1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.
6There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7The same came as a witness, that he might testify about the light, that all might believe through him. 8He was not the light, but was sent that he might testify about the light. 9The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
10He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn’t recognize him. 11He came to his own, and those who were his own didn’t receive him. 12But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name: 13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
14The Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. 15John testified about him. He cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me, for he was before me.’” 16From his fullness we all received grace upon grace. 17For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18No one has seen God at any time. The only born Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.
19This is John’s testimony, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
20He declared, and didn’t deny, but he declared, “I am not the Christ.”
21They asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
22They said therefore to him, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”
24The ones who had been sent were from the Pharisees. 25They asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”
26John answered them, “I baptize in water, but among you stands one whom you don’t know. 27He is the one who comes after me, who is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to loosen.” 28These things were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
29The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me.’ 31I didn’t know him, but for this reason I came baptizing in water, that he would be revealed to Israel.” 32John testified, saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on him. 33I didn’t recognize him, but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘On whomever you will see the Spirit descending and remaining on him is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ 34I have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
35Again, the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples, 36and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 37The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 38Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, “What are you looking for?”
They said to him, “Rabbi” (which is to say, being interpreted, Teacher), “where are you staying?”
39He said to them, “Come and see.”
They came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about the tenth hour. 40One of the two who heard John and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ). 42He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is by interpretation, Peter).
43On the next day, he was determined to go out into Galilee, and he found Philip. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” 44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets, wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
46Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said about him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”
48Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
49Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!”
50Jesus answered him, “Because I told you, ‘I saw you underneath the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these!” 51He said to him, “Most certainly, I tell you all, hereafter you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Possible Site of Bethsaida (John 1:44)
The town of Bethsaida is mentioned several times in the Gospels, and is found in each one at least once. In fact, the area between Bethsaida and Capernaum is where the majority of Jesus’ activities in Galilee took place. Here in John’s account, Bethsaida is said to be where Philip, Andrew and Peter were from (although it seems Peter moved to Capernaum at some point). In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus visits the city and heals a blind man (Mk 8:22-26), while in Matthew and Luke’s account, Jesus includes Bethsaida in His “woes” (along with Chorazin and Capernaum – Matt. 11:21, Lk 10:13).
The location of the city is to this day not known with certainty. The historical record does narrow the locality down somewhat. The Jewish historian Josephus says that Bethsaida was in the territory of Philip the Tetrarch and that he renamed the town Julias, after the wife of the emperor Augustus (and mother of Tiberias), and raised its status from village to city.[1] Josephus also says that the Jordan “passes by” Bethsaida-Julius.[2] Since Philip’s territory was east of the Jordan River, this puts Bethsaida on or near the East bank of the river. Theodosius, writing around A. D. 530, says that Bethsaida was six miles from Capernaum, and that the headwaters of the Jordan River was fifty miles from Bethsaida.[3] This suggests that the site of the town was not far from where the Jordan empties into the Sea of Galilee. The proximity of Bethsaida to the lake is also suggested by the name of the city itself, which means “place of the fishers” in Aramaic.[4] Thus two sites are identified as the most likely locations of Bethsaida: Khirbet el-Araj and et-Tell. Roman pottery has been found on the surface at both sites, confirming habitation during Jesus’ life, and both are geographically located near where the historical record says they should be.
Khirbet el-Araj is located only about fifty yards from the shore of the Sea of Galilee on the current West bank of the Jordan River. Although it is on the wrong side of the river today, this was not necessarily the case two thousand years ago, as the Jordan at this spot has changed its course many times. In 18XX Gottlieb Schumacher, citing the difficulty of et-Tell’s distance from the Sea of Galilee proposed Khirbet el-Araj as the true site of Bethsaida. Although Byzantine-era artifacts have been found at the site, archaeological surveys using ground penetrating RADAR have shown that there is nothing but sand below the Byzantine layer, strongly suggesting that there was no village here during Jesus’ ministry. However, Mendel Nun, an acknowledged expert on the Sea of Galilee, has argued that the level of the Sea of Galilee was actually lower than it is today in ancient times, and therefore much of the Khirbet el-Araj site is under water.
et-Tell is about 1.2 miles from the lake on a rocky hill on the East side of the Jordan. As the name (the Mound) suggests, the site’s original name has been lost even to the locals. Although it was identified as Bethsaida by Edward Robinson in 1838, it has only been excavated since 1990 by the Consortium of the Bethsaida Excavations Project (BEP), led by Rami Arav, Richard A. Freund and John F. Shroder, Jr. and hosted by the University of Nebraska, Omaha. The site itself covers twenty acres, making it the largest archaeological site on the Sea of Galilee. They have identified et-Tell as the ancient capitol of the kingdom of Geshur, perhaps called Tzer or Tzed (Josh 19:35).[5] The city was therefore one of the most important cities of the Iron Age. In the ninth century B.C. it was surrounded by a nearly twenty foot thick wall and featured the largest biblical era gate found in Israel.[6] Archaeologists found the remains of several Hellenistic courtyard type houses, inside which they found fishing net weights and needles for repairing nets, iron anchors and fish hooks.[7] In another house an almost intact wine cellar was discovered. The cellar contained several wine amphorae and vine pruning hooks, leading archaeologists to the conclusion that the house belonged to a vintner.[8]
One of the most interesting finds was a Roman-era temple, which the BEP argues may have been built to commemorate Philip’s renaming the city after Julia. The temple follows the typical plan of Roman temples, having a columned porch, a hallway leading to a long, narrow “holy of holies,” and a rear porch. An incense shovel and several religious figurines were also found near the temple.[9] Archaeologists also found decorated stones near the temple that are almost identical to stones found in the Chorazim synagogue, leading them to argue that the Chorazim stones were actually taken from the et-Tell stite (they are only about three miles apart).
Although the BEP did find limestone containers, suggesting the presence of Jews in the city, the population of et-Tell was most likely almost totally gentile.[10] Limestone was used exclusively used by Jews for food storage due to stone’s ability to remain ritually pure, as opposed to clay pottery.
As mentioned before, a major problem with identifying et-Tell as ancient Bethsaida is et-Tell’s distance from the Sea of Galilee. However John Shroder, a geological expert and member of the BEP, examined geological maps of the area and concluded that the current shoreline of the Sea is “not necessarily the ancient shoreline.”[11] Shroder argues that et-Tell sits on a very active fault line, the level of the lake is constantly changing, and that the mouth of the northern branch of the Jordan River has built up a delta where it flows into the Sea of Galilee. Thus, the site of et-Tell may very well have been near the shore in Jesus’ time.[12] Other examples of this phenomenon include Ephesus, once on the shore of the Aegean, but now about six miles from the sea.
Subsequent geological investigation has lent credibility to Shroder’s argument. At the base of et-Tell sedimentary clay containing crustacean microorganisms was discovered. Further, large boulders and gravel cover the clay. Carbon 14 tests were conducted on organic material underneath this layer of boulders and gravel revealed a date range of A.D. 68-375. Shroder theorizes the cataclysmic earthquake of A.D. 363 caused a large landslide to flow across the plain where et-Tell is located, “cutting Bethsaida off from the shore.”[13] After the city was cut off from the shore the city was abandoned by the fourth century. It appears Jesus’ condemnation of Bethsaida came to pass, as the city was so quickly forgotten that Byzantine pilgrims (who have been shown to be fairly accurate in their identifications of biblical sites) could not find the site, and some of them misidentified the Khirbet el-Araj site as ancient Bethsaida.
Associate photos “John 1_44 Fig 1-Bethsaida Overview,” “John 1_44 Fig 2-Bethsaida Aerial,” “John 1_44 Fig 3-Plan of Bethsaida,” “John 1_44 Fig 4-Fish net weight Bethsaida,” “John 1_44 Fig 5-Incense Shovel from et-Tell,” “John 1_44 Fig 6-Jewish Limestone pot handle,” “John 1_44 Fig 7-Diagram Showing the Shifting Shore of Galilee.”
[1]Josephus, Antiquities, 18.2.1.28
[2]Josephus, Wars, 3.10.7.515
[3]Theodosius, de situ terrae sancte, ed, Geyer, ()138.
[4]Jack Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992) 114.
[5] Rami Arav, “Toward a Comprehensive History of Geshur” pages 1-48 in Bethsaida: A City By the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee, Vol. 3, ed. by Rami Arav and Richard A. Freund (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2004) 1.
[6]Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Bethsaida: An Ancient Fishing Village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.” Online: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Early%20History%20-%20Archaeology/Bethsaida-%20An%20Ancient%20Fishing%20Village%20on%20the%20shore (accessed March 11, 2010).
[7] Mendel Nun has challenged the identification of these artefacts as fishing implements, while the BEP says that some of the artefacts initially found were misidentified, many more fishing artefacts have subsequently been found. See Steven Feldman, “The Case for el-Araj” Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 26, No.1 (Jan/Feb 2000).
[8]Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Bethsaida: An Ancient Fishing Village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.” Online: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Early%20History%20-%20Archaeology/Bethsaida-%20An%20Ancient%20Fishing%20Village%20on%20the%20shore (accessed March 11, 2010).
[9] Rami Arav, Richard A. Freund, and John F. Shroder, Jr., “Bethsaida Rediscovered.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol.26, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2000): 44-51, 53-56.
[10] Mark Appold, “Peter in Profile: From Bethsaida to Rome,” pages 133-148 in Bethsaida: A City By the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee, Vol. 3, ed. by Rami Arav and Richard A. Freund (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2004) 142
[11] Rami Arav, Richard A. Freund, and John F. Shroder, Jr., “Bethsaida Rediscovered.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol.26, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2000): 44-51, 53-56.
[12] Rami Arav, Richard A. Freund, and John F. Shroder, Jr., “Bethsaida Rediscovered.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol.26, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2000): 44-51, 53-56.
[13] Rami Arav, Richard A. Freund, and John F. Shroder, Jr., “Bethsaida Rediscovered.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol.26, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2000): 44-51, 53-56.