Bethany Beyond The Jordan 4
January 20, 2013 by Administrator • Bethany
Bethabara ( בית עברה; bēth‛ăbhārāh; Βηθαβαρά; Bēthabará; “house of the ford, place of crossing”), in modern-day Jordan: According to the King James Version (following Textus Receptus of the New Testament the place where John the Baptist baptized those who came to him (John 1:28). The Revised Version (British and American) (with Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek following Codex Sinaiticus,Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi) reads “Bethany.” It is distinguished from the Bethany of Lazarus and his sisters as being beyond the Jordan. The readingBethabara became current owing to the advocacy of both Origen., and John Chrysostom, and that same Bethabara is attested in both the 6th century AD Madaba Map and in the Jewish Talmud. Various suggestions have been made to explain the readings. G. A. Smith (HGHL) suggests that Bethany (house of the ship) and Bethabara (house of the ford) are names for the same place. Bethabara has also been identified with Bethbarah, which, however, was probably not on the Jordan River but among the streams flowing into it (Judges 7:24). It is interesting to note that the Greek Septuagint Codex Vaticanus (LXXB) reads, Baithabara for Hebrew Masoretic Text Bēth-‛ărābhāh, one of the cities of Benjamin (Joshua 18:22). If this is correct, the site is in Judea.