The Nazarean Legacy

Abstract

After Pompey Magnus’s conquest of the Hellenistic East in 64 B.c., the Roman administrators of Asia Occidentalis divided the Arabian peninsula into three realms: Arabia Petraea (Rocky Arabia), which stretched from Greater Syria to the Gulf of Ayala (Aqaba), and whose capital in Petra (the Rock) was carved out by the Nabateans from sandstone on the slopes of Ain Musa; Arabia Deserta (desert Arabia) with Bostra (Busra) as the commercial capital in Hawran; and Arabia Felix (happy Arabia) or Yemen with the capital city of Mariaba (Ma’rib). Arabia Petraea, despite its wilderness, played a significant role in the political life of the empire.’ Because of the natural supply of pure water in the barren land, it was a midpoint on the ancient caravan route from Hadramaut to Egypt and Syria. A variety of goods-the myrrh and frankincense of the Sabaean Arabia Felix, ivory, gold, and slaves of East Africa, spices, gems, and precious wood of India- were transported via Petra and Gerasa (Jerash) to Damascus, Alexandria, and Rome. In Arabia Petraea, the Prophet Yusuf was cast into a well by his brothers from which he was found and brought to Egypt, where he was sold. Many readers of the Bible believe that Ain Musa near Petra is the spring that the Prophet Musa caused to gush forth. In the time of the Prophet Sulayman, Arabia Petraea was populated by the semitic tribes of Edom and Moab. During the rule of the Babylonian Nabuchadnezzar who sacked Jerusalem in 587 B.c. and deported Judean rebels to Babylon, the Edomites established a kingdom of Sela in the land of Seir. But at the end of the sixth century B.c., the Nabateans forced them to migrate to Idumea. Under the Nabatean rule, Petra was recognized as the ancient “duty-fire” city. The Nabatean desert kingdom survived as an independent state until the ...