Map of the Roman empire under Hadrian (ruled AD 117–138), showing the location of the Arabes Nabataei in the desert regions around the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.

Al Khazneh, Petra (the Nabatean capital) in Jordan.

A row of tombs from the al-Khuraymat group, Mada'in Saleh, Saudi Arabia.

Al-Hegra, Saudi Arabia.

Shivta, Israel.

Avdat, Israel

The Nabataeans, also Nabateans (Arabic: الأنباط‎ al-ʾAnbāṭ), were ancient peoples of Jordan, whose oasis settlements in the time of Josephus (AD 37 – c. 100), gave the name of Nabatene to the borderland between Syria and Arabia, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. Their loosely-controlled trading network, which centered on strings of oases that they controlled, where agriculture was intensively practiced in limited areas, and on the routes that linked them, had no securely defined boundaries in the surrounding desert. Trajan conquered the Nabataean kingdom, annexing it to the Roman Empire, where their individual culture, easily identified by their characteristic finely-potted painted ceramics, became dispersed in the general Greco-Roman culture and was eventually lost.

Culture[link]

Many examples of graffiti and inscriptions—largely of names and greetings—document the area of Nabatean culture, which extended as far north as the north end of the Dead Sea, and testify to widespread literacy; but no Nabatean literature has survived, nor was any noted in antiquity,^[1] and the temples bear no inscriptions. Onomastic analysis has suggested^[2] that the Nabatean culture may have embraced multiple ethnicities. Classical references to the Nabateans begin with Diodorus Siculus; they suggest that the Nabateans' trade routes and the origins of their goods were regarded as trade secrets, and disguised in tales that should have strained outsiders' credulity. Diodorus Siculus (book ii) described them as a strong tribe of some 10,000 warriors, pre-eminent among the nomads of Arabia, eschewing agriculture, fixed houses, and the use of wine, but adding to pastoral pursuits a profitable trade with the seaports in frankincense and myrrh and spices from Arabia Felix (today's Yemen), as well as a trade with Egypt in bitumen from the Dead Sea. Their arid country was their best safeguard, for the bottle-shaped cisterns for rain-water which they excavated in the rocky or clay-rich soil were carefully concealed from invaders.^[3]

The extent of Nabatean trade resulted in cross-cultural influences that reached as far as the Red Sea coast of southern Arabia. The gods worshipped at Petra were headed by Dushara and al-‘Uzzá.

Origins[link]

The brief Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews that began in 586 BC opened a minor power vacuum in Judah (prior to the Israelites' return under the Persian King, Cyrus), and as Edomites moved into open Judaean grazing lands, Nabatean inscriptions began to be left in Edomite territory. The first definite appearance was in 312/311 BC, when they were attacked at Sela or perhaps Petra without success by Antigonus I's officer Athenaeus as part of the Third War of the Diadochi; at that time Hieronymus of Cardia, a Seleucid officer, mentioned the Nabateans in a battle report. About 50 BC, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus cited Hieronymus in his report,^{[clarification needed]} and added the following: "Just as the Seleucids had tried to subdue them, so the Romans made several attempts to get their hands on that lucrative trade."^{[citation needed]}

Sela was the ancient capital of Edom; the Nabateans must have occupied the old Edomite country, and succeeded to its commerce, after the Edomites took advantage of the Babylonian captivity to press forward into southern Judaea. This migration, the date of which cannot be determined, also made them masters of the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba and the important harbor of Elath. Here, according to Agatharchides, they were for a time very troublesome, as wreckers and pirates, to the reopened commerce between Egypt and the East, until they were chastised by the Ptolemaic rulers of Alexandria.^{[citation needed]}

The Nabateans had already some tincture of foreign culture when they first appear in history. That culture was Aramaic; they wrote a letter to Antigonus in Syriac letters, and Aramaic continued to be the language of their coins and inscriptions when the tribe grew into a kingdom, and profited by the decay of the Seleucids to extend its borders northward over the more fertile country east of the Jordan. They occupied Hauran, and in about 85 BC their king Aretas III became lord of Damascus and Coele-Syria. Nabateans became the Arabic name for Aramaeans, whether in Syria or Iraq, a fact which has been incorrectly held to prove that the Nabateans were originally Aramaean immigrants from Babylonia. Proper names on their inscriptions suggest that they were true Arabs who had come under Aramaic influence. Starcky identifies the Nabatu of southern Arabia (Pre-Khalan migration) as their ancestors. However different groups amongst the Nabateans wrote their names in slightly different ways, consequently archeologists are reluctant to say that they were all the same tribe, or that any one group is the original Nabateans.^[4]

Language[link]

The language of the Nabatean inscriptions, attested from the 2nd century BCE, shows a local development of the Aramaic language, which had ceased to have super-regional importance after the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire (330 BC). The Nabataean alphabet itself also developed out of the Aramaic alphabet.

This Aramaic dialect was increasingly affected by the Arabic dialect of the local population. From the 4th century AD, the Arabic influence becomes overwhelming, in a way that it may be said the Nabatean language shifted seamlessly from Aramaic to Arabic. The Arabic alphabet itself developed out of cursive variants of the Nabatean script in the 5th century.

Ibn Wahshiyya claimed to have translated from this language in his Nabataean corpus.^[5]

Agriculture[link]

Remains of a Nabataean cistern north of Makhtesh Ramon, southern Israel.

Although not as dry as at present, the area occupied by the Nabateans was still a desert and required special systems for agriculture. One system was to contour an area of land into a shallow funnel and to plant a single fruit tree in the middle. Before the 'rainy season' which could easily consist of only one or two rain events, the area around the tree was broken up. When the rain came, all the water which collected in the funnel would flow down toward the fruit tree and sink into the ground. The ground, which was largely loess, would seal up when it got wet and retain the water.

In the mid-1950s, a research team headed by M. Evenari set up a research station near Avdat (Evenari, Shenan and Tadmor 1971). He focused on the relevance of runoff rainwater management in explaining the mechanism of the ancient agricultural features, such as: terraced wadis, channels for collecting runoff rainwater, and the enigmatic phenomenon of "Tuleilat el-Anab". Evenari showed that the runoff rainwater collection systems concentrate water from an area that is five times larger than the area in which the water actually drains.

Another study was conducted by Y. Kedar in 1957, which also focused on the mechanism of the agriculture systems, but he studied soil management, and claimed that the ancient agriculture systems were intended to increase the accumulation of loess in wadis and create an infrastructure for agricultural activity. This theory has also been explored by Prof. E. Mazor, of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The Hellenistic and Roman periods[link]

The Roman province of Arabia Petraea, created from the Nabataean kingdom.

Nabataean trade routes.

Petra was rapidly built in the first century BC in Hellenistic splendor, and developed a population estimated at 20,000.^[6]

The Nabataeans were allies of the first Hasmoneans in their struggles against the Seleucid monarchs. They then became rivals of the Judaean dynasty in the period of its splendor, and a chief element in the disorders which invited Pompey's intervention in Judea. Many Nabataeans were forcefully converted to Judaism by the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus.^[7] It was this King who after putting down a local rebellion invaded and occupied the Nabatean towns of Moab and Gilead and imposed a tribute of an unspecified amount. Obodas I knew that Alexander would attack, so was able to ambush Alexander's forces near Gaulane destroying the Judean army (90 BC).^[8]

The Roman military was not very successful in their campaigns against the Nabataeans. In 62 BC, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus accepted a bribe of 300 talents to lift the siege of Petra, partly because of the difficult terrain and the fact Scaurus had run out of food provisions. Hyrcanus who was a friend of Aretas was dispached by Scaurus to the King to buy peace. In so obtaining peace King Aretas retained his whole possessions, including Damascus and became a Roman vassal.^[9]

During the King Malichus II reign, in 32 BC Herod the Great started a war against Nabatea, with the support of Cleopatra. The war started with Herod's army plundering Nabataea and with a large cavalry force, and the occupation of Dium. After this defeat the Nabatean forces amassed near Canatha in Syria, but were attacked and routed. Athenio (Cleopatra's General) sent Canathans to the aid of the Nabateans, and this force crushed Herod's army which then fled to Ormiza. One year later, Herod's army overran Nabataea.^[10]

Colossal Nabatean columns stand in Bosra, Syria.

After an earthquake in Judea, the Nabateans rebelled and invaded Israel, but Herod at once crossed the Jordan river to Philadelphia (modern Amman) and both sides set up camp. The Nabateans under Elthemus refused to give battle, so Herod forced the issue when he attacked their camp. A confused mass of Nabateans gave battle but were defeated. Once the defeated had retreated to their defences, Herod laid siege to the camp and over time some of the defenders surrendered. The remaining Nabatean forces offered 500 talents for peace but this was rejected. Lacking water, the Nabateans were forced out of their camp for battle, but were defeated in this last battle.^[11]

An ally of the Roman Empire, the Nabataean kingdom continued to flourish throughout the first century. Its power extended far into Arabia along the Red Sea to Yemen, and Petra was a cosmopolitan marketplace, though its commerce was diminished by the rise of the Eastern trade-route from Myoshormus to Coptos on the Nile. Under the Pax Romana they lost their warlike and nomadic habits, and were a sober, acquisitive, orderly people, wholly intent on trade and agriculture.

The kingdom was a bulwark between Rome and the wild hordes of the desert but for Trajan, who reduced Petra and broke up the Nabataean nationality as the short-lived Roman province of Arabia Petraea.

By the third century, the Nabateans had stopped writing in Aramaic and begun writing in Greek instead, and by the fourth century they had converted to Christianity.^[12] The new Arab invaders who soon pressed forward into their seats found the remnants of the Nabataeans transformed into-- peasants. Their lands were divided between the new Qahtanite Arab tribal kingdoms of the Byzantine vassals the Ghassanid Arabs and the Himyarite vassals the Kindah Arab Kingdom in North Arabia.

The city of Petra was brought to the attention of Westerners by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812.

Archeological sites[link]

• Petra in Jordan
• Bosra in Syria
• Mada'in Saleh^[13] in northwest Saudi Arabia.
• Shivta in Negev Desert of Israel; disputed as a Nabataean precursor to a Byzantine colony.
• Avdat in Negev Desert of Israel

See also[link]

Ancient Near East portal

• List of rulers of Nabatea

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Gibson, Dan (2011). Qur’anic Geography: A Survey and Evaluation of the Geographical References in the Qur’an with Suggested Solutions for Various Problems and Issues. Independent Scholars Press, Canada. ISBN 978-0-9733642-8-6.
• Graf, David F. (1997). Rome and the Arabian Frontier: From the Nabataeans to the Saracens. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-86078-658-0. 
• Healey, John F., The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus (Leiden, Brill, 2001) (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 136).
• Krasnov, Boris R.; Mazor, Emanuel (2001). The Makhteshim Country: A Laboratory of Nature: Geological and Ecological Studies in the Desert Region of Israel. Sofia: Pensoft. ISBN 978-954-642-135-7. 
• "Nabat", Encyclopedia of Islam, Volume VII.
• Negev, Avraham (1986). Nabatean Archaeology Today. Hagop Kevorkian Series on Near Eastern Art and Civilization. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-5760-4. 
• Schmid, Stephan G. (2001). "The Nabataeans: Travellers between Lifestyles". In MacDonald, Burton; Adams, Russell; Bienkowski, Piotr. The Archaeology of Jordan. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press. pp. 367–426. ISBN 978-1-84127-136-1. 

External links[link]

• Hecht Museum - Catalogues | The Nabateans in the Negev
• Hecht Museum - Exhibitions | The Nabateans in the Negev
• The Bulletin of Nabataean Studies online—links on Petra and the Nabataeans
• NABATÆANS in the Jewish Encyclopedia
• Cincinnati Art Museum—the only collection of ancient Nabataean art outside of Jordan
• Archaeological Studies—Ancient Desert Agriculture Systems Revived (ADASR)
• Petra: Lost City of Stone Exhibition—Canadian Museum of Civilization
• "Solving the Enigma of Petra and the Nabataeans", Biblical Archaeology Review
• Nabataeans a nation civilization—Petra Crown

Jesus
Jesus as Good Shepherd (stained glass at St John's Ashfield)
Born	7–2 BC/BCE[1] Judaea[2]
Died	30–36 AD/CE[3][4][5][6][7] Judaea
Cause of death	Crucifixion[8]
Ethnicity	Jewish[9]
Home town	Nazareth, Galilee[10]

Jesus ( /ˈdʒiːzəs/; Greek: Ἰησοῦς; 7–2 BC/BCE to 30–36 AD/CE), also referred to as Jesus Christ or simply Christ, is the central figure of Christianity and most Christian denominations venerate him as God the Son incarnated. In Islam, Jesus (in Arabic: عيسى‎ in Islamic usage, commonly transliterated as Isa) is considered one of God's important prophets.^[11][12]

Most modern historians agree that Jesus existed and was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judaea, who was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate.^{[13][14][15][16][8]} Scholars have offered competing descriptions and portraits of Jesus, which at times share a number of overlapping attributes, such as a rabbi, a charismatic healer, the leader of an apocalyptic movement, a self-described Messiah, a sage and philosopher, or a social reformer who preached of the "Kingdom of God" as a means for personal and egalitarian social transformation.^{[17][18][19][20]} Scholars have correlated the New Testament accounts with non-Christian historical records to arrive at an estimated chronology of Jesus' life.^{[3][5][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]}

Christians traditionally believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, performed miracles, founded the Church, died sacrificially by crucifixion to achieve atonement, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, from which he will return.^[28] The majority of Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son, and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.^[29] A few Christian groups, however, reject Trinitarianism, wholly or partly, believing it to be non-scriptural.^[29][30] Most Christian scholars today present Jesus as the awaited Messiah promised in the Old Testament and as God,^[31] arguing that he fulfilled many Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.^[32]

In Islam, Jesus is a bringer of scripture, and the product of a virgin birth, but not the victim of crucifixion.^[33] Judaism rejects the belief that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh.^[34] Islam and the Bahá'í Faith use the title "Messiah" for Jesus,^[35][36] but do not teach that he was God incarnate.

Etymology of name[link]

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"Jesus" is a transliteration, occurring in a number of languages and based on the Latin Iesus, of the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs), itself a hellenization of the Hebrew יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yĕhōšuă‘, Joshua) or Hebrew-Aramaic יֵשׁוּעַ (Yēšûă‘), both meaning "Yahweh delivers" or "Yahweh rescues". In Arabic, it is عيسى‎.^[37][38]

The etymology of the name Jesus in the context of the New Testament is generally expressed as "Yahweh saves",^[39][40][41] "Yahweh is salvation"^[42][43] and at times as "Jehovah is salvation".^[44] The name Jesus appears to have been in use in Judaea at the time of the birth of Jesus.^[44][45] Philo's reference (Mutatione Nominum item 121) indicates that the etymology of Joshua was known outside Judaea at the time.^[46]

In the New Testament, in Luke 1:26-33, the angel Gabriel tells Mary to name her child "Jesus", and in Matthew 1:21 an angel tells Joseph to name the child "Jesus". The statement in Matthew 1:21 "you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins" associates salvific attributes to the name Jesus in Christian theology.^[47][48]

"Christ" ( /ˈkraɪst/) is derived from the Greek Χριστός (Khrīstos), meaning "the anointed" or "the anointed one", a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Māšîaḥ), usually transliterated into English as "Messiah" ( /mɨˈsaɪ.ə/).^[49][50] In the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible (written well over a century before the time of Jesus), the word "Christ" (Χριστός) was used to translate the Hebrew word "Messiah" (מָשִׁיחַ) into Greek.^[51] In Matthew 16:16, the apostle Peter's profession "You are the Christ" identifies Jesus as the Messiah.^[52] In postbiblical usage, "Christ" became viewed as a name, one part of "Jesus Christ", but originally it was a title ("Jesus the Anointed").^[53][54][55]

Chronology[link]

Judaea and Galilee at the time of Jesus.

Although a few scholars have questioned the existence of Jesus as an actual historical figure,^[56], and some early Christian sects denied that Jesus existed as a physical being (see below), most scholars involved with historical Jesus research believe his existence, but that the supernatural claims associated with him cannot be established using documentary and other evidence.^{[57][58][59][16][60][61]} As discussed in the sections immediately below, the estimation of the year of death of Jesus places his lifespan around the beginning of the 1st century AD/CE, in the geographic region of Roman Judaea.^{[62][63][64][65][66]}

Roman involvement in Judaea began around 63 BC/BCE and by 6 AD/CE Judaea had become a Roman province.^[67] From 26-37 AD/CE Pontius Pilate was the governor of Roman Judaea.^[68] In this time period, although Roman Judaea was strategically positioned in the Near East, close to Arabia and North Africa, it was not viewed as a critically important province by the Romans.^[69][70] At the time the Romans were highly tolerant of other religions and allowed the local populations such as the Jews to practice their own faiths.^[67]

Year of birth[link]

Two independent approaches have been used to estimate the year of the birth of Jesus, one by analyzing the Nativity accounts in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew along with other historical data, the other by working backwards from the estimation of the start of the ministry of Jesus, as also discussed in the next section.^[5][22]

In its Nativity account, the Gospel of Matthew associates the birth of Jesus with the reign of Herod the Great, who is generally believed to have died around 4 BC/BCE.^[22][71] Matthew 2:1 states that: "Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king" and Luke 1:5 mentions the reign of Herod shortly before the birth of Jesus.^[22] Matthew also suggests that Jesus may have been as much as two years old at the time of the visit of the Magi and hence even older at the time of Herod's death.^[72] But the author of Luke also describes the birth as taking place during the first census of the Roman provinces of Syria and Iudaea, which is generally believed to have occurred in 6 AD/CE.^[73] Most scholars generally assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC/BCE.^[74] Other scholars assume that Jesus was born sometime between 7–2 BC/BCE.^[75]

The year of birth of Jesus has also been estimated in a manner that is independent of the Nativity accounts, by using information in the Gospel of John to work backwards from the statement in Luke 3:23 that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry.^[3][5] As discussed in the section below, by combining information from John 2:13 and John 2:20 with the writings of Flavius Josephus, it has been estimated that around 27-29 AD/CE, Jesus was "about thirty years of age".^[76][77] Some scholars thus estimate the year 28 AD/CE to be roughly the 32nd birthday of Jesus and the birth year of Jesus to be around 6-4 BC/BCE.^[3][5][78]

However, the common Gregorian calendar method for numbering years, in which the current year is 2012, is based on the decision of a monk Dionysius in the sixth century, to count the years from a point of reference (namely, Jesus’ birth) which he placed sometime between 2 BC and 1 AD.^[79] Although Christian feasts related to the Nativity have had specific dates (e.g. December 25 for Christmas) there is no historical evidence for the exact day or month of the birth of Jesus.^[80][81][82]

Years of ministry[link]

Israel Museum model of Herod's Temple, referred to in John 2:13.

There have been different approaches to estimating the date of the start of the ministry of Jesus.^{[3][76][77][83]} One approach, based on combining information from the Gospel of Luke with historical data about Emperor Tiberius yields a date around 28-29 AD/CE, while a second independent approach based on statements in the Gospel of John along with historical information from Josephus about the Temple in Jerusalem leads to a date around 27-29 AD/CE.^{[5][76][77][84][85][86]} A third method uses the date of the death of John the Baptist and the marriage of Herod Antipas to Herodias based on the writings of Josephus, and correlates it to Matthew 14:4.^[87][88][89]

The estimation of the date based on the Gospel of Luke relies on the statement in Luke 3:1-2 that the ministry of John the Baptist which preceded that of Jesus began "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar".^[76] Given that Tiberius began his reign in 14 AD/CE, this yields a date about 28-29 AD/CE.^{[3][76][78][90][91]}

The estimation of the date based on the Gospel of John uses the statements in John 2:13 that Jesus went to the Temple in Jerusalem around the start of his ministry and in John 2:20 that "Forty and six years was this temple in building" at that time.^[5][76] According to Josephus (Ant 15.380) the temple reconstruction was started by Herod the Great in the 15th-18th year of his reign at about the time that Augustus arrived in Syria (Ant 15.354).^{[3][76][92][93]} Temple expansion and reconstruction was ongoing, and it was in constant reconstruction until it was destroyed in 70 AD/CE by the Romans.^[94] Given that it took 46 years of construction, the Temple visit in the Gospel of John has been estimated at around 27-29 AD/CE.^{[5][76][84][85][86][95]}

Although both the gospels and Josephus refer to Herod Antipas killing John the Baptist, they differ on the details, e.g. whether this act was a consequence of the marriage of Herod Antipas and Herodias, as indicated in Matthew 14:4, or a pre-emptive measure by Herod which possibly took place before the marriage, as Josephus suggests in Ant 18.5.2.^{[96][97][98][99]} The exact year of the marriage of Herod Antipas and Herodias is subject to debate among scholars.^[88] In his analysis of Herod's life, Harold Hoehner estimates that John the Baptist's imprisonment probably occurred around AD 30-31.^[100] The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia estimates the death of the Baptist to have occurred about AD 31-32.^[89] The death of John the Baptist relates to the end of the major Galilean ministry of Jesus, just before the half way point in the gospel narratives, before the start of Jesus' final journey to Jerusalem through Judea.^{[101][102][102][103]}

Luke 3:23 states that at the start of his ministry Jesus was "about 30 years of age", but the other gospels do not mention a specific age. However, in John 8:57 the Jews exclaimed to Jesus: "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" suggesting that he was much less than 50 years old during his ministry.^[5] The length of the ministry is subject to debate, based on the fact that the synoptic gospels mention only one passover during Jesus' ministry, often interpreted as implying that the ministry lasted approximately one year, whereas the Gospel of John records multiple passovers, implying that his ministry may have lasted at least three years.^{[3][5][104][105]}

Year of death[link]

A 1466 copy of Antiquities of the Jews.

A number of approaches have been used to estimate the year of the death of Jesus, including information from the canonical gospels, the chronology of the life of Paul the Apostle in the New Testament correlated with historical events, as well as different astronomical models, as discussed below.

All four canonical gospels report that Jesus was crucified at Calvary during the prefecture of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect who governed Judaea from 26 to 36 AD/CE. The late 1st century Jewish historian Josephus,^[62] writing in Antiquities of the Jews (c. 93 AD/CE), and the early 2nd century Roman historian Tacitus,^[63] writing in The Annals (c. 116 AD/CE), also state that Pilate ordered the execution of Jesus, though both writers use the title "procurator" instead of "prefect".^[64]

The estimation of the date of the conversion of Paul places the death of Jesus before this conversion, which is estimated at around 33-36 AD/CE.^{[4][106][107]} (Also see the estimation of the start of Jesus' ministry as a few years before this date above). The estimation of the year of Paul's conversion relies on a series of calculations working backwards from the well established date of his trial before Gallio in Achaea Greece (Acts 18:12-17) around 51-52 AD/CE, the meeting of Priscilla and Aquila which were expelled from Rome about 49 AD/CE and the 14-year period before returning to Jerusalem in Galatians 2:1.^{[4][106][107]} The remaining period is generally accounted for by Paul's missions (at times with Barnabas) such as those in Acts 11:25-26 and 2 Corinthians 11:23-33, resulting in the 33-36 AD/CE estimate.^{[4][106][107]}