Where is Bethlehem?

On the map

Bethlehem sits on a ridge of the Judean hills, about 775 meters (2,540 feet) above sea level, slightly higher than Jerusalem, which lies 9 kilometers to the north. To the east the land drops away into the Judean desert and on toward the Dead Sea. Five kilometers to the southeast rises Herodium, the cone-shaped hill where King Herod built his palace-fortress and was buried. Beit Jala lies on Bethlehem’s western side, and Beit Sahour on the east, where Christians remember the fields of Luke’s shepherds.

Israel or Palestine?

Bethlehem is in the West Bank. Jordan held it after 1948, and Israel captured it in the Six-Day War of 1967. On December 21, 1995, under the Oslo agreements, Israeli troops withdrew and the city passed to the Palestinian Authority. It lies in Area A, under Palestinian civil and police control, while much of the land around it is under Israeli control. The United Nations and most countries regard the West Bank as occupied Palestinian territory.

Since the early 2000s, Israel’s West Bank barrier, here an 8-meter concrete wall, has run along the city’s northern edge, and visitors from Jerusalem cross a checkpoint. Rachel’s Tomb, at the old northern entrance to the town, sits on the Israeli side of the wall.

Bethlehem in the Bible

Long before Christmas, Bethlehem was a family town in Judah’s hills. Its name is Hebrew Beit Lechem, “house of bread”; in Arabic, Bayt Laḥm, it means “house of meat.”

• Rachel. Jacob’s wife dies in childbirth on the road: “Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath (also called Bethlehem)” (Genesis 35:19).
• Ruth. Naomi comes home from Moab with her daughter-in-law, and Ruth meets Boaz in the barley fields (Ruth 1–4).
• David. Samuel anoints Jesse’s youngest son here (1 Samuel 16). Years later, hiding in the cave of Adullam while the Philistines hold the town, David longs for its water.
• Jesus. Matthew and Luke both place his birth here, and Matthew calls it “Bethlehem of Judea” (Matthew 2:1).

Oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!

Why “of Judea”? Because there was another Bethlehem, in Galilee, listed among the towns of the tribe of Zebulun (Joshua 19:15). It lies about 10 kilometers northwest of Nazareth.

The town today

Life in Bethlehem turns around Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity, built over a cave that Christians were already pointing to around AD 155, when Justin Martyr wrote of it. Constantine’s church was dedicated in 339; Justinian rebuilt it in the sixth century, and his basilica still stands, entered through a door so low it is called the Door of Humility. In the grotto below, a silver star with fourteen points marks the traditional spot, with a Latin inscription: Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est, “Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary.” In 2012 it became the first World Heritage Site listed by UNESCO under Palestine.

Christmas comes three times a year: December 25 for Catholics and Protestants, January 7 for the Orthodox who keep the old Julian calendar, and January 19 for the Armenians. Christians were about 85 percent of the town in 1947; emigration has made them a minority. The name has traveled far. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was named on Christmas Eve 1741 by Moravian settlers, and still calls itself Christmas City.