Information AboutEphrath |
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| hebrew bible places | |
| torah places | |
| hebrew bible people | |
| bethlehem | |
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Today the population numbers above 10,000, with many families originally from the United States and elsewhere in the West. For more information on modern Efrat see The Municipal Council and B'Emunah . A short distance from Ephrath is the small town of Bethlehem , which has assumed greater importance as the birthplace of Jesus Of Nazareth . The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem has always been accounted by Christians a fulfillment of the prophecy in Micah (5:2): :"But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." ( King James Version ). As Beth-lehem-Judah (''1 Samuel'' 17:12) is in the territory of Judah, so Beth-lehem Ephratah is in the territory of Ephrath. Ephrath is sometimes confused with Bethlehem itself: even the ''Jewish Encyclopedia'' (1908) lists Ephrath as "another name for Bethlehem (''Genesis'' xxxv. 19, xlviii. 7; ''Ruth'' i. 2, iv. 11; ''Psalms'' cxxxii. 6; ''Micah'' v. 1)." The interested reader will want to pursue the citations, however. Assuredly the purely traditional "tomb of Rachel" as now venerated is in a suburb of Bethlehem. Ephrath was already a settlement in the Bronze Age. Archeology by Rivka Gonen, summarized in 1979, revealed a cemetery consisting of a tumulus built over a platform structure and some 27 Bronze Age burial caves of the shaft-tomb type, many of which had been reused over long stetches of time. These tombs were reused in the Middle Bronze Age.
REFERENCE Rivka Gonen, ''Excavations at Efrata: A Burial Ground from the Intermediate and Middle Bronze Ages''Israel Antiquities Authority Reports, 2001 The town of Ephrata, Pennsylvania was named after this town. The town of Ephratah, New York was also named after this town. The town of Ephrata, Washington was also named after this town. |
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