Bethel

Bethel Ugaritic: bt il, meaning "House of El" or "House of God", Hebrew: בֵּית אֵל, also transliterated Beth El, Beth-El, or Beit El; Greek: Βαιθηλ; Latin: Bethel) was a border city described in the Hebrew Bible as being located between Benjamin and Ephraim. Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome 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.

Edward Robinson identified the village of Beitin in Palestine 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.

Ten years after the Six Day War, the biblical name was applied to an Israeli settlement Beit El constructed adjacent to Beitin.

A second biblical Bethel, in the southern Judah, is mentioned in the Book of Joshua (Joshua 8:17 and Joshua 12:16), and seems to be the same as Bethul or Bethuel, a city of the tribe of Simeon.