The village lies about two hours distance from Jerusalem, on the east and north-east 
slope of a long ridge; a deep valley, Wady Taamirah, being on the south side, which 
passes to the Dead Sea. The surrounding country, though hilly, is fertile and well 
cultivated. 
In the distance are seen the hills of Moab, and below them is a glimpse of the Dead 
Sea. 1 
In the interval between the Greek Convent and the mountain border of the Dead Sea 
rises a hill, named the Hill of the Franks, from a legend of the Crusades. The ruins on its 
slope are Roman, and conjectured to be those of a palace and fortress of Herod the Great. 2 
1 Roberts’s Journal. 2 Biblical Researches, ii. 173. 
BETHANY. 
Bethany was the well-known scene of one of the mightiest miracles of our Lord—that 
Restoration of Lazarus to life, by which he especially proclaimed his power over the 
grave, in the immediate presence of Jerusalem. The results of this miracle were his 
kingly reception by the people, and that increased hostility of the Roman and Jewish 
government, which produced the unspeakable sacrifice of the Crucifixion. 
Bethany owes all its present reverence, and even its present name, to this miracle; 
it being now called El-’Aziriyeh, from El-’Azir (Arab. Lazarus). 1 It is now a poor 
village, containing about twenty families, living in huts which exhibit evidence of having 
been formed out of the ruins of ancient buildings. Legends are of course busy. The 
monks profess to show the actual sites of the houses of Martha and Mary, and Simon the 
Leper. But the chief object of display is the Sepulchre of Lazarus, seen in the engraving 
as the small building on the left, with the circular dome. 2 
The Sepulchre is a deep vault excavated in the limestone rock, in the middle of 
the village, with a descent to it by twenty-six steps. This spot has been a place of 
remarkable veneration in very early ages; the “Crypt of Lazarus” being mentioned in 
a.d. 333, and also by Jerome about seventy years later, as the site of a Church; successive 
monasteries also having been built over it. 3 
1 Biblical Researches, ii. 102. 2 Roberts’s Journal 
3 Itin. Hieros. 596. Onomasticon, Art. Bethania, quoted by Robinson. 
