ADORAIM

ADORAIM (Heb. אֲדוֹרַיִם), ancient city of Judah, southwest of Hebron. It appears in the Bible only in the list of cities fortified by Solomon's son, *Rehoboam (ii Chron. 11:9). Adoraim (Adoram) is also mentioned in the Book of Jubilees 38:8–9. In the Hellenistic period, when it was known as Adora, it was one of the chief cities of Idumea; the Ptolemaic official Zeno visited it in 259 b.c.e. (Zeno papyri, 76). The city is also mentioned in i Maccabees 13:20 in connection with the campaigns of the Hasmonean *Jonathan and his adversary Tryphon in 143 b.c.e. It was later captured by John Hyrcanus together with Marisa and the whole of Idumea (Jos., Wars, 1:63; Ant., 13:257). The Roman proconsul Gabinius (d. 48/7 b.c.e.) chose it as the seat of one of his synhedria ("councils"; Jos., Ant., 14:91) and it retained its Jewish character until the end of the Bar Kokhba War (135 c.e.). The site is occupied by the twin villages of Dūrā al-ʾArajān, 5 mi. (8 km.) south west of Hebron, situated on a plateau overlooking the coastal plain, with a population of 10,000.

[Michael Avi-Yonah]

Modern Period

The name Adoraim also describes a ridge of the Hebron Hills. Most of the ridge, including the site of ancient Adoraim, remained until 1967 on the Jordanian side of the 1949 armistice lines. However, the name Adoraim was given in the middle 1950s to a specially planned region in the Judean Foothills under Israel control between the Bet Guvrin–Hebron road and Kibbutz.

[Efraim Orni]

bibliography:

em 1 (1965), 103–4; Abel, in: rb, 35 (1926), 531; 36 (1927), 145; Abel, Geog, 2 (1938), 239; W.F. Albright, in: basor, 89 (1943), 14 no. 37; Albright, Stone, 347 D. Kallner (Amiram), in: bjpes, 14 (1948–49), 30–37; Kanael, in: iej, 7 (1957), 98–106.