Khirbet Nimra According to Abel and Jericke among others, Persian and Hellenistic Mamre was located at Khirbet Nimra, 2 km north of the Cave of Machpelah, inside modern Hebron, where a pagan tree cult, supposedly, predates the biblical Abraham narrative. However, excavations at the archaeological site of Khirbet Nimra on the summit of Jebel Nimra did not prove Abel's supposition that this should be an ancient shrine: the archaeological team found only a Persian administrative building from the 6th–5th centuries BCE, that was later converted into an agricultural center, mainly for the manufacture of olive oil and textiles. The building was apparently destroyed during
Alexander the Great's campaign, and was temporarily inhabited by rebels or refugees who had fled Jerusalem during the
First Jewish Revolt against Rome. Abel's (and later Jericke's) hypothesis rests primarily on the linguistically probable assumption that "Nimra" is a corruption of "Mamre". Nonetheless, it seems that "Mamre" was not only an ancient name for Hebron (Gen. 23:19), but referred to the whole wider locality, including the Jebel Nimra mountain, as the Cave of Machpelah is on its western slope, while to its west Nahạl Hebron bisects the city of Hebron. Besides, Jericke's equation of Khirbet Nimra with a highly hypothetical original tree shrine from the Persian and Hellenistic periods led him to date the story of Abraham at Mamre to the Persian period, which was rejected by the majority of other researchers. OpenBible.info, run by
Crossway Bibles (a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers) rates the claim that Khirbet Nimra is Mamre as "very low confidence".
Ramat el-Khalil Research and analysis The archaeological site of Ramat el-Khalil (Grid Ref. 160300/107200) was first excavated by in 1926–1928, followed by Sayf al-Din Haddad (1977), 'Abd el-Aziz Arjub (1984–1985), Greenberg and Keinan list the main periods of settlement as Early Roman, Late Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader, with less substantial findings from the
Iron Age IIc era (700—586 BCE) and the Hellenistic period. but there is no archaeological evidence for the site being occupied from the first half of the second millennium down to the end of the Iron Age The 2 m thick stone wall enclosing an area 49 m wide and 65 m long was constructed by Herod, possibly as a cultic place of worship. It contained an ancient well, more than 5 m in diameter,
Josephus: the terebinth Josephus (37 – c. 100) records a tradition according to which the terebinth at Mamre was as old as the world itself (
War 4.534). The site was soaked in legend. Jews, Christians and Pagans made sacrifices on the site, burning animals, and the tree was considered immune to the flames of the sacrifices. Constantine the Great (r. 302–337) was still attempting, without success, to stop this tradition.
Rabbinical tradition The
Chazal, the early rabbis, condemned the fairs due to
idolatry. According to the
Jerusalem Talmud,
Avodah Zarah 1:4:4:
Late Roman festival and Byzantine basilica Eusebius and
Sozomen describe how, notwithstanding the rabbinic ban, by the time of Constantine the Great's reign (302–337), the market had become an informal interdenominational festival, in addition to its functions as a trade fair, frequented by Christians, Jews and pagans. The 1957 plan and reconstruction of the site made after the excavation performed by German scholar A. E. Mader in 1926–1928, shows the Constantinian basilica along the eastern wall of the
Haram Ramet el-Khalil enclosure, with a well, altar, and tree in the unroofed western part of the enclosure. The venerated tree was destroyed by Christian visitors taking souvenirs, leaving only a stump which survived down to the seventh century. The fifth-century account by
Sozomen (
Historia Ecclesiastica Book II 4-54) is the most detailed account of the practices at Mamre during the early Christian period. The Constantinian basilica was destroyed during the
Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem of 614.
Early Muslim period Arculf, a Frankish bishop who toured the Levant in around 670–680, witnessed the
monastery still being active around 670, a few decades after
Umar's
conquest. He reported, indicating a slightly erroneous location in relation to the Tombs of the Patriarchs: A mile to the north of
the Tombs that have been described above, is the very grassy and flowery hill of Mambre, looking towards Hebron, which lies to the south of it. This little mountain, which is called Mambre, has a level summit, at the north side of which a great stone church has been built, in the right side of which between the two walls of this great Basilica, the Oak of Mambre, wonderful to relate, stands rooted in the earth; it is also called the oak of Abraham, because under it he once hospitably received the Angels. St. Hieronymus elsewhere relates, that this tree had existed from the beginning of the world to the reign of the Emperor Constantine; but he did not say that it had utterly perished, perhaps because at that time, although the whole of that vast tree was not to be seen as it had been formerly, yet a spurious trunk still remained rooted in the ground, protected under the roof of the church, of the height of two men; from this wasted spurious trunk, which has been cut on all sides by axes, small chips are carried to the different provinces of the world, on account of the veneration and memory of that oak, under which, as has been mentioned above, that famous and notable visit of the Angels was granted to the patriarch Abraham.
Crusader period Yitzhak Magen was in 1993 of the opinion that during the
Crusades, the site may have been used by a Church of the Trinity. Denys Pringle firmly refutes this possibility, based on the analysis of pilgrims' reports.
Avraham Negev considers the last clear identification and description of the Byzantine church remains at Ramat el-Khalil to come from the Russian pilgrim known as
Abbot Daniel, who visited the site in 1106/8, and he qualifies other medieval reports from the 12th century onwards as not clear with regard to the location of the site they describe.
After 1150s: different Jewish and Christian locations After the middle of the 12th century the reports become vague and the location of "Abraham's Oak" seems to have migrated to one or more locations situated on the road connecting Ramat el-Khalil with Hebron. What is nowadays considered the traditional location of the Oak of Abraham is a site originally known in Arabic as Ain Sebta, which used to be outside historical Hebron but is now within the urban sprawl of the Palestinian city. As written in a footnote from an 1895 publication of Arculf's pilgrimage report, The Oak or Terebinth of Abraham has been shown in two different sites. Arculf and many others (Jerome, Itinerarium Burdigalense|Itin[erarium] Hierosol[ymitanum], Sozomen, Eucherius [possibly
Eucherius of Lyon],
Benjamin of Tudela, the Abbot Daniel,.... etc.) seem to point to the ruin of er Râmeh, near which is Beit el Khulil, or Abraham's House, with a fine spring well. This is still held by the Jews to be the Oak of Mamre. The Christians point to another site,
Ballûtet Sebta, where [there] is a fine specimen of Sindian (
Quercus Pseudococcifera)."
Ballut is the Arabic word for oak. ==Ramat el-Khalil today==