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Ramathaim-Zophim

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Ramathaim-Zophim

Ramathaim-Zophim (Hebrew: רמתיים־צופים), also called Ramah (רָמָה‎) and Ramatha in the Douay–Rheims Bible translation (Ramathaimsophim in the Vulgate), is a city from the Hebrew Bible, the home town and resting place of prophet Samuel. The name of the town means "the heights of the views."

Ramah, the home of Elkanah, Samuel's father (1 Samuel 1:19; 2:11), the birthplace of Samuel and the seat of his authority (1 Sam. 2:11; 7:17), the town is frequently mentioned in the history of that prophet and of David (1 Sam. 15:34; 16:13; 19:18-23). Here Samuel died and was buried (1 Sam. 25:1).

The historian Josephus distinguishes between Ramathaim, "a city of the tribe of Ephraim," and Ramah, the burial place of Samuel the prophet, but he does not explicitly say that these were two different places.

Ramathaim-Zophim has been tentatively identified with one of two sites. One of them is the modern Palestinian village of Nabi Samwil, the other the former village, now town, of er-Ram.

Ramah, according to Eusebius' Onomasticon, was located 6 milestones north of Jerusalem (Ailia), opposite Bethel. Accordingly, Ramah is now thought by many historical geographers to be Er Ram, about 8 km north of Jerusalem.

The Survey of Western Palestine identifies er-Ram with Ramah of Benjamin from Joshua 18:25.

Nabi Samwil stands about 5 miles north-west of Jerusalem, and is held by an originally Christian tradition dating back to the Byzantine period to be the resting place of the prophet Samuel). The site comprises what is now the Israeli Nebi Samuel National Park, with its most prominent feature being a two-storey Crusader fortress, now used as a mosque and a Jewish Orthodox synagogue.

Benjamin of Tudela visited Nabi Samwil when he travelled the land in 1173, noting that the Crusaders had found the bones of Samuel in a Jewish cemetery in Ramla on the coastal plain and reburied them here, on the hill overlooking the Holy City. C. R. Conder, of the Palestine Exploration Fund, discredits this tradition.

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