Revisiting my Bethlehem as Zion The City of David argument

[Update: this is now a defunct post, I'm back to agreeing entirely with my original argument.]



I still support that argument in terms of what The Bible is saying, for context read this post but stop about when I start speculating on specific locations in Bethlehem to look for the Tomb of David.

https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2017/08/bethlehem-was-zion-which-is-city-of.html

What I've been thinking about is the possibly of taking those Biblical Observations but drawing the opposite conclusion.  Moving Bethlehem up instead of moving the City of David down.

The city we traditionally identify with Bethlehem has been argued to be a city that didn't actually exist when The Bible was written, that it was basically founded by Christians in the Second Century AD at the soonest.  Similar to what's claimed about the traditional site of Nazareth (I've argued that New Testament Nazareth is Sepphoris), but in this case that archaeological argument may hold up even better.

There are only two real Extra-Biblical references to the name of Bethlehem in the BC era.  One from an Amarna Letter written by Abdi-Heba.  I had mentioned it in that prior post and I still still think that could be a reference to when David first captured Zion.

The second is a discovery made in 2012 at an archaeological dig at what is today considered the City of David in the form of a bulla (seal impression in dried clay) in ancient Hebrew script that reads "From the town of Bethlehem to the King,"  So basically neither tells us where exactly Bethlehem is.

1 Maccabees 14:36 says the City of David is IN Jerusalem, meaning a specific sub part of Jerusalem but not a synonym for the entirety of Jerusalem.  The traditional view basically.

This puts me right back to what my position on Bob Cornuke's Gihon Spring view of The Temple location was before I developed this Bethlehem argument.  He has identified where The Tabernacle of David was, but Solomon's Temple was not within The City of David.  I'm now again favoring that one or both Temples was where the Nea Ekklesia of The Theotokos was built and The Temple Mount was Solomon's Royal Palace.

Those who want to remove The Temples from the Temple Mount altogether ignore the references that say Hadrian's Temple in Jerusalem was over it.  Like Jerome's commentary on Matthew 24.  Thing is this identification seems to not be made till well into the Nicene era, so maybe it's as wrong as the Temple to Venus being where The Crucifixion was.  It was also made with an agenda to lend support to a Preterist interpretation of the Abomination of Desolation.

I think Zion as a Hill or Mount refers to the Hill West of the City of David on which the Nea Ekklesia stood and the Zion Gate.  But as a synonym for the City of David it's really not called a mountain at all and in those cases refers to the Ir-David proper beneath the mountain.

Or maybe the official Ir-David is still indeed Jebus as I speculated before and south of the Zion Gate is the Biblical City of David.  Where the traditional King David's Tomb is.  Meaning maybe the Nea was the Tabernacle of David?

But I'll leave more Temple Geography speculation for later.  For now how does this make sense of the Nativity narrative?

If the place where Herod met with the Magi was the Antionia Fortress (which was where the Dome of The Rock is now) then Bethlehem being a place he could possibly have seen from his window seems odd.  But that perhaps underestimates the complexity of the local geography.

Bethlehem being part of Jerusalem kinds fixes any arguments about when things happened based on the Pilgrimage requirements.

Update: Never mind, I had forgotten when I made this post about the 2012 discovery of a cemetery near Bethlehem that dates back to 4000 BC.  And how much of the city had been destroyed multiple times so plenty of reason the archaeological remnants of the BC city would be gone.

I have now settled on Mount Zion but the mountain on who's summit currently sits the Mar Elias Monastery.  And the Church of The Seat of Mary may be both the site of David's Tabernacle and where the Nativity truly happened.  And it's Rock the Corner Stone laid in Zion, that perhaps on that Rock once rested The Ark and the Manager in which Baby Jesus was laid.