| has gloss | eng: Bethabara (beth-'abara; בית עברה; bēth‛ăbhārāh; Βηθαβαρά; Bēthabará; “house of the ford”), 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 ). 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 reading Bethabara became current owing to the advocacy of Origen. 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 ). It is interesting to note that lxxB reads, Baithabara for Masoretic Text Bēth-‛ărābhāh, one of the cities of Benjamin (Joshua ). If this is correct, the site is in Judea. |
