What is "bethel"

Bethel \Beth"el\ (b[e^]th"[e^]l), n. [Heb. b[=e]th-el house of God.]

1. A place of worship; a hallowed spot.
   --S. F. Adams.

2. A chapel for dissenters. [Eng.]

3. A house of worship for seamen.

1610s, "a place where God is worshipped," from Hebrew beth El "house of God," from beth, construct state of bayit "house." Popular as a name for religious meeting houses among some Protestant denominations. Beth also was the name of the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, so called for its shape, and was borrowed into Greek as beta.

n. 1 A holy place. 2 A chapel, especially one for sailors.

n. a house of worship (especially one for sailors)

Bethel, also written as Beth El or Beth-El, was a city described in the Hebrew Bible.

Bethel, may also refer to:

Bethel ( Ugaritic: bt il, meaning " House of El" or "House of God", , also transliterated Beth El, Beth-El, or Beit El; ; ) was a border city described in the Hebrew Bible as being located between Benjamin and Ephraim and also a location named by Jacob. Edward Robinson identified the village of Beitin in the West Bank 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.

During Israelite rule, Bethel first belonged to the Tribe of Benjamin, but was later conquered by the Tribe of 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.

Ten years after the Six-Day War, the biblical name was applied to an Israeli settlement Beit El constructed adjacent to Beitin. In several countries—particularly in the US—the name was given to various locations (see Bethel (disambiguation)).

Bethel meaning in Hebrew and Phoenician and Aramaic '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 and Hellenistic periods.

In the treaty between King Esarhaddon of Assyria and Ba‘al I king of Tyre in 677 BC, curses are called down on the Tyrian king if he breaks the treaty, including:

May Bethel and Anat-Bethel deliver you to a man-eating lion.

The name Bethel begins to appear in theophorous name from the 7th century BC onward. Some, for example Porten (1969, p121), suspect it may be this god rather than the city of Bethel that is mentioned :

And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel their confidence.

Or to put it another way, the stone at Bethel which was named House-of-God was also a god in itself, a manifestation of the god Bethel.

Bethel appears in Genesis 31.13, "I am the God of Beth-el, where thou anointedst a pillar, where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy nativity."

may give the personal name Bethelsharezer 'May Bethel protect the king'. This is a verse in which translators greatly differ as to whether Bethel means the town of Bethel which sent Sharezer, or that Sharezar and his fellows were sent to the House of God (that is the temple in Jerusalem), or that "they" sent Bethesharezer and his fellows.

Bethel is mentioned, but unfortunately with no details, in Elephantine and Hermopolis papyri. And in those papyri there are also mentions of gods named Eshembethel 'Name of Bethel' and Ḥerembethel 'Sanctuaury of Bethel' (cf. Arabic ḥaram 'sanctuary').

Sanchuniathon mentions the god Baitylos as a brother of the gods El and Dagon. He later says that the god Sky devised the baitylia, having contrived to put life into stones. The reference would seem to be to Bethels in the plural, that is to many stones like the stone in the Israelite city of Bethel which served a housing for God in Israelite belief.

Compare the Egyptian goddess Hathor whose name means 'House of Horus'.

The Bethel Metro-North Railroad station serves residents of Bethel, Connecticut via the Danbury Branch of the New Haven Line. The station is 62.2 miles to Grand Central Terminal and the average travel time between the two stations is 1 hour, 52 minutes regardless of through trains or transfers at Stamford or South Norwalk. Commuters make up the vast majority of riders using the station. The Connecticut Rail Commuter Council is a board created by the state to represent commuter's interests before Metro North and state officials.

Bethel is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

• Wilson Bethel (born Feb 24, 1984), American actor,Bahamian American.
• Judy Bethel (born 1943), former member of the Canadian House of Commons
• Lorraine Bethel, African American lesbianfeminist poet and author
• McLeod Bethel-Thompson, American quarterback.
• Nicolette Bethel, Director of Culture in the Bahamas
• Paulette Bethel, Ambassador/Permanent Representative of the Bahamas to the United Nations
• Pepsi Bethel (1918-2002), jazz dancer and choreographer

See also:

• Ernest Bethell, British journalist who worked in Korea under Japanese rule. His name is sometimes misspelt Bethel.