Bezetha

== International Standard Bible Encyclopedia ==

be -zē´tha : Also called by Josephus the "New City" ( BJ , V, iv, 2), certain suburbs of Jerusalem, North of the Temple, which were outside the second but included within the third wall. Bezeth (which see) may be the same place. See Jerusalem .

== Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature ==

(Βεζεθά ), the name of the fourth hill on which a part of Jerusalem was built, situated north of Antonia, from which it was separated by a deep fosse, but not enclosed till the erection of the third wall by Agrippa, according to Josephus (War, 5:4, 2), who interprets the name as equivalent to "New City" (καινὴ πόλις ), perhaps regarding it as the Hebrews חֲדָשָׁה בֵּית; but as this can hardly be considered a representative of the name, and as Josephus elsewhere ( War, 2, 19, 4) seems expressly to distinguish Bezetha from Caenopolis or the New City (τήν το Βεζεθὰν προσαγορευομένην καί τὴν Καινόπολιν, unless, as Reland suggests, Palest. p. 855, we should read τὴν καὶ Καινόπολιν, making them identical), we may perhaps better adopt the derivation given above under the BEZETH (See Bezeth) (q.v.) of 1 Maccabees 7:19. The general position of the hill is clear; but it has been nevertheless disputed whether it should be regarded as the eminence north of the present Damascus gate (Robinson, Bibl. Res. 1, 392; Bib. Sac. 1846, p. 438 sq.) or (as is more probable) that immediately north of the present Haram enclosure (Williams, Holy City, 2, 50). (See Jerusalem).

Tristram thinks that "beyond a shadow of doubt" this hill "forms the greater part of the Mohammedan quarter of modern Jerusalem — a broad, irregular ridge, separated from Moriah by the fosse and great Pool of Bethesda, from Akra by the Harmonaean valley, and with a rugged, precipitous descent on the east to the valley of Jehoshaphat or Kedron. The northern part, now a Moslem cemetery, is outside the walls" (Bible Places, p. 140).