Baptismal Site “Bethany Beyond the Jordan” Added to UNESCO World Heritage List
Bible and archaeology news
“John answered them, ‘I baptize with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know, even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.’ This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.”
—John 1:26–28
In 2015, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee added the archaeological complex at Al-Maghtas, Jordan—dubbed the Biblical “Bethany beyond the Jordan”—to its World Heritage List. The site has been venerated as the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus since the late Roman–early Byzantine periods, when early Christians began making pilgrimages to the area.
An aerial view of the remains of a Byzantine-era monastery complex on a low hill at Al-Maghtas, Jordan. This area has been venerated by Christian pilgrims as “Bethany beyond the Jordan,” the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus, since the Byzantine period. Photo: Jordan Tourism Board.
Archaeological work conducted from 1996 to 2002 in modern Jordan about 7 miles north of the Dead Sea on the eastern shore of the Jordan River uncovered a number of Byzantine-period buildings. Near the bank of the river, archaeologists excavated a series of churches celebrating the site of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. About two miles east of this church complex lies a small hill called Tell el-Kharrar or Tel Mar Elyas (“Elijah’s Hill”—early Christian tradition also associated this site with the place where the prophet Elijah ascended to heaven in the Hebrew Bible). At Tell el-Kharrar, archaeologists excavated a Byzantine monastery. Chapels, monks’ hermitages, caves and large plastered pools were also discovered in this area.
On UNESCO’s website, Al-Maghtas is referred to as “Baptism Site ‘Bethany beyond the Jordan,’” and the archaeological evidence discovered there “[testifies] to the religious character of the place.”
UNESCO’s addition of Al-Maghtas to its World Heritage List is not without controversy, however. Another tradition places the baptismal site on the west bank of the Jordan River—in Israel.
This map shows the location of “Bethany beyond the Jordan” on the east bank of the Jordan River. This location, however, is one of two traditions. Another tradition identifies the site on the west side of the river. Image: Biblical Archaeology Society.
The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) mention Jesus’ baptism, but none of them indicates whether it occurred on the western or eastern shore of the Jordan. However, it seems likely that it would have been on the eastern shore. Jesus was coming from Galilee (again, explicit in Matthew and Mark). The normal route through the Decapolis (a group of ten Roman cities in the region) from Galilee would bypass a hostile Samaria by crossing the Jordan and proceeding south on the eastern side of the river.
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[However,] the famous Madaba map, a partially destroyed sixth-century mosaic map in a church in Madaba, Jordan, seems to locate it west of the Jordan River. I say “seems,” not because there is any doubt as to the location west of the river, but because it is not called by the appellation “Bethany beyond the Jordan.” It is called Beth Abara, instead of Bethany. In the third century, the church father Origen, unable to locate the Bethany referred to in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, somewhat arbitrarily suggested emending the text to read “Beth Abara across the Jordan.” Beth Abara means “House of the Crossing,” possibly identifying a ford in the Jordan. A site of that name does appear in the Talmud. Following Origen, Eusebius in his Onomasticon (early fourth century) also refers only to this name, spelling it Bethaabara. In Jerome’s Liber Locorum (late fourth century) he calls the site Bethabara. Most of the ancient manuscripts, such as the major codices known as Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (fourth–fifth centuries), read Bethany in John 1:28. Nevertheless, Beth Abara apparently caught on and it is used in the Syriac version of the Gospels. And Beth Abara, not Bethany, appears on the Madaba map—on the west side of the Jordan. Beneath the name Beth Abara is a three-line legend telling us that this is the site of “The Baptism of St. John.”
Perhaps the Madaba map mosaicist, who lived east of the Jordan, understood “beyond” the river to mean west of the river—though for the original writer of the Gospel of John, “beyond” the Jordan clearly meant east of the Jordan River.
It is important to remember that veneration of the baptismal site of John the Baptist on the east side of the Jordan River—as attested by evidence of churches and the monastery complex at Al-Maghtas—began no earlier than the Byzantine period.
The identification of “Bethany beyond the Jordan”—whether on the west or east side of the Jordan River—“has nothing to do with archaeological reality,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill archaeologist Jodi Magness told the Associated Press. “We don’t have any sites with evidence or archaeological remains that were continuously venerated from the first century on.”
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on July 14, 2015.
Related reading in Bible History Daily:
Machaerus: Beyond the Beheading of John the Baptist
The Siloam Pool: Where Jesus Healed the Blind Man
Pilgrims’ Progress to Byzantine Jerusalem
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One way to look at the problem of the location may lie in the exegetical principle of typology. According to a number of scholars, John’s baptismal movement was a deliberate attempt at ‘creating’ a new Israel. If that is the case, where better to stage that than at the point where the Israelite wanderers finally crossed the Jordan into the “promised land” to become a nation under Joshua. The current Bethany Beyond the Jordan is the closest point that we know to where Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan and into the land of Canaan. Thus Jesus, the ‘Israel-in-one-man’ is being baptized at the place where the original people of God left their desert wanderings behind and entered into nationhood. Jesus’ baptism, therefore, becomes the point at which he takes on the role and destiny of Israel.
Bethany across the Jordan is mentioned but once (Joh 1:28) as the place where John was baptizing and, apparently, where he identified Jesus to his disciples as “the Lamb of God.” (Joh 1:35, 36) In the third century Origen substituted the name Bethabara for Bethany, and the King James Version follows this rendering; however, the most reliable manuscripts read Bethany. The site of this Bethany beyond or E of the Jordan is unknown. Some, favoring the traditional location for Jesus’ baptism, would place it across the Jordan opposite Jericho. However, the record at John 1:29,(The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and he said: “See, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!) 35,(Again the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples,) 43(The next day he wanted to leave for Galʹi·lee. Jesus then found Philip and said to him: “Be my follower.”); 2:1(And on the third day a marriage feast took place in Caʹna of Galʹi·lee, and the mother of Jesus was there.) seems to indicate a place no more than a day’s journey from Cana of Galilee; while that of John 10:40 (And he went away again across the Jordan to the place where John was baptizing at first,and he stayed there.) and 11:3(So his sisters sent a message to him, saying: “Lord, see! the one you have affection for is sick.”) 6 ( However, when he heard that Lazʹa·rus was sick, he actually remained in the place where he was for two more days.) 17 (When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazʹa·rus had already been in the tomb for four days) may suggest that it lay about two days’ journey from the Bethany that was the home of Lazarus. Thus, a site somewhat S of the Sea of Galilee seems the most likely, but no positive identification is possible.
Source:Watchtower Online Library.
[…] to Bible History Daily, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has recently added the archaeological complex at Al-Maghtas, […]