Bethlehem

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Bethlehem (Hebrew: בית לחם Beth Lechem "House of Bread"; Arabic بيت لحم Bait Lahm, DMG Bayt Laḥm "House of Flesh") is a city in Palestine in what is now the West Bank, bordering Jerusalem directly to the north. According to Christian tradition, Jesus of Nazareth was born here. Rudolf Steiner, however, pointed out that at the turn of the century not one, but two Jesus boys were born in Bethlehem, both of whom came from the lineage of David. The Solomonic Jesus boy, whose parents lived in Bethlehem, came from the royal line of the house of David, as the Gospel of Matthew reports. The Nathanian Jesus, on the other hand, whose parents, according to the Gospel of Luke], lived in Nazareth and had only come to Bethlehem for the census, came from the priestly line (Lit.:GA 15, p. 74ff).

According to Rudolf Steiner, in pre-Christian times the cult of Adonis was cultivated in Bethlehem, which in a certain way was a pre-proclamation of the Mystery of Golgotha and where there was also an awareness of the preliminary stages to the Mystery of Golgotha.

„We experience the peculiarity that at the place which then became so important for the development of Christianity, one of these proclaimed facts took place. We see how in the most diverse places in the Near East, and also in Europe, festivals are celebrated which, as it were, prefigure the Christ event, prefigure the Mystery of Golgotha. The Adonis cult and the Attis cult have rightly been interpreted as prophetic proclamations of the event of Golgotha. But when we look at all these festivals, we always see that they actually represent the future as a meteorological event. The God who is killed there as Adonis and rises again is not thought of as embodied in the flesh, but what one has as God is first of all an image: the image of that angelic being which at the end of the Atlantean time was interspersed by the Christ in the spiritual heights and which then became the Nathanian Jesus boy. The fate of the Nathanian boy Jesus was celebrated in the service of Adonis and Attis. And it was world-historical karma - you will perhaps look for more behind this word - that at the place where the Bible places the birth of the Jesus boy with a certain right, that an Adonis cult had been performed in Bethlehem before. Bethlehem was one of the places where Adonis cults were performed. The dying and rising Adonis was often celebrated there, and thus the aura was prepared by evoking the memory: Once upon a time, in spiritual heights, there was a being who at that time still belonged to the hierarchy of the Angeloi, a being who was later to come to earth as the Nathanian Jesus boy, a being who at that time, however, at the end of the Atlantean time, was interspersed with the Christ. What had happened at that time for the harmonisation of thinking, feeling and willing was celebrated in the Adonis festival. And at the site of Bethlehem, where this Adonis festival was celebrated, we also have the birthplace of the Nathanian Jesus boy.“ (Lit.:GA 149, p. 73f)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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