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Mamre
Mamre (/ˈmæmri/; Hebrew: מַמְרֵא), full name "Oaks of Mamre", refers to an ancient religious site originally focused on a single holy tree growing "since time immemorial" at Hebron in Canaan. It is best known from the biblical story of Abraham and the three visitors. He pitched his tents is known as the oak or terebinth of Mamre. Modern scholars have identified four sites near Hebron which, in different historical periods, could have been successively known as Mamre: Khirbet Nimra, also known as Ayn Nimreh, (a little excavated Persian and Hellenistic period site, a hypothetical identification, not proven by any archaeological finds), Ramat el-Khalil, also known as Haram er-Rama (the best known site, flourished from the Herodian through the Byzantine period), Deir Al Arba'een complex, and Khirbet es-Sibte. The last one contained an old oak tree identified by a relatively new tradition as the Oak of Mamre, which collapsed in 2019, and is on the grounds of the Church of the Holy Forefathers and Monastery of the Holy Trinity. There is a rather recent hypothesis (neither archaeologically nor in any other way confirmed) that at the location of Khirbet Nimra, a tree cult predated the biblical narrative.
Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, as well as Christian and Jewish sources from the Byzantine period, locate Mamre at the site later renamed in Arabic as Ramat el-Khalil, 4 km north of historical Hebron and approximately halfway between that city and Halhul. Herod the Great initiated the Jewish identification of the site with Mamre, by erecting there a monumental enclosure. It was one of the three most important fairs or marketplaces in Judea, where the fair was held next to the venerated tree accompanied by an interdenominational festival celebrated by Jews, pagans, and Christians alike. This prompted Emperor Constantine the Great to unsuccessfully stop this practice by erecting a Christian basilica there.
Mamre is the site where Abraham pitched tents for his camp and built an altar, following his separation from Lot, his nephew, and where he was brought divine tidings in the guise of three angels who promised that Sarah, his wife, would become pregnant in Genesis 18:1-15.
Genesis 13:18 reports that Abraham settled "near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron". The original Hebrew tradition appears, to judge from a textual variation conserved in the Septuagint, to have referred to a single great oak tree, which Josephus called Ogyges. Mamre may have been an Amorite, a tribal chieftain after whom a grove of trees was named. Genesis connected it with Hebron or a place nearby that city. Mamre has frequently been associated with the Cave of the Patriarchs. According to one scholar, there is considerable confusion in the Biblical narrative concerning not only Mamre, but also Machpelah, Hebron and Kiryat Arba, all four of which are aligned repeatedly. In Genesis, Mamre is also identified with Hebron itself (Genesis 23:19, 25:27). The Christian tradition of identifying a ruined site surrounded by walls and called in Arabic Rāmet el-Ḥalīl ('Hill of the Friend', meaning: "the friend of God", i.e. Abraham), with the Old Testament Mamre, goes back to the earliest Christian pilgrims in the 4th century CE, and connects to a tradition from the time of Herod (1st century BCE).
In Genesis 14:13, the text refers to "the terebinth trees of Mamre the Amorite", an ally or friend of Abraham,[clarification needed] Mamre being the name of one of the three Amorite chiefs who joined forces with those of Abraham in pursuit of Chedorlaomer to save Lot in Genesis 14:13, 24.
The supposed discrepancy is often explained as reflecting the discordance between the different scribal traditions behind the composition of the Torah, the former relating to the Yahwist, the latter to the Elohist recension, according to the classic formulation of the documentary hypothesis.
There appear to be four main sites which have been known, at different times in history, as Mamre. These are, chronologically:
According to Abel and Jericke among others, Persian and Hellenistic Mamre was located at Khirbet Nimra, 2 km north of the Cave of Machpelah, inside modern Hebron, where a pagan tree cult, supposedly, predates the biblical Abraham narrative.
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Mamre
Mamre (/ˈmæmri/; Hebrew: מַמְרֵא), full name "Oaks of Mamre", refers to an ancient religious site originally focused on a single holy tree growing "since time immemorial" at Hebron in Canaan. It is best known from the biblical story of Abraham and the three visitors. He pitched his tents is known as the oak or terebinth of Mamre. Modern scholars have identified four sites near Hebron which, in different historical periods, could have been successively known as Mamre: Khirbet Nimra, also known as Ayn Nimreh, (a little excavated Persian and Hellenistic period site, a hypothetical identification, not proven by any archaeological finds), Ramat el-Khalil, also known as Haram er-Rama (the best known site, flourished from the Herodian through the Byzantine period), Deir Al Arba'een complex, and Khirbet es-Sibte. The last one contained an old oak tree identified by a relatively new tradition as the Oak of Mamre, which collapsed in 2019, and is on the grounds of the Church of the Holy Forefathers and Monastery of the Holy Trinity. There is a rather recent hypothesis (neither archaeologically nor in any other way confirmed) that at the location of Khirbet Nimra, a tree cult predated the biblical narrative.
Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, as well as Christian and Jewish sources from the Byzantine period, locate Mamre at the site later renamed in Arabic as Ramat el-Khalil, 4 km north of historical Hebron and approximately halfway between that city and Halhul. Herod the Great initiated the Jewish identification of the site with Mamre, by erecting there a monumental enclosure. It was one of the three most important fairs or marketplaces in Judea, where the fair was held next to the venerated tree accompanied by an interdenominational festival celebrated by Jews, pagans, and Christians alike. This prompted Emperor Constantine the Great to unsuccessfully stop this practice by erecting a Christian basilica there.
Mamre is the site where Abraham pitched tents for his camp and built an altar, following his separation from Lot, his nephew, and where he was brought divine tidings in the guise of three angels who promised that Sarah, his wife, would become pregnant in Genesis 18:1-15.
Genesis 13:18 reports that Abraham settled "near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron". The original Hebrew tradition appears, to judge from a textual variation conserved in the Septuagint, to have referred to a single great oak tree, which Josephus called Ogyges. Mamre may have been an Amorite, a tribal chieftain after whom a grove of trees was named. Genesis connected it with Hebron or a place nearby that city. Mamre has frequently been associated with the Cave of the Patriarchs. According to one scholar, there is considerable confusion in the Biblical narrative concerning not only Mamre, but also Machpelah, Hebron and Kiryat Arba, all four of which are aligned repeatedly. In Genesis, Mamre is also identified with Hebron itself (Genesis 23:19, 25:27). The Christian tradition of identifying a ruined site surrounded by walls and called in Arabic Rāmet el-Ḥalīl ('Hill of the Friend', meaning: "the friend of God", i.e. Abraham), with the Old Testament Mamre, goes back to the earliest Christian pilgrims in the 4th century CE, and connects to a tradition from the time of Herod (1st century BCE).
In Genesis 14:13, the text refers to "the terebinth trees of Mamre the Amorite", an ally or friend of Abraham,[clarification needed] Mamre being the name of one of the three Amorite chiefs who joined forces with those of Abraham in pursuit of Chedorlaomer to save Lot in Genesis 14:13, 24.
The supposed discrepancy is often explained as reflecting the discordance between the different scribal traditions behind the composition of the Torah, the former relating to the Yahwist, the latter to the Elohist recension, according to the classic formulation of the documentary hypothesis.
There appear to be four main sites which have been known, at different times in history, as Mamre. These are, chronologically:
According to Abel and Jericke among others, Persian and Hellenistic Mamre was located at Khirbet Nimra, 2 km north of the Cave of Machpelah, inside modern Hebron, where a pagan tree cult, supposedly, predates the biblical Abraham narrative.