Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Bethany

​Bethany (i.e., probably, the "House of Dates"), a village, now called El' Azarîyeh, or Lazarieh, nearly two miles E.S.E. from Jerusalem, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, at a height of 2208 feet above the sea. The whole importance of the place is derived from its connection with New Testament history, it being never mentioned in the Old Testament or Apocrypha. It was the residence of Lazarus and his sisters, a favourite retreat of the Saviour, and the scene not only of his greatest miracle but also of his ascension. From the 4th century down to the time of the Mahometan invasion several ecclesiastical buildings were erected on the spot, but of these no distinct traces remain. Lazarieh is a poor village of about twenty families, with few marks of antiquity; and there is no reason to believe that the houses of Mary and Martha and of Simon the Leper, or the sepulchre of Lazarus, still shown by the monks, have any claims to the names they bear.