have had dark skin and probably had shortish black hair - long hair was very unusual in the 1st Century - a beard and wore sandals. "He was a wanderer. He was on the streets. He accepted charity from strangers.