Bethel

Bethel (Hebrew: בֵּית אֵל, romanized: Bēṯ ʾĒl, "House of El" or "House of God",^[1] also transliterated Beth El, Beth-El, Beit El; Greek: Βαιθήλ; Latin: Bethel) was an ancient Israelite city and sacred space that is frequently mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.^[2]

Bethel is first referred to in the Bible as being near the place where Abram pitched his tent. Later, Bethel is mentioned as the location of Jacob's Ladder that Jacob named Bethel "House of God". The name is further used for a border city located between the territory of the tribe of Benjamin and that of the tribe of Ephraim, which first belonged to the Benjaminites and was later conquered by the Ephraimites. In the 4th century, Eusebius and Jerome described Bethel as a small village that lay 12 Roman miles north of Jerusalem to the right or the east of the road leading to Neapolis.^[3]

Most scholars identify Bethel with the modern-day village of Beitin, located in the West Bank, 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) northeast of Ramallah.^[4] After the fall of the Crusader kingdom, Bethel was left in ruins under the rule of Saladin, remaining uninhabited for centuries until the mid-19th century when modern-day Beitin was established.^[5] In 1977, the biblical name was applied to the Israeli settlement of Beit El, founded nearby. In several countries, particularly the United States, the name has been given to various locations (see Bethel (disambiguation)).