Bethel

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Bethel

Bethel (Ugaritic: bt il, meaning "House of El

Bethel (god)

Bethel meaning in Hebrew language and Phoenician language and Aramaic language 'House of El ' or 'House of God' is seemingly the name of a god or an aspect of a god in some ancient middle-eastern texts dating to the Assyrian, Persian Empire and Hellenistic periods....
" or "House of God", , also transliterated

Transliteration

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
Beth El or Beth-El) was a border city described in the Old Testament

Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
as being located between Benjamin

Benjamin

Benjamin in the Book of Genesis, is a son of Jacob, the second son of Rachel, and the founder of the Israelites Tribe of Benjamin; in the Biblical account, unlike Rachel's first son - Joseph , the father of Ephraim and Manasseh - Benjamin was born after Jacob and Rachel arrived in Canaan....
and Ephraim

Ephraim

Ephraim was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Joseph and Asenath, and the founder of the Israelites of Tribe of Ephraim; however some Biblical criticism view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation....
. Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima c 314. He is often referred to as the Father of Church History because of his work in recording the history of the early Christianity church, especially Chronicon and Church_History_....
and Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest and Christian apologetics best known for translating the Vulgate. He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, and his version of the Bible is still an important text in Catholicism....
describe it in their time as a small village that lay 12 Roman miles north of Jerusalem, to the right or east of the road leading to Neapolis

Nablus

Nablus is a Palestinian people city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 134,000. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center....
.

Edward Robinson

Edward Robinson

Edward Robinson is the name of:*Edward Robinson *Edward Robinson director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1910 to 1931.*Edward G. Robinson ...
identified the Palestinian

Palestinian people

Palestinian people or Palestinians , also commonly rendered as Palestinian Arabs are terms commonly used to refer to the Arab population with family origins in Palestine....
Arab

Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
village of Beitin

Beitin

Beitin is a Palestinian people town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank, located northeast of Ramallah along the Highway 60 ....
in the West Bank

West Bank

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Bethel (Ugaritic: bt il, meaning "House of El

Bethel (god)

Transliteration

Old Testament

Benjamin

Ephraim

Eusebius of Caesarea

Jerome

Nablus

Edward Robinson

Edward Robinson is the name of:*Edward Robinson *Edward Robinson director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1910 to 1931.*Edward G. Robinson ...
identified the Palestinian

Palestinian people

Palestinian people or Palestinians , also commonly rendered as Palestinian Arabs are terms commonly used to refer to the Arab population with family origins in Palestine....
Arab

Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
village of Beitin

Beitin

Beitin is a Palestinian people town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank, located northeast of Ramallah along the Highway 60 ....
in the West Bank

West Bank

The West Bank is the eastern Part of the Palestinian territories on the west bank of the River Jordan in the Middle East. To the west, north, and south the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel....
with ancient Bethel in Biblical Researches in Palestine, 1838-52. He based this assessment on its fitting the location described in earlier texts, and on the philological similarities between the modern and ancient name, arguing that the replacement of the Hebrew el with the Arabic in was not unusual.

After the establishment of Israel in Palestine in 1948, the biblical name was applied to an Israeli settlement

Israeli settlement

Israeli settlements are communities inhabited by Israelis in territory that was captured during the 1967 Six-Day War. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank, which is partially under Israeli military administration and partially under the control of the Palestinian National Authority, and in the Golan Heights, which are under Isr...
constructed adjacent to Beitin.

A second biblical Bethel, in the southern Judah

Kingdom of Judah

The Kingdom of Judah existed at two periods in Jewish history. According to the Hebrew Bible, a kingdom emerged in Judah after the death of Saul, when the tribe of Judah elevated David to rule over it....
, is mentioned in Joshua

Joshua

Joshua, Jehoshuah or Yehoshua , born in Egypt, was a biblical Israelite leader who succeeded Moses. His story is told in the Hebrew Bible, chiefly in the books Book of Exodus, Book of Numbers and Book of Joshua....
(8:17 and 12:16), and seems to be the same as Bethul or Bethuel, a city of the tribe of Simeon

Simeon

Simeon, or Shimon is a given name, from the Hebrew . In Greek, it is written S??e??, hence the Latinized spelling Symeon....
.

History

Bethel is mentioned several times in Genesis. It is first mentioned in Genesis 12, but the best-known instance is probably Genesis 28, when Jacob

Jacob

According to the Hebrew Bible, Jacob , also known as Israel , was the third Biblical patriarchs and the ancestor of the twelve Israelites....
, fleeing from the wrath of his brother Esau

Esau

Esau is the brother of Jacob -- the patriarch and founder of the Israelites -- in the Hebrew Bible Book of Genesis. Esau was the oldest son of Isaac and Rebekah and the grandson of Abraham....
, falls asleep on a stone and dreams of a ladder

Jacob's Ladder (Bible)

Jacob's Ladder is a ladder to heaven, described in the Book of Genesis, which the Bible patriarch Jacob envisions during his flight from his brother Esau....
stretching between Heaven and Earth and thronged with angels; Yahweh stands at the top of the ladder, and promises Jacob the land of Canaan

Canaan

Canaan is an ancient term for a region encompassing modern-day Israel and Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, plus adjoining coastal lands and parts of Jordan, Syria and northeastern Egypt....
; when Jacob awakes he anoints the stone (baetylus

Baetylus

Baetylus or Bethel is a Semitic word denoting a sacred stone, which was supposedly endowed with life. These objects of worship were meteorites, which were dedicated to the gods or revered as symbols of the gods themselves The best known such object is the Black Stone in Mecca, and another one is mentioned as Bethel in Book of Genesis Ja...
) with oil and names the place Bethel. Another account, from Genesis 35 repeats the covenant with God and the naming of the place (as El-Bethel), and makes this the site of Jacob's own change of name to Israel. Both versions state that the original name of the place was Luz

Luz

Luz is: The Aramaic word for light, almond and the coccyx. The name of two places in the Bible.* The ancient name of a royal Canaanite city, connected with Bethel ....
, a Canaanite name. The same makes true for Luz in the country of the Hettites (i.e. Luhuzati - Lawazantia) called by the earlier name of Beth-El named in the Karum documents.

Bethel was an important cult-centre for the northern Kingdom of Israel

Kingdom of Israel

The Kingdom of Israel was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy . It existed roughly from the 930s BC until about the 720s BC....
following the break-up of the united kingdom of David

David

David , was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. He is depicted as a righteous king, although not without fault, as well as an acclaimed warrior, musician and poet ....
and Solomon

Solomon

Solomon is a figure described in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an. The biblical accounts identify Solomon as the son of David. He is also called Jedidiah in the Tanakh , and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah split; following th...
. The Second Book of Kings describes how Jeroboam

Jeroboam

Jeroboam He was the first king of the break-away ten tribes or Northern Kingdom of Israel, over whom he reigned twenty-two years.William F....
, first king of Israel, set up centres for his Golden Calf

Golden calf

The golden calf was an idolatry made for the Israelites during Moses' absence, as he went up to Mount Sinai. According to the Hebrew Bible, the calf was made by Aaron to satisfy the Israelites, whereas the Quran indicates the maker to be Samiri....
cult at Bethel on the southern boundary of his kingdom and Dan on the northern boundary, and appointed non-Levites as his priests . Jeroboam's decision to pass over the Mushite priests of Shiloh

Shiloh

Shiloh or Shilo may refer to:...
, the original cult-centre for Israel, deeply offended the Shiloh priesthood and seems to lie behind much of the animosity directed at Jeroboam and the golden calf, which probably emanated from the Mushite priestly clan.

Bethel escaped destruction during the Assyrian conquest of Israel (721 BC), but was occupied by king Josiah

Josiah

Josiah or Yoshiyahu was a king of Judah who instituted major reforms. Josiah is credited by some historians with having established or discovered important Jewish scriptures during the Deuteronomic reform that occurred during his rule....
of Judah

Kingdom of Judah

Books of Kings

The Books of Kings are a part of Judaism's Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. They were originally written in Hebrew language and were later included by Christianity as part of the Old Testament....
, destroyed the ancient Israelite cult centre.

Bethel was again inhabitated and "fortifed by Bacchides the Syrian in the time of the Maccabees

Maccabees

The Maccabees were a Jewish national liberation movement that fought for and won independence from Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty, who was succeeded by his infant son Antiochus V Eupator....
." Josephus

Josephus

Josephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizenship, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70....
tells us that Bethel was captured by Vespasian

Vespasian

Titus Flavius Vespasianus, commonly known as Vespasian , was a Roman Emperor who reigned from 69 A.D. until his death in 79 A.D. Vespasian was the founder of the short lived Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 A.D....
. Robinson notes that after the writings of Eusebius and Jerome, he found no further references to Bethel in the written historical record. However, he notes that the ruins at Beitin are greater than those of a village and seem to have undergone expansion after the time of Jerome, noting also the presence of what appear to be ruins of churches from the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
.

Bibliography

Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite