Bethany, in the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, was the name of a village near Jerusalem - see Bethany (Biblical village) - mentioned in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 as the home of the siblings Mary, Martha

Martha

Martha of Bethany is a biblical figure described in the Gospels of Luke and John. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Mary, she is described as living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem...

, and Lazarus

Lazarus of Bethany

Lazarus of Bethany, also known as Saint Lazarus or Lazarus of the Four Days, is the subject of a prominent miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death...

 and, according to the Gospel of John

Gospel of John

The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

, the site of a miracle

Miracle

A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...

 in which Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 raises Lazarus from the dead. This village is commonly identified with the present-day West Bank

West Bank

The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

 city of al-Eizariya

Al-Eizariya

Al-Eizariya or al-Izzariya , sometimes referred to by its medieval name of Bethany, is a city in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it is the second largest Palestinian city in the Jerusalem Governorate , with a population of 17,606 inhabitants.Located on the...

, located about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of Jerusalem on the south-eastern slope of the Mount of Olives

Mount of Olives

The Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters . It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes...

. During the Crusades

Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...

, al-Eizariya was still referred to as Bethany by Christians.

There a second biblical site of this name, Bethany beyond the Jordan, called Bethabara

Bethabara

This entry incorporates text from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia with some modernisation.Bethabara , in modern-day Jordan: According to the King James Version This entry incorporates text from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia with some modernisation.Bethabara...

in the King James Version of the Bible. This locality on the Jordan River above the Dead Sea

Dead Sea

The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...

 is described in the New Testament as the site where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

.

Many places are named for the biblical village of Bethany. Bethany is also used as a female given name

Bethany (given name)

Bethany is a feminine given name derived from a Biblical place name meaning "house of figs." Bethany was the town where Lazarus lived in the New Testament....

. It is of Aramaic origin.