You are strongly recommended to add to your library the excellent revised edition of Harper's Bible Dictionary titled, The Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, Revised Edition, edited by Paul J. Achtemeier, with the Society of Biblical Literature (NY: Harper Collins, 1996). It is currently the best one-volume Bible dictionary in English, and it is available at Border's Books, Christian Science Reading Rooms, http://www.borders.com, or http://www.christianbook.com.

Bethany.

1 A village on the lower eastern slope of the Mount of Olives (Mark 11:1; Luke 19:29), about fifteen stadia (approximately two miles) east of Jerusalem (John 11:18), where Jesus visited his friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42; John 12:1-8; cf. Matt. 21:17; Mark 11:11), raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-44), and was anointed in the home of Simon the Leper (Matt. 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; cf. Luke 7:36-50). Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem began here (Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-38). The name of the present-day village, El-Azarieh, is the Arabic form of Lazarion, the fourth-century name of the village and the church that was built over the traditional site of Lazarus’ tomb. Excavations revealed that the first church, probably destroyed by an earthquake, was replaced by a fifth-century structure which underwent modifications through the centuries. In the 1950s, a new church was built on the foundations of earlier ones. Within the church’s precincts are numerous rock-cut tombs. One particularly impressive tomb, below the adjacent mosque, with a vestibule and vaulted inner chamber, is the traditional tomb of Lazarus.

2 Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John the Baptist baptized (John 1:28); it is Bethabara in some manuscripts. Its location is unknown.