Bethsaida

VIEW:49 DATA:01-04-2020

house of fruits, or of food, or of snares
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


BETHSAIDA.—A place on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, whither Christ went after feeding the five thousand (Mar_6:45, cf. Luk_9:10), and where He healed a blind man (Mar_8:22); the home of Philip, Andrew, and Peter (Joh_1:44; Joh_12:21). It was denounced by Christ for unbelief (Mat_11:21, Luk_10:13). The town was advanced by Philip the tetrarch from a village to the dignity of a city, and named Julias, in honour of Cæsar’s daughter. The situation is disputed, and, indeed, authorities differ as to whether or not there were two places of the same name, one east, one west of the Jordan. Et-Tell, on the northern shore of the sea, east of the Jordan, is generally identified with Bethsaida Julias: those who consider that the narrative of the crossings of the Lake (Mar_6:45) requires another site west of the Jordan, seek it usually at ’Ain et-Tabigha near Khan Minyeh. The latest writers, however, seem inclined to regard the hypothetical second Bethsaida as unnecessary (see Sanday, Sacred Sites of the Gospels, p. 41), and to regard et-Tell as the scene of all the incidents recorded about the town.
R. A. S. Macalister.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

("house of fish".) A city of Galilee, W. of and close to the sea of Tiberias, in the land of Gennesareth (Mar_6:45-53; Joh_6:16-17; Joh_1:44; Joh_12:21). Andrew, Peter, and Philip belonged to it, Near Capernaum and Chorazin (Mat_11:21; Luk_10:13). When Jesus fed the 5,000 on the N.E. of the lake, they entered into a boat to cross to Bethsaida (Mar_6:45), while John says" they went over the sea toward Capernaum." Being driven out of their course, Jesus came to them walking on the sea; they landed in Gennesaret and went to Capernaum; so that Bethsaida must have been near Capernaum.
In Luk_9:10-17 another Bethsaida, at the scene of feeding the 5,000, is mentioned (though the Curetonian Syriac and later Sinaitic omit it), which must have been therefore N.E. of the lake; the same as Julias, called from the emperor's daughter Julia. The miracle was wrought in a lonely "desert place," on a rising ground at the back of the town, covered with much "green grass" (Mar_6:39). In Mar_8:10-22 a Bethsaida on the E. side of the lake in Gaulonitis (now Jaulan) is alluded to; for Jesus passed by ship from Dalmanutha on the W. side "to the other side," i.e. to the E. side. Thus, Caesarea Philippi is mentioned presently after, Bethsaida being on the road to it; and the mount of the transfiguration, part of the Hermon range, above the source of the Jordan (Mar_9:2-3); the snow of Hermon suggested the image, "His raiment became white as snow."
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Bethsa'ida. (house of fish). Bethsaida, of Galilee. Joh_12:21. A city which was the native place of Andrew, Peter and Philip, Joh_1:44; Joh_12:21, in the land of Gennesareth, Mar_6:46, compare Mar_6:53, and therefore, on the west side of the lake. By comparing the narratives in Mar_6:31-53 and Luk_9:10-17, it appears certain that the Bethsaida, at which the five thousand were fed, must have been a second place of the same name, on the east of the lake.
(But, in reality, "there is, but one Bethsaida, that known on our maps as Bethsaida Julias." L. Abbot in Biblical and Oriental Journal. The fact is that Bethsaida was a village, on both sides of the Jordan, as it enters the sea of Galilee on the north, so that the western part of the village was in Galilee and the eastern portion in Gaulonitis, part of the tetrarchy of Philip.
This eastern portion was built up into a beautiful city by Herod Philip, and named by him Bethsaida Julias, after Julia, the daughter of the Roman emperor, Tiberius Caesar. On the plain of Butaiha, a mile or two to the east, the five thousand were fed. The western part of the town remained a small village. ? Editor).
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

a city whose name in Hebrew imports a place of fishing or of hunting, and for both of these exercises it was well situated. As it belonged to the tribe of Naphtali, it was in a country remarkable for plenty of deer; and as it lay on the north end of the lake Gennesareth, just where the river Jordan runs into it, it became the residence of fishermen. Three of the Apostles, Philip, Andrew, and Peter, were born in this city. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, though it frequently occurs in the New: the reason is, that it was but a village, as Josephus tells us, till Philip the tetrarch enlarged it, making it a magnificent city, and gave it the name of Julias, out of respect to Julia, the daughter of Augustus Caesar.
The evangelists speak of Bethsaida; and yet it then possessed that name no longer: it was enlarged and beautified nearly at the same time as Caesarea, and called Julias. Thus was it called in the days of our Lord, and so would the sacred historians have been accustomed to call it. But if they knew nothing of this, what shall we say of their age? In other respects they evince the most accurate knowledge of the circumstances of the time. The solution is, that, though Philip had exalted it to the rank of a city, to which he gave the name of Julias, yet, not long afterward, this Julia, in whose honour the city received its name, was banished from the country by her own father. The deeply wounded honour of Augustus was even anxious that the world might forget that she was his daughter. Tiberius, whose wife she had been, consigned the unfortunate princess, after the death of Augustus, to the most abject poverty, under which she sank without assistance. Thus adulation must under two reigns have suppressed a name, from which otherwise the city might have wished to derive benefit to itself; and for some time it was called by its ancient name Bethsaida instead of Julias. At a later period this name again came into circulation, and appears in the catalogue of Jewish cities by Pliny. By such incidents, which are so easily overlooked, and the knowledge of which is afterward lost, do those who are really acquainted with an age disclose their authenticity. “But it is strange,” some one will say, “that John reckons this Bethsaida, or Julias, where he was born, in Galilee, Joh_12:21. Should he not know to what province his birthplace belonged?” Philip only governed the eastern districts by the sea of Tiberias; but Galilee was the portion of his brother Antipas. Bethsaida or Julias could therefore not have been built by Philip, as the case is; or it did not belong to Galilee, as John alleges. In fact, such an error were sufficient to prove that this Gospel was not written by John. Julias, however, was situated in Gaulonitis, which district was, for deep political reasons, divided from Galilee; but the ordinary language of the time asserted its own opinion, and still reckoned the Gaulonitish province in Galilee. When, therefore, John does the same, he proves, that the peculiarity of those days was not unknown to him; for he expresses himself after the ordinary manner of the period. Thus Josephus informs us of Judas the Gaulonite from Gamala, and also calls him in the following chapters, the Galilean; and then in another work he applies the same expression to him; from whence we may be convinced that the custom of those days paid respect to a more ancient division of the country, and bade defiance, in the present case, to the then existing political geography. Is it possible that historians who, as it is evident from such examples, discover throughout so nice a knowledge of geographical arrangements and local and even temporary circumstances, should have written at a time when the theatre of events was unknown to them, when not only their native country was destroyed, but their nation scattered, and the national existence of the Jews extinguished and extirpated? On the contrary, all this is in proof that they wrote at the very period which they profess, and it also proves the usual antiquity assigned to the Gospels.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

Bethsaida was an important town on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee (Mar_6:45). It was a base for fishermen who worked the rich fishing grounds of the lake. Among those fishermen were the brothers Andrew and Peter, who became two of Jesus’ disciples. Another disciple, Philip, was also from Bethsaida (Joh_1:44).
On one occasion Jesus healed a blind man in Bethsaida (Mar_8:22), and on another occasion he miraculously fed five thousand people not far from Bethsaida (Luk_9:10-17). The people of Bethsaida, however, like the people of nearby Capernaum and Chorazin, stubbornly refused to accept the evidence that this Jesus was God’s promised Messiah. Such a refusal only guaranteed for them a more severe judgment (Mat_11:21-24).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

beth-sā?i-da (Βηθσαΐδά, Bēthsaidá, ?house of fishing?):
(1) A city East of the Jordan, in a ?desert place? (that is, uncultivated ground used for grazing) at which Jesus miraculously fed the multitude with five loaves and two fishes (Mar_6:32; Luk_9:10). This is doubtless to be identified with the village of Bethsaida in Lower Gaulonitis which the Tetrarch Philip raised to the rank of a city, and called Julias, in honor of Julia, the daughter 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 may be located at et-Tell, a ruined site on the East side of the Jordan on rising ground, fully a mile from the sea. As this is too far from the sea for a fishing village, Schumacher (The Jaulān, 246) suggests that el-‛Araj, ?a large, completely destroyed site close to the lake,? connected in ancient times with et-Tell ?by the beautiful roads still visible,? may have been the fishing village, and et-Tell the princely residence. He is however inclined to favor el-Mes‛adı̄yeh , a ruin and winter village of Arab et-Tellawı̄yeh, which stands on an artificial mound, about a mile and a half from the mouth of the Jordan. It should be noted, however, that 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 with His disciples to rest awhile. 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 barrı̄yeh of the Arabs where the animals are driven out for pasture. The ?green grass? of Mar_6:39, and the ?much grass? of Joh_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.
(2) Bethsaida of Galilee, where dwelt Philip, Andrew, Peter (Joh_1:44; Joh_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 (Mat_8:14; Mar_1:29, etc.). 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-Ṣaiyādı̄n, ?Sheikh Aly of the Fishermen,? as the name of a ruined weley, in which the second element in the name Bethsaida is represented. Near by 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 fishes 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.
Were There Two Bethsaidas?
Many scholars maintain that all the New Testament references to Bethsaida apply to one place, namely, Bethsaida Julias. The arguments for and against this view may be summarized as follows:
(a) Galilee 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 Josephus, who commanded in Galilee (BJ, II, xx, 4). Judas of Gamala (Ant., XVIII, i, l) is also called Judas of Galilee (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 Gaulonitis (BJ, II, xx, 6). Even if Judas were born in Gamala, and so might properly be called a Gaulonite, he may, like others, have come to be known as belonging to the province in which his active life was spent. ?Jesus of Nazareth? was born in Bethlehem. Then Josephus explicitly says that Bethsaida was in Lower Gaulonitis (BJ, II, ix, 1). Further, Luke places the country of the Gerasenes on the other side of the sea from Galilee (Luk_8:26) - antı́pera tḗs Galilaias (?over against Galilee?).
(b) To go to the other side - eis tó péran (Mar_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 Tarichea (Vita, 59). But (i) 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. (ii) No case can be cited where the phrase eis to peran certainly means anything else than ?to the other side.? (iii) Mark says that the boat started to go unto the other side to Bethsaida, while John, gives the direction ?over the sea unto Capernaum? (Mar_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. (iv) The present writer is familiar with these waters in both storm and calm. If the boat was taken from any point in el-Baṭeiḥah towards et-Tell, no east wind would have distressed the rowers, protected as that part is by the mountains. Therefore it was no contrary wind that carried them toward Capernaum and the ?land of Gennesaret.? On the other hand, with a wind from the West, such as is often experienced, eight or nine hours might easily be occupied in covering the four or five miles from el-Baṭeiḥah to the neighborhood of Capernaum.
(c) The words of Mark (Mar_6:45), it is suggested (Sanday, Sacred Sites of the Gospels, 42), 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 Joh_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.
(d) In support of the single-city theory it is further argued that (i) Jesus withdrew to Bethsaida as being in the jurisdiction of Philip, when he heard of the murder of John by Antipas, and would not have sought again the territories of the latter so soon after leaving them. (ii) Medieval works of travel notice only one Bethsaida. (iii) The East coast of the sea was definitely attached to Galilee in ad 84, and Ptolemy (circa 140) places Julius in Galilee. It is therefore significant that only the Fourth Gospel speaks of ?Bethsaida of Galilee.? (iv) There could hardly have been two Bethsaidas so close together.
But: (i) It is not said that Jesus came hither that he might leave the territory of Antipas for that of Philip; and in view of Mar_6:30, and Luk_9:10, the inference from Mat_14:13 that he did so, is not warranted. (ii) The Bethsaida of medieval writers was evidently on the West of the Jordan. If it lay on the East it is inconceivable that none of them should have mentioned the river in this connection. (iii) 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 84 ad, 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. (iv) 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.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Bethsa?ida (fishing-town), a town (Joh_1:44; Mar_8:22) in Galilee (Joh_12:21), on the western side of the sea of Tiberias, towards the middle, and not far from Capernaum (Mar_6:45; Mar_8:22). It was the native place of Peter, Andrew, and Philippians and the frequent residence of Jesus. This gives some notion of the neighborhood in which it lay; but the precise site is utterly unknown, and the very name has long eluded the search of travelers.
Bethsaida, 2
Christ fed the 5000 'near to a city called Bethsaida' (Luk_9:10); but it is evident from the parallel passages (Mat_14:13; Mar_6:32-45), that this event took place, not in Galilee, but on the eastern side of the lake. This was held to be one of the greatest difficulties in sacred geography, till the ingenious Reland afforded materials for a satisfactory solution of it, by distinguishing two Bethsaidas; one on the western, and the other on the north-eastern border of the lake. The former was undoubtedly 'the city of Andrew and Peter;' and, it is in perfect agreement with the sacred text to conclude that it was the Bethsaida near which Christ fed the five thousand, and also, probably, where the blind man was restored to sight. It was originally only a village, called Bethsaida, but was rebuilt and enlarged by Philip the Tetrarch not long after the birth of Christ, and received the name of Julias in honor of Julia the daughter of Augustus (Luk_3:1). Philip seems to have made it his occasional residence; and here he died, and was buried in a costly tomb.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Bethsaida
(Βηθσαϊδά, for the Aramaean צֵידָה בֵּית, fishing-town, Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. col. 1894), a name which nearly all writers on Palestinian geography since Reland have assigned to two places, not far from each other, on the opposite shores near the head of Lake Tiberias (see Raumer, Paldstina, p. 109), but which there appears to be no good reason for distinguishing from each other (see Thomson, Land and Book, 2, 31 sq.).
1. A town (πόλις, Joh_1:45) in Galilee (Joh_12:21), apparently on the western side of the sea of Tilcrias, being in “the land of Gennesareth” (q.v.), and yet toward the northern extremity of the lake (Mar_6:45). It was the native place of Peter, Andrew, and Philip, and the frequent resort of Jesus (Joh_1:44; Joh_12:21, etc.). It was evidently in near neighborhood to Capernaum and Chorazin (Mat_11:21; Luk_10:13; and comp. Mar_6:45 with Joh_6:16), and, if the interpretation of the name is to be trusted, close to the water's edge. By Jerome (Comm. in Esai. 9, 1) and Eusebius (Onom.) these towns and Tiberias are all mentioned together as lying on the shore of the lake. Epiphanius (adv. Haer. 2) says of Bethsaida and Capernaum that they were not far apart. Wilibald (A.D. 722) went from Magdalum to Capernaum, thence to Bethsaida, and then to Chorazin. These ancient notices, however, though they fix its general situation, none of them contain any indication of its. exact position, and as, like the other two towns just mentioned, its name and all memory of its site have perished, no positive identification can be made of it. It is true that Pococke (2, 99) finds Bethsaida at Irbid; Scetzen at Khan Minyeh (Zach's Montl. Corresp. 18, 248); Nau at Mejdel (Voyage, p. 578; Quaresmius, 2:866), apparently between Khan Minyeh and Mejdel; and others at Tabighah (so Robinson) — all different points on the western shore of the lake. The Christians of Nazareth and Tiberias are indeed acquainted with the name, as well as that of Capernaum, from the New Testament; and they have learned to apply them to different places according to the opinions of their monastic teachers, or as may best suit their own convenience in answering the inquiries of travelers. It is thus that Dr. Robinson (Bibl. Researches, 3, 295) accounts for the fact that travelers have sometimes heard the names along the lake. Whenever this has not been the consequence of direct leading questions, which an Arab would always answer affirmatively, the names have doubtless been heard from the monks of Nazareth, or from the Arabs in a greater or less degree dependent upon them. The position of this Bethsaida mainly depends upon that of Capernaum, from which it was not far distant, to the north, on the shore (Robinson, new ed. of Researches, 3, 358, 359). If Capernaum be fixed at Khan Minyeh, then Bethsaida was probably at ‘Ain el-Tabighah; but if (as on some accounts is more likely) Capernaum is to be located at ‘Ain el-Mudawarah, then Bethsaida itself must be placed at Khan el- Minyeh; and in that case it may have sprung up as a restoration of the more ancient CINNERETH, but nearer the shore. SEE CAPERNAUM.
2. Christ fed the 5000 “near to a city called Bethsaida” (Luk_9:10); but, it has been thought from the parallel passages (Mat_14:13; Mar_6:32-45) that this event took place, not in Galilee, but on the eastern side of the lake. This was held to be one of the greatest difficulties in sacred geography (Cellar. Notit. Orb. 2, 536) till the ingenious Reland seemed to have afforded materials for a satisfactory solution of it by distinguishing two Bethsaidas, one on the western and the other on the north-eastern border of the lake (Palaest. p. 653). The former was undoubtedly “the city of Andrew and Peter;” and, although Reland did not himself think that the other Bethsaida is mentioned in the New Testament, it has been thought by later writers to be more in agreement with the sacred text to conclude that it was the Bethsaida near which Christ fed the 5000, and also, probably, where the blind man was restored to sight. This appears also to have been the Bethsaida of Gaulonitis, afterward called Julias, which Pliny (Hist. Nat. 5, 15) places on the eastern side of the lake and of the Jordan, and which Josephus describes as situated in Lower Gaulonitis, just above the entrance of the Jordan into the lake (War, 2, 9, 1; 3, 10, 7). It was originally only a village, called Bethsaida (Βηθσαϊδά), but was rebuilt and enlarged by Philip the Tetrarch not long after the birth of Christ, and received the name of Julias in honor of Julia, the daughter of Augustus (Josephus, Ant. 18, 2, 1). Philip seems to have made it his occasional residence; and here he died, and was buried in a costly tomb (Ant. 18, 4, 6). At the northern end of the lake of Gennesareth the mountains which form the eastern wall of the valley through which the Jordan enters the lake, throw out a spur or promontory which extends for some distance southward along the river. This is known by the people on the spot by no other name than et-Tell (the hill). On it are some ruins, which were visited by the Rev. Eli Smith, and proved to be the most extensive of any in the plain. The place is regarded as a sort of capital by the Arabs of the valley (the Ghawarineh), although they have lost its ancient name, and now occupy only a few houses in it as magazines. The ruins cover a large portion of the tell, but consist entirely of unhewn volcanic stones, without any distinct trace of ancient architecture (Robinson, Bibl. Researches, 3, 308). M. De Saulcy, however, objects to this location of Bethsaida, that in et-Tell there are only what may be called ruins of a barbarous age, and not such as would mark the remains of the splendid structures of Julias; that it is situated too far from the lake to be properly called a “fishing-town,” and that this position is inconsistent with Josephus's account of his military operations against Sylla (Life, § 72). He therefore thinks that Bethsaida was located at Tell-Houm, formerly regarded as the site of Capernaum (Narrative, 2, 377). But this position is inconsistent with his own identification of other neighboring localities, and fails also to meet the requirements of the scriptural texts.
Of this Bethsaida we have certainly one, and probably two mentions in the Gospels:
(1.) That named above, of the feeding of the 5000 (Luk_9:10). The miracle took place in a τόπος ἔρημος, a vacant, lonely spot, somewhere, up in the rising ground at the back of the town, covered with a profusion of green grass (Joh_6:3; Joh_6:10; Mar_6:39; Mat_14:19); and in the evening the disciples went down to the water and went home across the lake (εἰς τὸ πέραν) to Bethsaida (Mar_6:45), or, as John (Joh_6:17) and Matthew (Mat_14:34) more generally express it, toward Capernaum, and to the land of Gennesareth. The coincidence of the two Bethsaidas occurring in the one narrative, and that on the occasion of the only absolutely certain mention of the eastern one, is extraordinary. In the very ancient Syriac recension (the Nitrian) just published by Mr. Cureton, the words in Luk_9:10, “belonging to the city called Bethsaida” are omitted.
(2.) The other, highly probable, mention of this place is in Mar_8:22, where it is called a “village” (κώμη). If Dalmanutha (8, 10) or Magdala (Mat_15:39) was on the west side of the lake, then was Bethsaida on the east, because in the interval Christ had departed by ship to the other side (Mar_8:13). And with this well accords the mention immediately after of the villages of Caesarea-Philippi (Mar_8:27), and of the “high mountain” of the transfiguration (9:2), which was not the traditional spot (Matthew Tabor), but a part of the Hermon range somewhere above the source of the Jordan.
3. It is doubtful, however, whether, after all, there exists any real necessity for supposing two places of this name. As they could not have been very far from each other, the assumption is in itself a very improbable one, especially as the name nowhere occurs with any epithet or note of distinction, and neither Josephus nor any other ancient writer speaks of such a difference or duplication. In fact, all the circumstances under which every mention of the locality occurs, whether in Scripture or elsewhere, may be met by a location at the mouth of the Upper Jordan on the lake:
(1.) This corresponds to the only definite mention of the spot by Josephus (Ant. 18, 2, 1), as being “situate at Lake (πρὸς λίμνῃ) Gennesareth.”
(2.) This would be popularly called a part of Galilee (Joh_12:21). and yet might very easily be reckoned as belonging to Lower Gaulonitis (Joseph. War, 2, 9, 1), since it was really on the border between these two districts.
(3.) It would thus lie directly on the route from the western shore of the lake to Caesarea-Philippi (Mar_8:22, comp. with 10 and 27).
(4.) Such a position readily reconciles the statements in the accounts of Christ recrossing the lake after both miracles of the loaves:
[1.] In Mar_6:32 (comp. Joh_6:1), the passage was directly across the northern end of the lake from Capernaum to a retired spot on the shore somewhat S.E. of Bethsaida; thence the disciples started to cross merely the N.E. corner of the lake to Bethsaida itself (Mar_6:45, but were driven by the head-wind during the night to a more southerly point, and thus reached Capernaum (Joh_6:17; Joh_6:21; Joh_6:24), after having traversed the plain of Gennesareth (Mat_14:34; Mar_6:53).
[2.] In Mar_8:10, the passage was likewise directly across the upper portion of the lake, but in an opposite direction, from the Decapolis (Mar_8:31) to the vicinity of Magdala (Mat_15:39), thence along the shore and around the N.W. head of the lake to Bethsaida (Mar_8:22), and so on northward to the scene of the transfiguration in the region of Caesarea-Philippi (Mat_16:13).
[3.] The position of et-Tell is too far from the shore to correspond with the notices of Bethsaida and Livias, which require a situation corresponding to that of the modern ruined village el-Araj, containing some vestiges of antiquity (Robinson, Researches, 3, 304), immediately east of the debouchure of the Upper Jordan. (See Forbiger, Situs desertorum Bethsaidae, Lips. 1742).
Bethsaida
If Capernaum be located at Khan Minyeh or Ain Tabighah, or anywhere in that immediate vicinity, Bethsaida may very well have been situated at Tell Hum; and this position will obviate the necessity for the supposition of two Bethsaidas, inasmuch as this was the last important town in that direction, and the entire shore of the lake beyond, even on the north-east side, may very well be designated as belonging to it (Luk_9:10). SEE CAPERNAUM.



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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