Biblical Hebrew Blog by ClassicalHebrew.com

The city of Bethel is located north of Jerusalem and is identified as what is now the Arab village Bitan. It is first mentioned as a place near which Abraham first settled when arriving in Canaan, and is mentioned throughout Israelite history in the Bible. The archaeological findings date as far back as the 21^st century BCE.

According to the Book of Genesis, Bethel, literally “The House of God,” which was originally named Luz, was thus named by the Patriarch Jacob. It was there that Jacob, when sleeping on the road after escaping from his brother, Esau, saw a vision of a ladder reaching up into the heavens and angels ascending and descending on it. It was during this vision that he was promised the land of Israel for his descendants, and he proceeded to make a vow to God: “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going . . . so that I return to my father’s house in peace, then YHWH shall be my God” (Genesis 28:20-21).

Later in the History of Israel, the city was conquered by Joshua and became part of the inheritance of the tribe of Joseph. Bethel was a major city in the times of the Judges and of the prophet Samuel, and an important place of worship. Bethel gained a special status upon the division of the United Kingdom in the days of Jeroboam, and was one of the two major places of worship where the golden calves were placed (along with the northern city of Dan).

Bethel was not destructed during the Assyrian attack against the Israelite kingdom, but it was conquered by the Judean king Josiah, who destroyed the cultic center as part of his religious reformation (circa 622 BCE).

Bethel was resettled after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile and thrived throughout the Second Temple Period, and was probably still sparsely populated until the Byzantine period.
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The patriarchal age is one of great importance for the people of Israel: it begins with Abraham’s journey, a daring voyage to a strange land led by faith in a then new, single God, who said unto him: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). At a late age of 100, 25 years after having arrived in Canaan, Abraham and Sarah give birth to their son, Isaac, and he and Rebecca then give birth to Esau and Jacob. Jacob, Rachel, Lea and their handmaids give birth to twelve sons. Jacob is renamed Israel, and the family started by Abraham and distinguished by the monotheistic faith starts to become a nation, comprised of twelve tribes. The land of Canaan, to which God led Abraham, becomes the land of the people of Israel.

Historically, the patriarchal age is believed to have begun some time between the 21^st and the 15^th century B.C.E., and to have lasted for a few hundred years. At this time, the patriarchs were foreigners in the land of Canaan, then inhabited by many small nations. Having originated in Mesopotamia (current Iraq; Abraham’s native city was in the southern part of this region), Mesopotamian traditions and practices, such as dedication of holy places when a revelation has taken place, are described in the Bible as part of the patriarchs’ every-day life. The patriarchs also distinguished themselves from Canaanite practices and social ties by their insistence that the sons of the family not marry local women, and marry only members of the extended family who resided in Haran (current south-east Turkey). This distinction from the Canaanite nations is later apparent in various biblical decrees against intermarriage.

The patriarchs are not only the genealogical fathers of the nation: they are also the first prophets and the founders of the covenant between God and the people of Israel.
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Legend has it, that when George Smith, a young scholar at the British Museum in 1857, managed to decipher the cuneiform tablet he was working on and realized that he had discovered a Mesopotamian version of the story of the flood described in the book of Genesis, he undressed in euphoria, unable to contain his excitement. The discovery that there is such a parallel story is a landmark in biblical research and in understanding that the Bible did not spring out of nowhere and is innately connected to the cultures surrounding Israel.

Versions of the story of the flood are found in three major Mesopotamian writings: the stories of Zeosudra (Sumerian) and Atrahasis (Acadian), which are fairly similar, and the Epoch of Gilgamesh. In Atrahasis, the gods, weary of all the hard work of building and working the land, decided to create man, in order for him to do their labor. However, although humans did undertake this task, they were extremely loud, and the gods were unable to rest as they had longed. They therefore took various measures in order to destroy human kind, the last of which was to bring a seven day flood upon the Earth. The only person to survive was Atrahasis, who gathered his family into a ship, closed the door behind them, and remained there until the storm abated and the birds he sent out did not return.

In the epoch of Gilgamesh, the hero bearing that name sets out in search of eternal life. At the end of his quest, he meets a couple who achieved immortality, having survived the flood, but could not reproduce. The hero, Utnapishtim, tells a story of the flood similar to that of Atrahasis.

Although there are clear similarities between the biblical story and the Mesopotamian legends, there are also very important differences: in the biblical story, God decides to destroy human kind due to moral reasons – he could not allow the Earth to continue existing in its corrupt and violent state, while the Mesopotamian gods simply wanted to sleep and found destruction to be the fastest and easiest solution, showing no regard for human life; Noah does not achieve immortality, unlike Utnapishtim; Noah does not close the door of the arc himself, therefore leaving out the rest of mankind – God does this (Genesis 7:16), for only He can determine who will survive the flood; in the biblical story, God vows that he will never again destroy human kind, while in the Mesopotamian story, the gods find solutions for the abundance of humans by the creation of various phenomena such as stillborns and barren women.
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