Bethany
Bethany, locally called in Arabic al-Eizariya or el-Aizariya, is a Palestinian town in the Jerusalem Governorate of Palestine, bordering East Jerusalem, in the West Bank. The name al-Eizariya refers to the New Testament figure Lazarus of Bethany, who according to the Gospel of John, was raised from the dead by Jesus in the town. The traditional site of the miracle, the Tomb of Lazarus, in the city is a place of pilgrimage.
The town is located on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, less than from Jerusalem. With a population of 22,928 inhabitants according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it is the second largest city in the Quds Governorate of the State of Palestine, after only East Jerusalem, which has been annexed by and is completely under the control of Israel, although this annexation is unrecognized internationally.
Name
Al-Eizariya
The name Al-Eizariya means place of Lazarus. In 1840, in his Biblical Researches in Palestine, Edward Robinson wrote: "The Arab name of the village is el-'Aziriyeh, from el-'Azir, the Arabic form of Lazarus. The name "Bethany" is unknown among the native inhabitants. Yet, there is no reason to question the identity of the place" with the Biblical Bethany.Bethany
The root meaning and origin of the name Bethany has been the subject of much scholarship and debate. William Hepworth Dixon devotes a multi-page footnote to it in his The Holy Land, largely devoted to debunking the meaning "house of dates", which is attributed to Joseph Barber Lightfoot by way of a series of careless interpretative mistakes. Dixon quotes Emanuel Deutsch of the British Museum, who suggests a non-Hebrew root, a word transcribed in Syriac script whose meaning he gives as "House of Misery" or "Poor-house".This theory as to Bethany's etymology, which was eventually also adopted by Gustaf Dalman in 1905, is not without challengers. For example, E. Nestle's Philologica Sacra suggests that Bethany is derived from the personal name Anaiah, while others have suggested it is a shortened version of Ananiah, a village of Bethel mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah. Since Greek can neither reproduce an /h/ sound nor the harsh /ħ/ sound in the middle of a word, a derivation from the personal name Chananya is also possible.
Another suggestion, arising from the presence of nearby Bethphage, is that its name comes from,, possibly meaning "house of figs", which location Talmudic texts place near Jerusalem. Some translations suggest it is Bethany.
Deutsch's thesis, however, seems to also be attested to by Jerome. In his version of Eusebius', the meaning of Bethany is defined as domus adflictionis or "house of affliction". Brian J. Capper writes that this is a Latin derivation from the Hebrew, or more likely the Aramaic, both of which mean "house of the poor" or "house of affliction/poverty", also semantically speaking "poor-house". Capper concludes, from historical sources as well as this linguistic evidence, that Bethany may have been the site of an almshouse.
According to Capper and Deutsch before him, there are also linguistic difficulties that arise when the Anaiah/Ananiah, "house of figs" or "house of dates" theses are compared against the form used in Greek versions of the New Testament. Additionally, the Aramaic is the form used for Bethany in Christian Palestinian and Syriac versions of the New Testament. Given this, and Jerome's familiarity with Semitic philology and the immediate region, Capper concludes that the "house of affliction"/"poor-house" meaning as documented by Jerome and in the Syriac New Testament usage is correct, and that this meaning relates to the use of the village as a centre for caring for the sick and aiding the destitute and pilgrims to Jerusalem.
It may be possible to combine the Ananiah and "house of the poor" derivations, since the shortening of Ananiah to Anya is conceivable though unattested, whence a typical Semitic wordplay might arise between Anya as a shortening of the personal name within the name of the village and as Aramaic for "poor". Such a wordplay may have served the choice of the village as the location for an almshouse.
History
Antiquity
The site is believed to have been continuously inhabited from the 6th century BCE. In 1923–1924, American archaeologist William F. Albright identified the village with Ananiah ; however, Edward Robinson and others have identified Ananiah with present-day Beit Hanina.According to the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913, there have been scholars who questioned whether al-Eizariya was the actual site of the ancient village of Bethany:
Some believe that the present village of Bethany does not occupy the site of the ancient village; but that it grew up around the traditional cave which they suppose to have been at some distance from the house of Martha and Mary in the village; Zanecchia places the site of the ancient village of Bethany higher up on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, not far from the accepted site of Bethphage, and near that of the Ascension. It is quite certain that the present village formed about the traditional tomb of Lazarus, which is in a cave in the village... The site of the ancient village may not precisely coincide with the present one, but there is every reason to believe that it was in this general location."
New Testament
Bethany is recorded in the New Testament as a small village in Judaea, the home of the siblings Mary of Bethany, Martha, and Lazarus, as well as that of Simon the Leper. Jesus is reported to have lodged there after his entry into Jerusalem. The village is referenced in relation to six incidents:- The interrogation of John the Baptist by the priests and Levites sent by the Pharisees: John 1:19-34
- The raising of Lazarus from the dead: John 11:1-46
- The return of Jesus to Judaea, after sojourning in a "region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples". The Gospel of John reports that "Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead."
- The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, which Jesus begins near Bethany: Mark 11:1 and Luke 19:29
- The lodging of Jesus in Bethany during the following week: Matthew 21:17 and Mark 11:11-12
- The dinner in the house of Simon the leper, at which Jesus was anointed: Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, and John 12:1-8
- Before the Ascension of Jesus into heaven: Luke 24:50
Crusader era
The Crusaders called al-Eizariya by its Biblical name Bethany. In 1138, Fulk, King of Jerusalem and Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem, purchased the village from the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in exchange for land near Hebron. The queen founded a large Benedictine abbey dedicated to Mary of Bethany and Martha near the Tomb of Lazarus. Melisende's sister Ioveta, thenceforward "of Bethany," was one of the first abbesses. Melisende died there in 1163; her stepdaughter, Sibylla of Anjou, also died there in 1165. Melisende's granddaughter Sibylla, also later Queen of Jerusalem, was raised in the abbey. After the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, the nuns of the convent went into exile. The village seems to have been abandoned thereafter, though a visitor in 1347 mentioned Greek Orthodox monks attending the tomb chapel.Yaqut al-Hamawi described it as "A village near Jerusalem. There is here the tomb of Al Azar, whom Isa brought to life from being dead."
Mamluk era
In the 1480s, during the Mamluk period, Felix Fabri visited and described different places in the village, including a "house and storehouse" of Maria Magdalen, the house of Martha, the church of the sepulchre of Lazarus, and the house of Simon the Leper. He described the village as being "well-peopled", with the inhabitants being saracen.Ottoman era
In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine, and in the 1596 tax-records it appeared as 'Ayzariyya, located in the Nahiya of Jabal Quds of the Liwa of Al-Quds. The population was 67 households, all Muslim. They paid taxes on wheat, barley, vineyards and fruit trees, occasional revenues, goats and beehives; a total of 14,000 Akçe.The Ottomans built the al-Uzair Mosque and named it in honor of Lazarus, who is revered by both Christians and Muslims. For 100 years after it was constructed, Christians were invited to worship in it, but the practice was frowned upon by European church authorities who preferred that adherents of both faiths remain separate.
In 1838, Edward Robinson visited, and described it as a poor village of some 20 families. It was also noted as a Muslim village, located in the el-Wadiyeh region, east of Jerusalem.
In 1870, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village. Socin found that al-Eizariya had a population of 113, with a total of 36 houses, from an official Ottoman village list from about the same year. The population count included men only. Hartmann found that the village had 35 houses.
In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described the village, as being on the side of a hill, with a ravine running down on the east side of it. The houses were built of stone. The village was dominated by the remains of a Crusader building. A mosque with a white dome was built over what was traditionally the tomb of Lazarus. A second small mosque, dedicated to a Sheik Ahmed, was located to the south of the village.
Around 1890, Khalil Aburish, whose ancestors had officially been designated "guardians of the holy resting place of Lazarus", began promoting al-Eizariya as a tourist or pilgrimage destination.
In 1896 the population of El-'azarije was estimated to be about 315 persons.
In the early 20th century, visitors counted 40 family dwellings in the village. In 1917, it had about 400 residents.