Bethulia

views updated

BETHULIA

BETHULIA , the home of *Judith, the heroine of the apocryphal Book of Judith, in which it is described as a Jewish city that was besieged by the Assyrian general Holofernes. His death brought the siege to an abrupt end. The name of the city is apparently a form of Beth-El ("House of God"), and the geographic context of the story indicates a location on the northern edge of the hills of Samaria, near Dothan, and Ibleam. Some scholars have identified Bethulia with Jerusalem, Bemeselis (Mithiliyya), or with other localities such as Shechem or Sheikh Shibl above Kafr Qūd. It seems most probable, however, that Bethulia was an imaginary city that was endowed with a theophoric name for the purposes of a historical romance.

bibliography:

Abel, Geog, 2 (1938), 283; J.M. Grintz, Sefer Yehudit (1957), 30ff.

[Michael Avi-Yonah]