Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

Nor do we depend on the name alone. An identification may be defined as the recovery of a site unknown to Europeans, but known to the natives of the country. Evidently places can only be known by their names, unless we have measured distances by which to fix them. If in England we endeavoured to recover an ancient site, and knew the district in which it should occur, we should be satisfied if we found the ancient name applying to one place, and one only, in that district. Without the name, we should still be in doubt. Does not this apply to Palestine? It is true that name alone will not be sufficient; position must be suitable also. No one would try to identify Yarmouth in Norfolk with Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. But, on the other hand, without the name it is merely conjecture, not identification, that is possible.

Here at ’Abârah we have the name, and nowhere else, as yet, has the name been found; the question then arises, is the position suitable?

We speak commonly of Bethabara as the place of Our Lord’s baptism. Possibly it was so, but the Gospel does not say as much. It is only once mentioned as a place where John was baptising, and where certain events happened on consecutive days. These events are placed in the Gospel harmonies immediately after the Temptation, when Christ would appear to have been returning from the desert (perhaps east of Jordan) to Galilee. Bethabara, “the house of the ferry,” was “beyond Jordan;” but the place of baptism was no doubt at the ford or ferry itself; hence the ford ’Abârah is the place of interest. It cannot be Christian tradition which originates this site, for Christian tradition has pointed, from the fourth century down to the present day, to the fords of Jericho as the place of baptism by St. John.

“And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee” (John ii. 1). Here is the controlling passage. The hostile critics of the fourth Gospel have taken hold of it; they have supposed the traditional site to be undoubtedly the true one, and have thence argued the impossibility that in one day Christ could have travelled eighty miles to Cana. To the fourth-century inquirer the difficulty would never have occurred; he would have answered at once that Our Lord was miraculously carried from one place to the other; but the Gospel does not say so, and we should therefore look naturally for Bethabara within a day’s journey of Cana. The ford ’Abârah is about twenty-two miles in a line from Kefr Kenna, and no place can be found, on Jordan, much nearer or more easily accessible to the neighbourhood of Cana.

I leave these facts to the reader, asking him to choose, between the difficulties attendant on the traditional site, and the suitability of the new site, where alone as yet the name of Bethabara has been recovered.

There is, however, another point with regard to Bethabara which must not be overlooked. The oldest MSS. read, not Bethabara, but Bethany, beyond Jordan. Origen observed this, yet chose the present reading, and we can hardly suppose that the early fathers of the Church made such an alteration without some good reason; perhaps the original text contained both names, “Bethabara in Bethany” beyond Jordan being a possible reading.

The author of “Supernatural Religion” has made a point of this reading in arguing against the authenticity of the fourth Gospel. He supposes that Bethany beyond Jordan has been confused in the Evangelist’s mind with Bethany near Jerusalem, forgetting that this very Gospel speaks of the latter place as “nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off” (John xi. 18). The assumption of the confusion is quite gratuitous. Bathania, meaning “soft soil,” was the well-known form used in the time of Christ, of the old name Bashan, which district was in Peræa, or the country beyond Jordan.

If Bethabara be a true reading, the place should thus most probably be sought in Bathania, and the ford should therefore lead over to Bashan. This again strengthens the case for the ’Abârah ford, which is near the hills of Bashan, whereas the Jericho fords are far away, leading over towards Gilead and Moab.

A second site of primary interest may here be noticed in its proper place, namely that of Megiddo.

In a former chapter we have seen, that the identification proposed by Robinson rests on a wholly insufficient basis. Here again it is a question of recovering the name. The position of Megiddo is not fixed very definitely in the Biblical narrative, though the town is noticed in connection with Taanach, west of the Great Plain, and with Jezreel, Bethshan, and other places near the Jordan Valley. A broad valley was named from the city, and the “waters of Megiddo” are also noticed in Scripture. All these requisites are met by the large ruined site of Mujedd’a at the foot of Gilboa—a mound from which fine springs burst out, with the broad valley of the Jalûd river to the north. It is the only place, as yet discovered, at which any name like the Hebrew Megiddon exists, and the position seems to suit also with the march of Thothmes III. towards the Sea of Galilee, through Aaruna (perhaps ’Arrâneh), and Kalna (possibly Kâ’aûn), to the plains of Megiddo.