( hrist fed the 5000, and also, probably, where the blind
BETHSAIDA
787
BETH-SHEAN
man was restored to sight. This appears also to have been the Bethsaida of Gaulonitis, afterward called Ju- lias, which Pliny (Hist. Nat, v, 15) places on the east- ern side of the lake and of the Jordan, and which Jo- sephus describes as situated in Lower Gaulonitis, just above the entrance of the Jordan into the lake ( War, ii, 9, 1 ; iii, 10, 7). It was originallj' only a village, called Bethsaida (BtiSraa'ida), but was rebuilt and en- larged 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. xviii, 2, 1). Philip seems to have made it his occasional res- idence ; and here he died, and was buried in a costly tomb (Ant. xviii, 4, G). At the northern end of the lake of Gennesarcth 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 Kev. 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 architec- ture (Robinson, Bibl. Researches, iii, 308). M. De Saul- cy, however, objects to this location of Dethsaid I, that in et-Tell there are only what may be called ruins of a barbarous age, and not such as would mark the re- mains 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-lloum, formerly regard- ed as the site of Capernaum (Narrativs, ii, 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 prob- ably two mentions in the Gospels: (1.) That named above, of the feeding of the 5000 (Luke ix, in). The miracle took place in a r<)7roc tpm-iog, a vacant, loneLy spot, somewhere up in the rising ground at the back of the town, covered with a profusion of green grass (John vi, 3, 10; Mark vi, 39; Matt, xiv, 19); and in the evening the disciples went down to the water and went home across the lake (fig rii iripav) to Bethsaida (Mark vi, 45), or, as John (vi, 17) and Matthew (xiv, 31) more generally express it, toward Capernaum, and to the land of Gcnnesareth. 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 Xitrian) just pub- li<hel by Mr. Cureton, the words in Luke ix, 10, "be- longing to the city called Bethsaida" arc omitted.
(2.) The other, highly probable, mention of this place is in Mark viii, 22, where it is called a " vil- lige*' (Kibfirj). If Dalmanutha (viii, 10) or Magdala (.Matt, xv, 3D) was on the west side of the like, then wis Bethsaida on the east, because in the interval Christ had departed by ship to the other side (Mark viii, Li). And with this well accords the mention im- mediately after of the villages of Csesarea-Philippi (v.-r. 27), and of the "high mountain" of the transfig- uration (ix, 2), which was not the traditional spot (Mt. Tabor), but a part of the Hermon range some- where 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 im- probable one, especially as the name nowhere occurs
with any epithet or note of distinction, and neither ,To- ! sephus nor any other ancient writer speaks of such a dif- | ference 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 (.1m/. xviii, 2, 1), as being "situate at Lake (7rpu<; \ifivg) Gennesareth." (2.) This would be popularly called a part of Galilee (John xii, 21), and j'et might very easily be reckoned as belonging to 1 Lower Gaulonitis (Joseph. War, ii, 9, 1), since it was really on the border between these two districts. (3.) I It would thus lie directly on the route from the west- | ern shore of the lake to Caesarea-Philippi (Mark viii, 22, comp. with 10 and 27). (4.) Such a position readi- ly reconciles the statements in the accounts of Christ recross'ing the lake after both miracles of the loaves : [1.] In Mark vi, 32 (comp. John vi, 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 (Mark vi, 45), but were driven by the head-wind dur- ing the night to a more southerly point, and thus reached Capernaum (John vi, 17, 21, 24), after having traversed the plain of Gennesareth (Matt, xiv, 34 ; Mark vi, 53). [2.] In Mark viii, 10, the passage was likewise directly across the upper portion of the lake, but in an opposite direction, from the Decapolis (ver. 31) to the vicinity of Magdala (Matt, xv, 39), thence along the shore and around the N.W. head of the lake to Bethsaida (Mark viii, 22), and so on northward to the scene of the transfiguration in the region of Cse- sarea-Philippi (Matt, xvi, 13). [3.] The position of ct-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, iii, 304), immediately east of the debouchure of the Upper Jordan. (Sec Forbiger, Situs desertorum Bethsaida, Lips. 1742).