When did the name of Luz change to Bethel?

Answer 1

Strange things happened at Bethel. In Genesis 12:8, Abraham had pitched his tent to the east of Bethel and built an altar of stones. Later, in verse 13:3, he returned to Bethel and to the sacred stone altar. Here, the town is portrayed as already being called Bethel.

Yet in chapter 28, Abraham's grandson Jacob slept in a certain place and dreamed of a ladder going up to heaven then he named that place Bethel, but before then it had been called Luz. Here, the town is portrayed as being called Luz, until Jacob chose a new name, Bethel.

Jacob used a stone for a pillow and after waking put it on a pillar and poured oil on it. It has long been known that there was a West Semitic deity named Bethel, associated with the veneration of sacred stones*, thus this and previous passages point to the city being named after the god Bethel. When it first acquired this name will probably never be known.

Bethel can also mean 'House of God', but this derivation does not fit well with either the Abraham narrative, since in this story the town already existed and must have been named as such by its Canaanite inhabitants, nor the Jacob narrative, as there is nothing in the dream that leads to "House of God". Even this less probable alternative does not lead to the date of a change of name for the town.

*Footnote: The Jewish Encyclopedia tells us that the worship of sacred stones constituted one of the most general and ancient forms of religion; but among no other people was this worship so important as among the Semites. Sacred stones are mentioned with great frequency in the Old Testament, with at least ten of these references associated with Jacob.