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Bible Encyclopedias
Petra
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or (in the earlier Greek writers Πέτρα or ἡ Πέτρα , but in the later αί Πέτραι) was the capital of the Nabathaean Arabs in the land of Edom, and seems to have given name to the kingdom and region of Arabia Petrcea. As there is mention in the Old Testament of a stronghold which successively belonged to the Amorites (Judges 1:36), the Edomites (2 Kings 14:7), and the Moabites (Isaiah 16:1; comp. in Hebrews chapter 42: 11), and bore in Hebrew the name of סֵלִע , Sela, which has the same meaning as Petra in Greek, viz. "a rock," that circumstance has led to the conjecture that the Petra of the Nabathaeans had been the Sela of Edom. (See SELAH). This latter name seems, however, to have passed away with the Hebrew rule over Edom, for no further trace of it is to be found; although it is still called Sela by Isaiah (16:1). These are all the certain notices of the place in Scripture. Arce is said by Josephus to have been a name of Petra (Ant. 4:4, 7); but probably we should read Ἀρκήμ for Ἀρκή (yet see Amer. Bib. Rep. for 1833, page 536, note). (See ARKITE).
1. History. — The earliest notice of this place under the name Petra by the Greek writers is connected with the fact that Antigonus, one of Alexander's successors, sent two expeditions against the Nabathaeans in Petra (Diod. Sic. 19:94-98). The first of these, commanded by Athenaeus, and the second by Demetrius, changed the habits of the Nabathaeans, who had hitherto been essentially nomadic, and led them to engage in commerce. In this way, during the following centuries, they grew up into the kingdom of Arabia Petraea, occupying very nearly the same territory which was comprised within the limits of ancient Edom. In the first expedition, Athenseus took the city by surprise while the men were absent at a neighboring mart or fair, and carried off a large booty of silver and merchandise. But the Nabatheeans quickly pursued him to the number of 8000 men, and, falling upon his camp by night, destroyed the greater part of his army. Of the second expedition, under the comr mand of Demetrius, the Nabathaeans had previous intelligence; and prepared themselves for an attack by driving their flocks into the deserts, and placing their wealth under the protection of a strong garrison in Petra; to which, according to Diodorus, there was but a single approach, and that made by hand. In this way they succeeded in baffling the whole design of Demetrius. For points of history not immediately connected with the city, (See EDOMITES); (See NABATHAEANS).
Strabo, writing of the Nabathaeans in the time of Augustus, thus describes their capital: "The metropolis of the Nabathaeans is Petra, so called; for it lies in a place in other respects plain and level, but shut in by rocks round about, yet within having copious fountains for the supply of water and the irrigation of gardens. Beyond the enclosure the region is mostly a desert, especially towards Judaea" (Geog. 16, page 906). At this time the town had become a place of transit for the productions of the East, and was much resorted to by foreigners (Diod. Sic. 19:95; Strabo, 1.c.). Pliny more definitely describes Petra as situated in a valley less than two miles (Roman) in amplitude, surrounded by inaccessible mountains, with a stream flowing through it (Hist. Nat. 6:28). About the same period it is often named by Josephus as the capital of Arabia Petrsea (War, 1:6, 2; 13, 8; etc.). Petra was situated in the eastern part of Arabia Petraea, in the district called under the Christian emperors of Rome Palsestina Tertia (Vet. Rom. Itin. page 74, ed. Wessel; Malala, Chronogr. 16:400, ed. Bonn). According to the division of the ancient geographers, it lay in the northern district, Gebalene; while the modern ones place it in the southern portion, Esh-Sherah, the Mount Seir of the Bible. Petra was subdued by A. Cornelius Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan (Dion Cass. 58:14). Hadrian seems to have bestowed on it some advantage, which led the inhabitants to give his name to the city upon coins; several of these are still extant (Mionnet, Med. Antiques, 5:587; Eckhel, Doctr. Num. 2:503). It remained under the Roman dominion a considerable period, as we hear of the province of Arabia being enlarged by Septimius Severus, A.D. 195 (ibid. 75:1, 2; Eutrop. 8:18). It must have been during this period that those temples and mausoleums were made, the remains of which still arrest the attention of the traveller; for, though the predominant style of architecture is Egyptian, it is mixed with florid and overloaded Roman- Greek specimens, which are but slightly modified by the native artists. In the 4th century Petra is several times mentioned by Eusebins and Jerome; and in the Greek ecclesiastical Notitiae bf the 5th and 6th centuries it appears as the metropolitan see of the third Palestine (Reland, Palaest. pages 215, 217); the last named of the bishops is Theodorus, who was present at the Council of Jerusalem in A.D. 536 (Oriens Christ. 3:725). From that time not the slightest notice of Petra is to be found in any quarter; and as no trace of it as an inhabited site is to be met with in the Arabian writers, the probability seems to be that it was destroyed in some unrecorded incursion of the desert hordes, and was afterwards left unpeopled. It is true that Petra occurs in the writers of the sera of the Crusades; but they applied this name to Kerak, and thus introduced a confusion as to the true Petra which is not even now entirely removed. It was not until the reports concerning the wonderful remains in Wady Musa had been verified by Burckhardt that the latter traveller first ventured to assume the identity of the site with that of the ancient capital of Arabia Petraea. He expresses this opinion in a letter dated at Cairo, Sept. 12, 1812, published in 1819, in the preface to his Travels in Nubia; but before its appearance the eminent geographer Carl Ritter had suggested the same conclusion on the strength of Seetzen's intimations (Erdkunde, 2:217). Burckhardt's view was more amply developed in his Travels in Syria, page 431, published in 1822, and received the high sanction of his editor, Col. Leake, who produces in support of it all the arguments which have since been relied upon, namely, the agreement of the ancient descriptions with this site, and their inapplicability to Kerak; the coincidence of the ancient specifications of the distances of Petra from the Elanitic gulf and from the Dead Sea, which all point to Wady Musa, and not to Kerak; that Josephus, Eusebius, and Jerome testify that the Mount Hor where Aaron died was in the vicinity of Petra; and that to this day the mountain which tradition and circumstances point out as the same still rears its lonely head above the vale of Wady Musa, while in all the district of Kerak there is not a single mountain which could in itself be regarded as Mount Hor; and even if there were, its position would be incompatible with the recorded journeyings of the Israelites (Leake's Preface to Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pages 7-9; Robinson's Palestine, 2:576-579, 653-659).
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