Where was Bethel?

Question

Where was Bethel?

Accepted Answer

Bethel stood in the hills about 16 km north of Jerusalem in a straight line, on the watershed road that runs along the ridge, near the border between the lands of Benjamin and Ephraim. Most scholars identify it with the village of Beitin, north of Ramallah in the West Bank, where the map's point stands; other sites have been proposed, and the point is marked as disputed. In Genesis Abraham pitches his tent between Bethel and Ai and builds an altar, and Jacob, sleeping there on his way to Haran, dreams of a ladder reaching to heaven: "And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first." When the kingdom divided, Jeroboam made Bethel the royal sanctuary of Israel: "And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan", the two golden calves. Amos prophesied there against the house of Jeroboam II, and Josiah later tore down its altar. W. F. Albright and J. L. Kelso excavated at Beitin between 1927 and 1960 and found a walled town of the Middle Bronze Age and a burned town of the Late Bronze Age; the dating of several layers has been questioned since. In the fourth century Eusebius knew Bethel as a village twelve Roman miles from Jerusalem, about 18 km, on the road to Neapolis (Shechem). Shiloh, where the tabernacle stood, lies about 15 km further north along the same hills.