Bethel (Ugaritic: bt il, meaning "House of El" or "House of God", Hebrew: בֵּית אֵל, also transliteratedBeth 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 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.
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.
Beitin has been identified as the biblical Bethel, the site where Jacob slept and dreamt of the angels coming up and down a ladder (Genesis 28:19). Some scholars believe that Bethel was located on the site of the ruins surrounding Beitin. According to Jewish tradition, Jacob encountered God in Luz and renamed the town Bethel or "house of God." However, based on a reading of Josephus, where he writes vayetsai mebeit-el luzah ("from Bethel to Luz,") Luz and Bethel may have been two different places
