Last page update: 21 January, 2017.
Last page update: 21 January, 2017.
Beth Pagi
Beth Pagi:
- Means: Place of Meeting
- Nicknamed: House of Judgement (Beth Din)
- A Sanhedrin courthouse was in Beth Pagi.
- Nicknamed: House of the Circle Beth Galeel
- The judges were seated in half a circle, half a threshing floor, so they could see each other.
- Nicknamed: Mountain of meeting because it basically was whole mt Olives.
- Nicknamed: Mount of the House (=Temple)
- ‘Mount of the House’ isn’t the mount Ophel were the Temple stood on, but it’s a mount Olives that was part of the Temple precincts.
Matt 24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple.
Matt 24:2 And Jesus said to them, See you not all these things? truly I say to you, There shall not be left here one stone on another, that shall not be thrown down.
The buildings and things were the Temple itself and all things found in Beth Pagi as listed below. Everything was completely destroyed by the Romans during a war that started in 68 AD and ended in 70 AD with the complete destruction of the Temple.
Beth Pagi was a walled area around the villages Bethany and Bethpage; extending from mt. Ophel to the most eastern border of Bethpage.
The Beth Pagi area included:
- Administrative buildings
- Arch of account containing ledgers. Certificates of debt.
- Burned down by the Zealots in 66AD
- Chamber of witnesses for the new moon.
- House of census
- House of Tanna/Sages. Most of the Sanhedrin resided here.
- Merchant station
- Sanhedrin courthouse
- There were 3 Sanhedrin courts in total:
- 3 member Sanhedrin
- 23 member legal/juridical Sanhedrin.
- 71 member religious Sanhedrin.
- Commerce
- Bazaars of Annas -
four in total - Dove aviary
- Items for purification.
- 2 other bazaars selling material for Temple sacrifice.
- All destroyed in 66 AD (likely by the Zealots)
- Moneychangers
- Stores
- Vendors of all sort
- Sacrificial places
- Bet HaDeshen -
“Place of Fat Ahes” - Pit for burning sin offerings were the Red Heifer and Atonement goat were burned.
- Bet HaSeqilah -
Place of Stoning. The place where He died and ascended. - Miphkad -
Altar were the Red Heifer was slain - Place were the Red Heifer and Atonement goat were burned.
- Various
- Gethsemane
- House of immersion -
baptism - House of interpretation -
a school - Possibly the ‘Court of Gentiles’
- Stables
- The bridge of the Red Heifer connecting the mt Ophel and mt Olives.
- Golgotha
- Villages
- Bethany aka Beth Hini -
House of misery - Bethany and Bethphage were linked together. A twin-
city sharing a border. - Bethany was a priestly village on the eastern slope of mt Olives.
- Lazarus lived here.
- Bethphage -
House of unripe figs - According to Jewish writings this is were Jesus asks for an ass to for His triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
- Also known as the the priestly city Nob
- Annas resided here
- Bethphage was a priestly village
- Situated the south summit mt. Olive
And was the place of stoning only just outside the court and no further? Has it not been taught: The place of stoning was outside the three encampments? . . . It is here stated, Without the camp; and in reference to the bulls that were [wholly] burned, it is also said, without the camp; Just as there [it means] without the three camps, so here too . . . On the contrary, it should rather be deduced from the sacrifices slaughtered without [for instance, the Red Heifer, the Atonement Goat, and the Bullock bearing sin], since they have the following in common; [i] human being; [ii] sinners; [iii] life is taken; and [iv] piggul? . . . [note] “in . . . these cases, the leading ‘without the camp’ was in order to take life—that of the blasphemer and the sacrifice yet to be slaughtered.
Sanhedrin Tractate of the Talmud
The above quote explains that the execution/stoning site was outside the camp (2000 cubits/3000 feet from the Temple).
The execution site on mt Olives was near ‘Place of fat ashes’ where:
- The ashes of the ‘Altar of burned offering’ was dumped.
- The ‘Atonement goat’ was burned.
- The ‘Red Heifer’ was burned.
- The ‘bullock bearing sin’ was burned.
- 1 Pet 2:24 "He himself bore our sins" in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; "by his wounds you have been healed."
Those places were ‘outside the camp’ which was (at least) 2000 cubits, or 3000 feet from the Holies of Holies. The high priest observed those sacrifices being made from the Temple entrance that faced east. God sat inside the Temple and also watched in that direction. So all sacrifices inside and outside the camp were visible from the Temple. That’s also the reason that the people standing next to Jesus saw the Temple curtain being ripped in two when Jesus died.
All those things are important because Jesus symbolically was all those sacrifices.
“blasphemer and the sacrifice” in the above quote means the blasphemer was a sacrifice. It’s not about two different things. Jesus was falsely accused of blasphemy and for that reason he was a sacrifice.