Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

Jesus lived at Nazareth until the time arrived for entering upon his public work. The immediate occasion which called him forth from the carpenter’s shop was the news that John the Baptist had begun preaching in the wilderness of Judea. The work of the Palestine explorers has thrown important light on the movements and mission stations of John the Baptist.

John appears to have begun his public work at the great ford of the Jordan near Jericho; and there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea to be baptized. The Jordan at this part is a brown, rapid swirling stream, about 20 yards across, fringed with a jungle of tamarisk and cane and willow, in which the leopard and the wolf find a hiding place. The tradition which says that Jesus was baptized here is at least as old as the fourth century; the Greek and the Latin churches agree in regard to it, and at the present day pilgrims from all churches resort to this spot to bathe in the sacred waters.

Our explorers see no reason to doubt this tradition, and a difficulty which did exist they have been enabled to remove. It is stated in the fourth Gospel (John i. 28), that John was baptizing in Bethabara beyond Jordan, when Jesus came to him; that the Baptist bare testimony to Christ during two days, and on the third day Jesus was minded to go into Galilee and was present at Cana at the marriage feast. Hostile critics of the fourth Gospel, taking the traditional scene of John’s baptizing near Jericho—where Bethabara has usually been placed on the maps—asserted that Jesus would have a journey of 80 miles to accomplish in a single day to reach Cana of Galilee, and that the feat is of course impossible. But there is really no assertion that it was done or attempted. It is only a tradition of the fourth century which fixes Bethabara so far south, or says that Jesus was baptized at Bethabara. A position near Upper Galilee would suit the narrative better as the site of Bethabara. Now the surveyors in the course of their work marked all the fords of the Jordan, and collected all the names. The following winter, when Major Conder was looking through the list in order to prepare an index, he was struck with the presence of the word Abara. He saw at once that the house or station at this place would be Beth-Abara, which had thus been discovered unwittingly. He looked it out upon the map, and found it to be one of the principal fords of the Jordan, just above the place where the Jalud river, flowing down the Valley of Jezreel and by Beisan, debouches into Jordan. The distance thence to Cana would only be 22 miles. The fourth Gospel does not say that Jesus was baptized at Bethabara, and so this new discovery does not disturb that part of the tradition which fixes the baptism near Jericho. Jesus, after being baptized, retired into the wilderness, and when he returned to the world he found that John had removed to the more northerly station, and thither he followed him. As Jesus began to make disciples at Bethabara, the events of John i. must have occurred after the Temptation, and so indeed they are placed in the Gospel Harmonies (see Smith’s “Dictionary of Bible,” p. 721).

The Revised Version reads “Bethany beyond Jordan,” instead of Bethabara, and this is the reading of the oldest manuscripts. It is gratuitous to suppose any confusion with Bethany near Jerusalem. “Bathania” was a well-known form (used in the time of Christ) of the old name Bashan, a district in Peræa or the country beyond Jordan; and perhaps, as Conder suggests, the original reading was “Bethabara in Bethany beyond Jordan.” We must agree with him, too, that this identification of Bethabara is one of the most valuable discoveries resulting from the survey.

That John the Baptist did move from one station to another in pursuance of his mission is shown again by the statement that after these things John was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there (John iii. 23). Where was Ænon? It used to be assumed that it was of course near the desert of Judea where John first preached. But surely it would be unnecessary to tell us that there was enough water to baptize with in the Jordan, whereas if abundance of water could be found anywhere else in Palestine it would be somewhat remarkable. Now such abundance is found almost in the heart of Samaria. The traveller who rides across from the town of Samaria, passing behind Ebal, or who follows the stony road in the magnificent gorge east of the same mountain, finds himself gradually descending to the springs which lie at the head of the great Far’ah valley, the open highway from Shechem to the Damieh ford of the Jordan. It was up this valley that Jacob drove his flocks and herds from Succoth to Shalem near Shechem. It was along the banks of the stream that the “garments and vessels” of the hosts of Benhadad were strewn as far as Jordan. It was here also that Israel, returning from captivity (according to the Samaritans), purified themselves before going up to Gerizim to build the temple. But the place possesses a yet higher interest as the probable site of “Ænon near Salem” where John was baptizing, and where a question arose between John’s disciples and a Jew about purifying (John ii. 25). The phrase “much water” might fairly be translated many waters or many springs, and in an open valley here the springs are found. The waters gush out over a stony bed and flow down rapidly in a fine stream. The supply is perennial, and a continual succession of little springs occurs along the bed of the valley, so that the current becomes the principal western affluent of Jordan south of the Vale of Jezreel. About 4 miles north of the head springs is a village called ’Ainun, and about 3 miles south another village called Salem. So here we have “Ænon near Salem,” and in between the two villages the two great requisites for the baptism of a multitude, namely, an open space in which the crowd could stand, and abundance of water. There are indeed other places called Salem scattered up and down the country, but none of them has an Ænon near to it; and there is one other place called Ænon, but it has no Salem near to it, besides which, it is away near Hebron, in a district quite out of the question.

It would appear, then, that John began baptizing, in the first instance, near Jericho, and made his appeal to Jerusalem and all Judea; that next, remembering the other great section of the Jews in Galilee, he removed to Bethabara in the north; and further, because the reformed religion was not to be for the Jews alone, he entered Samaria itself and baptized at Ænon.

At the head-springs of Ænon we are only about 5 miles from Jacob’s Well. Conder and others consider the identity of Jacob’s Well beyond question, because Jewish and Samaritan tradition, Christian and Mohammedan tradition all agree about it. The identity is further supported by the proximity of Joseph’s Tomb, about 600 yards north of it, a tomb venerated by the members of every religious community in Palestine. A Christian church was built round Jacob’s Well before the year 383 A.D., and destroyed before Crusading times, only the vault or crypt remaining. The ruins covered up the well and hid it altogether some few years ago; but Captain Anderson, of the Palestine Exploration Fund, removed them and descended by a rope. The Arabs allowed the rope to twirl and slip, so that Anderson went into a swoon, from which he was awakened by the shock of striking the bottom. He measured the well and found it 7½ feet in diameter and 75 feet deep. Anciently it must have been deeper, for some of the ruins have fallen into it, and every passing traveller throws in a stone to hear it fall. The question arises, why there should be any well at this spot at all, seeing that the valley (between Ebal and Gerizim) abounds in streams of water, and there is one stream only 100 yards from the well itself? The answer given is that the man who dug the well had no right to use the streams; he was a stranger in the land, and felt the need of a supply of water upon his own property.

Jacob’s Well is one of the few spots undoubtedly rendered sacred by the feet of Christ. When the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was baptizing more disciples than John, Jesus left Judea for Galilee, “and he must needs pass through Samaria. So he cometh to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph, and Jacob’s Well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water,” &c. (John iv. 1–7). This woman, we suppose, came from Sychar; but an unaccountable confusion has grown up between Sychar and Shechem. If the woman had come from Shechem she would have to carry her pitcher a mile and a half to the well, passing abundant streams on the way—an apparently needless trouble. But the early Christians used to place Sychar a mile east of Shechem, and our explorers agree with Canon Williams and others in identifying it with the village of ’Askar, which stands within sight of the well, about half a mile distant, on the slope of Ebal. Yet the Crusaders confounded Sychar with Shechem, misleading everybody who came after; the error lasting to our own time, and reappearing even in carefully-written books.

The question arises, why Jesus on this occasion must needs go through Samaria? It has been customary to reply that it was because Samaria lay right across his path in going from Judea to Galilee. But this does not satisfy us when we know that it was a frequent thing to cross the Jordan and travel by the eastern route, because the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. I was one day reading the Gospel of St John very carefully in order to compare notes with a friend, and I was struck with the meaning implied in Christ’s expression, “One soweth and another reapeth.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Say not ye, there are yet four months and then cometh the harvest.” We judge that he is pointing to the rich cornfield, where the valley opens out into the Plain of Mukhnah; he remarks that the corn is not ripe yet, and the harvest is not due. Yet he says, “Behold! Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest. He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal.” He is now referring to the spiritual harvest: the people are flocking out of the town to listen to his teaching, they are favourably disposed and ready to be converted. Now, why should they be so ready to listen, seeing that the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans? Christ himself supplies the answer when he says, “Herein is the saying true, ‘One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not laboured; others have laboured, and ye are entered into their labour.’” He cannot mean that he is sowing seed now, by his preaching, for his disciples to reap a harvest of conversions by-and-bye, for he says, “The fields are white already unto harvest. Lift up your eyes and look!” He recognises the truth that sowing and reaping are separated by an interval of time, though at the Harvest-home sower and reaper may rejoice together, as those who have laboured at different seasons for the same result. Some Teacher, therefore, has been sowing seed among these Samaritans before Christ came to Jacob’s Well; and who is that likely to have been but John the Forerunner, when he preached at Ænon, and the people of Sychar went to be baptized at the “many waters”? In the light of this reading we may understand how the woman of Samaria so soon grasps the fact that the Jewish stranger at the well is the Christ that John had said was to come after him. If we read the chapter again we shall see how it was through John’s baptizing at Ænon that circumstances arose which made Jesus decide to go through Samaria.

It was while John was yet at Bethabara that Jesus went to Cana of Galilee to the wedding feast. There are two rival sites for Cana: one is the ruin of Kanah, about 8 miles north of Nazareth, the supposed site in Crusading times; the other is the village of Kenna, about 4 miles north-east, which was the accredited site before the Crusaders arrived. The traveller is shown the water-pots at either place. It is difficult in the present instance to decide between rival claims, but the opinion of most writers is in favour of Kefr Kenna, and our explorers lean to that, partly for the reason that it is on the high road between Nazareth and Tiberias.