Here at 'Abârah we have the name, and nowhere else, as yet, has the name been found; the question then arises, is the position suitable?
We speak commonly of Bethabara as the place of Our Lord's baptism. Possibly it was so, but the Gospel does not say as much. It is only once mentioned as a place where John was baptising, and where certain events happened on consecutive days. These events are placed in the Gospel harmonies immediately after the Temptation, when Christ would appear to have been returning from the desert (perhaps east of Jordan) to Galilee. Bethabara, "the house of the ferry,â was "beyond Jordan;â but the place of baptism was no doubt at the ford or ferry itself; hence the ford 'Abârah is the place of interest. It cannot be Christian tradition which originates this site, for Christian tradition has pointed, from the fourth century down to the present day, to the fords of Jericho as the place of baptism by St. John.
"And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galileeâ (John ii. 1). Here is the controlling passage. The hostile critics of the fourth Gospel have taken hold of it; they have supposed the traditional site to be undoubtedly the true one, and have thence argued the impossibility that in one day Christ could have travelled eighty miles to Cana. To the fourth-century inquirer the difficulty would never have occurred; he would have answered at once that Our Lord was miraculously carried from one place to the other; but the Gospel does not say so, and we should therefore look naturally for Bethabara within a day's journey of Cana. The ford 'Abârah is about twenty-two miles in a line from Kefr Kenna, and no place can be found, on Jordan, much nearer or more easily accessible to the neighbourhood of Cana.
I leave these facts to the reader, asking him to choose, between the difficulties attendant on the traditional site, and the suitability of the new site, where alone as yet the name of Bethabara has been recovered.
There is, however, another point with regard to Bethabara which must not be overlooked. The oldest MSS. read, not Bethabara, but Bethany, beyond Jordan. Origen observed this, yet chose the present reading, and we can hardly suppose that the early fathers of the Church made such an alteration without some good reason; perhaps the original text contained both names, "Bethabara in Bethanyâ beyond Jordan being a possible reading.