Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

BETHEL

(Heb. bêṯ-ʾēl)

(DEITY)

A deity attested for the first time in a 7th-century b.c.e. treaty of Esarhaddon, though certainly venerated in earlier periods. Despite many possibilities, few references to this god in the Bible have been convincing. The most likely are the textually corrupt Zech. 7:2, in the personal name Bêt-ʾēl-śar-ʾeṣer (“May Bethel protect the prince”), and Jer. 48:13, where Bethel is parallel to the Moabite deity Chemosh. Yet even these instances are uncertain. The first could be elliptical (cf. NRSV) or a circumlocution for God; the second, despite the parallelism, may still be a topographical designation.

Outside the Bible, the clearest references to Bethel are in the Elephantine papyri and Philo of Byblos, who cites the 6th-century b.c.e. Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon’s report that Bethel (Baitylus) was a sibling of Elus (Kronos, El), Dagon, and Atlas, all of whom were sons of Uranus and Ge.

Bibliography. J. P. Hyatt, “The Deity Bethel and the Old Testament,” JAOS 59 (1939): 81-98; W. Röllig, “Bethel,” DDD, 173-75.

Brent A. Strawn

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

BETHEL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)