the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Antipatris
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Ἀντίπατρις)
Antipatris, a Hellenistic town of Palestine, stood at the eastern edge of the Plain of Sharon, where the military road from Jerusalem to Caesarea left the hills. Under the protection of a body of Roman cavalry and infantry, St. Paul was brought thither by night, and thence, with a diminished escort, to Caesarea (Acts 23:31-32). Antipatris was a border town between Judaea and Samaria (Neubauer, Géogr. du Talm., 1868, p. 80f.), and after it was reached there would be less danger of a Jewish attack. Josephus (Ant. xvi. v. 2) gives an account of its foundation:
‘Herod erected another city in the plain called Kapharsaba, where he Chose out a fit place, both for plenty of water and goodness or soil, and proper for the production of what was there planted, where a river encompassed the city itself, and a grove of the beet trees for magnitude was round about it: this he named Antipatris, from his father Antipater.’
The historian elsewhere identifies it with Kapharsaba (Ant. xiii. xv. 1), and Robinson (Biblical Researches, iv. 139f.), followed by Schürer (ii. i. 130f.), naturally concludes that the site must be the modern Kefr Sâbâ; but, as the latter place cannot be described as well-watered, Conder, Warren, G. A. Smith, and Buhl all favour Rasel-‘Ain, a little farther south, at the source of the Aujah.
James Strahan.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Antipatris'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/a/antipatris.html. 1906-1918.
