Nezib (Hastings' Dictionary)

A town in the Shephélah of Judah, noticed next to Keilah, Jos 15%, It is the present Bett Nusib. mentioned in the Onomasticon (Lagarde, 283. 142) as 7 Roman miles from Eleutheropolis on the road to Hebron. It lies to the south of Keilah. Lrrerature.—S WP vol. iii. sheet xxi.; Robinson, BRP? ii. 17, δὲ, 221; Buhl, GAP 193; Guérin, Judée, tii. 343 ff. All these accept of the above identification, against which, however, Dillm. (Jos. ad loc.) argues. Cc. R. CONDER. NIBHAZ (1732.

also in some MSS 1922 and '922; B EBdafép, A ᾿Αβααζὲρ καὶ Ναιβάς [a doublet], Luc. ES\acéfep).

— An idol of the Avvites, which they wor- shipped with Tartak, and introduced into Samaria, whither they had been transported by the Assyrian king Sargon (2 K 1781), To all appearance, the | | | | 544 NICODEMUS, GOSPEL OF ‘He that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that 1is works may be made manifest that they have been wrought in God’ (Jn 3%), Nicodemus dis- appears from the NT at Jn 19”; but in an apocry- i narrative of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, which has come down to us from very early times in different forms (Greek, Latin, Coptic, not to speak of Irish and other secondary versions), and variously entitled the Gospel of Nicodemus or the Acts of Pilate, his history is carried further.

See next article. » Other legends represent Nicodemus as having being baptized by Peter and John, and as being deprived of his office and banished from Jerusalem through the hostility of the Jews. Gamaliel is described as burying him near St. Stephen, and a later story tells of the finding of the bodies of Stephen, Gamaliel, and Nicodemus in a common tomb (3rd August 415, according to the Western Martyrologies).

Further Christian legends re- garding Nicodemus, particularly his alleged acti- vity as a sculptor, are discussed by von Dobschiitz in his Christusbilder (‘Texte u. Untersuch.’ 1899, pp. 280°-292**). J. H. BERNARD.