With Chaim Ben David and Judith Green

The Onomasticon, a monumental endeavor begun in the 1960s by the late Prof. Michael Avi-Yonah, collates all the known Greek and Latin literary and documentary sources mentioning geographical and ethnic names attested in Iudaea, under the Hasmonaean and Herodian dynasties, and in the Roman and Byzantine provinces of Palaestina and Arabia – an area today spread over Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Sinai and southern Syria.

The source texts, dating from the fourth century BCE to the seventh century CE, are culled from over 1,300 texts by more than 750 separate authors, and from papyri, inscriptions and coins. The individual place names are arranged in alphabetical entries, each presenting a comprehensive collection of excerpts from the texts in which that place is mentioned. Where possible, the places are identified and described on the basis of up-to-date archaeological and bibliographical research.

Alongside entries from the great Onomasticon of Eusebius and the Latin version of Jerome, the source texts include descriptions of the landscape, fauna and flora of ancient Judaea/Palaestina and Arabia, stories of the pilgrims who made their way to the holy places, accounts of the battles for the liberation and conquest of the land, lists of bishops serving the dioceses of the Holy Land who joined in the great church councils of the Byzantine period, prescriptions for the treatment of diseases, contracts, milestone inscriptions, coins, lading dockets and many other passages of widely varying types.

Volume III contains the entries for the letter B, including the extensive entries for Beth Govrin (Eleutheropolis) Bethlehem and Bethsan (Beth Shean, Scythopolis).

All of the extracts are presented in the original Greek or Latin and in English translation, except for those that were preserved only in Syriac, which are presented in English translation. Each alphabetical volume concludes with a Research Bibliography and a series of color maps indicating the locations of the sites listed in the volume.