the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Antipatris
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or Acts 23:31. The station between Jerusalem and Caesarea where the soldiers left Paul, after their night march, in charge of the horsemen who were to take hint forward to Caesarea on the morrow. The old name was Capharsaba. The modern Arabic Kerr Saba does not exactly correspond to Antipatris; for Antipatris was 16 miles from Jaffa, Kefr Saba is only 14; Antipatris was well watered, Kefr Saba has no spring. Herod rebuilt it, and called it Antipatris from his father. It lay in a well watered and wooded plain, near a hilly ridge. The remains of the old Roman road by Gophna to Antipatris were discovered by Dr. Eli Smith. It reaches Ras-el-Ain by Jifneh and Tibueh, thence along the foot of the hills to Jiljulieh, Kalkilia, and Caesarea (Kaisariyeh).
Ras el Ain is probably the true site. The crusaders' castle of Mirabel was built on the foundations of an older edifice; at its foot are the largest springs in Palestine. The Roman road between Jerusalem and Caesarea strikes the plain immediately E. of Antipatris it is, as Josephus describes, in the plain, yet near the mountains. It lies near the nahr Aujeh (Aujeh river), at a point where by a ditch to the mountains the course of a hostile army might be stopped. Not so Kefr Saba. (See Josephus, Ant. 13:15, 1; 16:5, 2. B.J. 1:4, sec. 7.)
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Antipatris'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/a/antipatris.html. 1949.
