The band was formed in the end of 1993 by guitar player André Svee, drummer Terje Kråbøl. By february 1994 bass player Olav Malmin and vocalist/fluteplayer Lars Ruben Hirsch had joined. They recorded their first demo tape during May 1994. The demo, called 'Dawn' after a painting by Svee's friend C.B.Nord, recieved lot of positive reviews. The demo had quite brutal sound, and showed the bands roots in doom metal and 80s death metal, combined with more modern black metal influences. On top of this came the innovative use of flute, not only as an instrument for creating moods, but also more integrated in the riff based music.
This approach was taken one step further with the 1995 demo 'Nine Worlds'. The sound quality was much better, still maintaining the aggression from 'Dawn'. Also, the songs had improved, with the band finding their own style. Malmin had left the band prior to the recording of this demo. He was replased by jazz bassist Nils Sandberg. Brian Morsund also joined as a second guitar player. His songwriting skills was partly responsible for the success of 'Nine Worlds'. This demo resulted in a deal with French labal 'Season of Mist'.
Bethzaida recorded their debut album, also called 'Nine Worlds' in 1996. This showed a mature band, able to create moods by the use of brutal music, interesting lyrics and original use of flute. After the release of 'Nine Worlds', bass player Sandberg left and the rest of the band decided to take a break.
They started playing togetger again in 1997, now with Tom Wahl on bass. Their latest album, 'LXXVIII' was recorded during March 1998 and was released December the same year. The band has also recorded 4 tracks for a split CD with Swedish band Anata, called 'War: Norway Vs Sweden' soon to be released by Season of Mist. Theirt latest work is even better, moodier and more brutal than their earlier recordings. It is less doom, more death meets black