Bethlehem

A small hill-town in the Judean highlands, about ten kilometers south of Jerusalem. In the Hebrew Bible Bethlehem is the home of Jesse and his sons — including David, anointed king while still a shepherd boy — and in the New Testament it is the birthplace of Jesus.

The name means "house of bread" in Hebrew. Surrounded by terraced fields of wheat and barley and groves of olive and fig, the town was a quiet farming community in the early Iron Age, a long day's walk from the courts of Saul at Gibeah.