Bethsaida
Encyclopedia
Bethsaida ˌ is a place mentioned in the New Testament
.
miraculously fed the multitude with five loaves and two fish (Mark
6:32; Luke
9:10). It may be possible to identify this site with the village of Bethsaida in Lower Gaulanitis which the tetrarch
Herod Philip I raised to the rank of a polis in the year 30/31, and renamed it Julias, in honor of Livia
, the wife of Augustus. It lay near the place where the Jordan enters the Sea of Gennesaret (Ant., XVIII, ii, 1; BJ, II, ix, 1; III, x, 7; Vita, 72). This city was most likely located at et-Tell
, a ruined site on the east side of the Jordan on rising ground, 2 km from the sea. This distance poses a problem however. Why would a fishing village be so far from the water? During Biblical times the water level of the Sea of Galilee was higher and came up to the base of et-Tell. A combination of three hypothesises can explain this:-
Dissenters suggest two other sites as possible locations for Bethsaida: el-Araj and El-Mesydiah. Both of these sites are located on the present shoreline, however, preliminary excavations have revealed only a small number of ruins not dating from before the Byzantine Period. Schumacher is however inclined to favor el-Mes‛adīyeh (a ruin and winter village of Arab et-Tellawīyeh) which stands on an artificial mound about a mile and a half from the mouth of the Jordan. However, the name is in origin radically different from Bethsaida. The substitution of sin for cad is easy; but the insertion of the guttural ‛ain is impossible. No trace of the name Bethsaida has been found in the district; but any one of the sites named would meet the requirements. To this neighborhood Jesus retired by boat http://www.jesusboatmuseum.com/The%20Discovery with His disciples to rest a while. The multitude following on foot along the northern shore of the lake would cross the Jordan by the ford at its mouth which is used by foot travelers to this day. The “desert” of the narrative is just the barrīyeh of the Arabs where the animals are driven out for pasture. The “green grass” of Mark 6:39, and the “much grass” of John
6:10, point to some place in the plain of el-Baṭeiḥah, on the rich soil of which the grass is green and plentiful compared with the scanty herbage on the higher slopes.
, Andrew
, Peter
(John 1:44; John 12:21), and perhaps also James
and John
. The house of Andrew and Peter seems to have been not far from the synagogue in Capernaum
(Matthew
8:14; Mark
1:29, etc.) on the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee
. Unless they had moved their residence from Bethsaida to Capernaum, of which there is no record, and which for fishermen was unlikely, Bethsaida must have lain close to Capernaum. It may have been the fishing town adjoining the larger city. As in the case of the other Bethsaida, no name has been recovered to guide us to the site. On the rocky promontory
, however, east of Khān Minyeh we find Sheikh ‛Aly eṣ-Ṣaiyādīn, “Sheikh Aly of the Fishermen,” as the name of a ruined weley, in which the second element in the name Bethsaida is represented (see also Al Minya). Nearby is the site at ‛Ain et-Ṭābigha, which many have identified with Bethsaida of Galilee. The warm water from copious springs runs into a little bay of the sea in which fish congregate in great numbers. This has therefore always been a favorite haunt of fishermen. If Capernaum were at Khān Minyeh, then the two lay close together. The names of many ancient places have been lost, and others have strayed from their original localities. The absence of any name resembling Bethsaida need not concern us. Bethsaida was the birth place of Saint Peter
.
references to Bethsaida apply to one place, namely, Bethsaida Julias. The arguments for and against this view may be summarized as follows:
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
.
Bethsaida Julias
A city east of the Jordan River, in a “desert place” (that is, uncultivated ground used for grazing) possibly the site at which JesusJesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
miraculously fed the multitude with five loaves and two fish (Mark
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
6:32; Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
9:10). It may be possible to identify this site with the village of Bethsaida in Lower Gaulanitis which the tetrarch
Tetrarchy (Judea)
The Tetrarchy of Judea was formed following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE, when his kingdom was divided between his sons as an inheritance...
Herod Philip I raised to the rank of a polis in the year 30/31, and renamed it Julias, in honor of Livia
Livia
Livia Drusilla, , after her formal adoption into the Julian family in AD 14 also known as Julia Augusta, was a Roman empress as the third wife of the Emperor Augustus and his adviser...
, the wife of Augustus. It lay near the place where the Jordan enters the Sea of Gennesaret (Ant., XVIII, ii, 1; BJ, II, ix, 1; III, x, 7; Vita, 72). This city was most likely located at et-Tell
Et-Tell
Et-Tell is an archaeological site in the West Bank that is popularly thought to be the Biblical city of Ai.- Location :The site of et-Tell is about 3 km east of the modern village of Beitin , atop a watershed plateau overlooking the Jordan Valley and the city of Jericho 14 km east.-...
, a ruined site on the east side of the Jordan on rising ground, 2 km from the sea. This distance poses a problem however. Why would a fishing village be so far from the water? During Biblical times the water level of the Sea of Galilee was higher and came up to the base of et-Tell. A combination of three hypothesises can explain this:-
- Tectonic rifting has uplifted et-Tell ( the site is located on the Great African-Syrian Rift fault)
- the water level has dropped from increased population usage, land irrigation, and
- the Jordan delta has been extended by sedimentation.
Dissenters suggest two other sites as possible locations for Bethsaida: el-Araj and El-Mesydiah. Both of these sites are located on the present shoreline, however, preliminary excavations have revealed only a small number of ruins not dating from before the Byzantine Period. Schumacher is however inclined to favor el-Mes‛adīyeh (a ruin and winter village of Arab et-Tellawīyeh) which stands on an artificial mound about a mile and a half from the mouth of the Jordan. However, the name is in origin radically different from Bethsaida. The substitution of sin for cad is easy; but the insertion of the guttural ‛ain is impossible. No trace of the name Bethsaida has been found in the district; but any one of the sites named would meet the requirements. To this neighborhood Jesus retired by boat http://www.jesusboatmuseum.com/The%20Discovery with His disciples to rest a while. The multitude following on foot along the northern shore of the lake would cross the Jordan by the ford at its mouth which is used by foot travelers to this day. The “desert” of the narrative is just the barrīyeh of the Arabs where the animals are driven out for pasture. The “green grass” of Mark 6:39, and the “much grass” of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
6:10, point to some place in the plain of el-Baṭeiḥah, on the rich soil of which the grass is green and plentiful compared with the scanty herbage on the higher slopes.
Bethsaida of Galilee
Here dwelt PhilipPhilip the Apostle
Philip the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Later Christian traditions describe Philip as the apostle who preached in Greece, Syria, and Phrygia....
, Andrew
Saint Andrew
Saint Andrew , called in the Orthodox tradition Prōtoklētos, or the First-called, is a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter. The name "Andrew" , like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews from the 3rd or 2nd century BC. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him...
, Peter
Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
(John 1:44; John 12:21), and perhaps also James
Saint James the Great
James, son of Zebedee was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was a son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of John the Apostle...
and John
John the Apostle
John the Apostle, John the Apostle, John the Apostle, (Aramaic Yoħanna, (c. 6 - c. 100) was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of James, another of the Twelve Apostles...
. The house of Andrew and Peter seems to have been not far from the synagogue in Capernaum
Capernaum
Capernaum was a fishing village in the time of the Hasmoneans. Located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It had a population of about 1,500. Archaeological excavations have revealed two ancient synagogues built one over the other...
(Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
8:14; Mark
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
1:29, etc.) on the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. The lake has a total area of , and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m...
. Unless they had moved their residence from Bethsaida to Capernaum, of which there is no record, and which for fishermen was unlikely, Bethsaida must have lain close to Capernaum. It may have been the fishing town adjoining the larger city. As in the case of the other Bethsaida, no name has been recovered to guide us to the site. On the rocky promontory
Promontory
Promontory may refer to:*Promontory, a prominent mass of land which overlooks lower lying land or a body of water*Promontory, Utah, the location where the United States first Transcontinental Railroad was completed...
, however, east of Khān Minyeh we find Sheikh ‛Aly eṣ-Ṣaiyādīn, “Sheikh Aly of the Fishermen,” as the name of a ruined weley, in which the second element in the name Bethsaida is represented (see also Al Minya). Nearby is the site at ‛Ain et-Ṭābigha, which many have identified with Bethsaida of Galilee. The warm water from copious springs runs into a little bay of the sea in which fish congregate in great numbers. This has therefore always been a favorite haunt of fishermen. If Capernaum were at Khān Minyeh, then the two lay close together. The names of many ancient places have been lost, and others have strayed from their original localities. The absence of any name resembling Bethsaida need not concern us. Bethsaida was the birth place of Saint Peter
Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
.
Were there two Bethsaidas?
Many scholars maintain that all the New TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
references to Bethsaida apply to one place, namely, Bethsaida Julias. The arguments for and against this view may be summarized as follows:
- GalileeGalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
ran right round the lake, including most of the level coastland on the east. Thus Gamala, on the eastern shore, was within the jurisdiction of JosephusJosephusTitus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
, who commanded in Galilee (BJ, II, xx, 4). Judas of Gamala (Ant., XVIII, i, l) is also called Judas of GalileeJudas of GalileeJudas of Galilee or Judas of Gamala led a violent resistance to the census imposed for Roman tax purposes by Quirinius in Iudaea Province around AD 6. The revolt was crushed brutally by the Romans...
(ibid., i, 6). If Gamala, far down the eastern shore of the sea, were in Galilee, a fortiori Bethsaida, a town which lay on the very edge of the Jordan, may be described as in Galilee. - But Josephus makes it plain that Gamala, while added to his jurisdiction, was not in Galilee, but in Gaulanitis (BJ, II, xx, 6). Even if Judas were born in Gamala, and so might properly be called a Gaulanite, he may, like others, have come to be known as belonging to the province in which his active life was spent. “Jesus of NazarethNazarethNazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
” was born in BethlehemBethlehemBethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
. Then Josephus explicitly says that Bethsaida was in Lower Gaulanitis (BJ, II, ix, 1). Further, Luke places the country of the Gerasenes on the other side of the sea from Galilee (Luke 8:26) - antípera tḗs Galilaias (“over against Galilee”). - To go to the other side - eis tó péran (Mark 6:45) - does not of necessity imply passing from the east to the west coast of the lake, since Josephus uses the verb diaperaióō of a passage from Tiberias to Tarichaeae (Vita, 59). But
- this involved a passage from a point on the west to a point on the south shore, “crossing over” two considerable bays; whereas if the boat started from any point in el-Baṭeiḥah, to which we seem to be limited by the “much grass,” and by the definition of the district as belonging to Bethsaida, to sail to et-Tell, it was a matter of coasting not more than a couple of miles, with no bay to cross.
- No case can be cited where the phrase eis to peran certainly means anything else than “to the other side.”
- Mark says that the boat started to go unto the other side to Bethsaida, while John, gives the direction “over the sea unto Capernaum” (Mark 6:17). The two towns were therefore practically in the same line. Now there is no question that Capernaum was on “the other side,” nor is there any suggestion that the boat was driven out of its course; and it is quite obvious that, sailing toward Capernaum, whether at Tell Ḥūm or at Khān Minyeh, it would never reach Bethsaida Julius.
- The words of Mark (Mark 6:45), it is suggested, have been too strictly interpreted: as the Gospel was written probably at Rome, its author being a native, not of Galilee, but of Jerusalem. Want of precision on topographical points, therefore, need not surprise us. But as we have seen above, the “want of precision” must also be attributed to the writer of John 6:17. The agreement of these two favors the strict interpretation. Further, if the Gospel of Mark embodies the recollections of Peter, it would be difficult to find a more reliable authority for topographical details connected with the sea on which his fisher life was spent.
- In support of the single-city theory it is further argued that
- Jesus withdrew to Bethsaida as being in the jurisdiction of Philip, when he heard of the murder of John the BaptistJohn the BaptistJohn the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
by AntipasHerod AntipasHerod Antipater , known by the nickname Antipas, was a 1st-century AD ruler of Galilee and Perea, who bore the title of tetrarch...
, and would not have sought again the territories of the latter so soon after leaving them. - Medieval works of travel notice only one Bethsaida.
- The east coast of the sea was definitely attached to Galilee in AD 84, and PtolemyPtolemyClaudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
(circa 140) places Julius in Galilee. It is therefore significant that only the Fourth Gospel speaks of “Bethsaida of Galilee.” - There could hardly have been two Bethsaidas so close together.
- Jesus withdrew to Bethsaida as being in the jurisdiction of Philip, when he heard of the murder of John the Baptist
- But:
- It is not said that Jesus came hither that he might leave the territory of Antipas for that of Philip; and in view of Mark 6:30, and Luke 9:10, the inference from Matthew 14:13 that he did so, is not warranted.
- The Bethsaida of medieval writers was evidently on the west of the Jordan River. If it lay on the east, it is inconceivable that none of them should have mentioned the river in this connection.
- If the 4th Gospel was not written until well into the 2nd century, then the apostle was not the author; but this is a very precarious assumption. John, writing after AD 84, would hardly have used the phrase “Bethsaida of Galilee” of a place only recently attached to that province, writing, as he was, at a distance from the scene, and recalling the former familiar conditions.
- In view of the frequent repetition of names in Palestine the nearness of the two Bethsaidas raises no difficulty. The abundance of fish at each place furnished a good reason for the recurrence of the name.