Bethel
Bethel is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Khirbet el Qaryatein. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
This variant identification of Bethel, associated with Khirbet el-Qaryatein in the Judean region, reflects the complexity of biblical topography where multiple sites bear the same or similar names. The name Bethel: "house of God", carried such religious weight in Israelite memory that it was applied to several localities with sacred associations. This particular Bethel appears in a single Old Testament verse and is distinguished from the major northern shrine city near Beitin by its location in Judea proper. Some scholars associate it with a Judean clan settlement or a cultic high place that bore the name without the same patriarchal pedigree as the northern Bethel. It may represent a local sanctuary that drew on the prestige of Jacob's original vision at Bethel to legitimize its own religious identity, or it may simply reflect textual variants and geographical overlaps common in ancient tribal boundary descriptions. Its solitary scriptural mention renders its full history largely opaque, though its location in the southern hill country places it within the heartland of the tribe of Judah.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Khirbet el-Qaryatein, the proposed identification for this lesser-known Judean Bethel, is a ruin site in the southern hill country of Israel. Archaeological surveys of the region have identified pottery sherds and surface remains indicating occupation during the Iron Age and possibly earlier periods, consistent with a modest settlement or cultic site. The site has not been subjected to systematic excavation, and its identification rests primarily on geographical reasoning and comparison with biblical boundary lists. The broader region shows evidence of numerous small Iron Age settlements that served the agrarian communities of Judah, and such minor localities frequently bore names with theological significance in the Hebrew naming tradition.
Verse Appearances (1)
1Sam
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]