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Bethsaida-Julias and Bethsaida of Galilee
The location of Biblical Bethsaida has been a vexed problem of Biblical scholarship for almost two hundred years, and a problem in the history of Christian pilgrimage since at least the sixth century.
We will consider the literary-historical evidence from Josephus, from the four Gospels, and from pilgrimage accounts, weaving in the archaeological and geographic evidence from the western and northern sides of the Sea of Galilee. There are a number of reasons for approaching the problem in that order. The first century literary evidence is our best information for any attempted identification of any site or sites with the names Bethsaida and/or Julias. The very process of identification of ancient sites implies a correlation of literature with archaeology.
Some archaeologists claim that they are no longer guided in their work by ancient texts, yet their arguments for the significance of each site in its time and place begins and ends with facts gained from literature. Solicitation of public support for their enterprises continues to focus on identification of sites with place names found in the literature, particularly the Bible. The subtext underlying these protestations of absolute objectivity is the notion that physical science is "objective," while Biblical scholars are "subjective" and unreliable. But pottery is no more physical than Biblical manuscripts, and archaeologists are no less subjective than Biblical scholars. All interpretations must be subject to scrutiny.
Non-Biblical First Century Evidence
"The identification of Julias with Bethsaida, which which Josephus makes in Ant. 18.2.1 28 is the only reference to it in the whole of the ancient literature."1 Aside from that passage, Josephus speaks only of "Julias" (while the Gospels speak only of "Bethsaida"). "Pliny the Elder (His n.at. 5.15.71)... mentions four 'lovely cities' on the Sea of Galilee in his work, which appeared in the second half of the first century CE, among them 'in the east' Julias and Hippos." (Kuhn and Arav, 82)
The Josephus evidence is critical. His Julias "lay in the Gaulanitis east of the Jordan, near its entrance to the Lake."2 But it was not right on the sea, there was a marshy plain between Julias and the sea.3 Kuhn4 effectively argued that this points decisively to el-Tell and rules out the sites or el-Araj and el-Mesadiyeh, which lie in that plain (Kuhn ane Arav, 81). From Arav's digging at el-Araj, "no evidence [was] found for Roman or Hellenistic occupation...a sterile level was found underneath this Byzantine structure" (94).
El-Tell shows occupation in the 10th century BCE, all well as the Roman period. These coincide fairly well with the periods mentioned for Tzer (Joshua 19:35) and Bethsaida in the Bible. These details lie beyond the scope of this article.
I accept the identification of El-Tell with Julias, and with the Bethsaida of Josephus. I do not accept that all New Testament references to Bethsaida refer to this site.
Biblical Evidence
Bethsaida is mentioned seven times in the New Testament. The story of a blind man being healed there (Mark 8:22) gives no definite geographic clues. The curse against Bethsaida (Mt 11:21; Lk 10:13) will be examined later in this article. This leaves us with two useful references in John, and two difficult but crucial references connected with the feeding miracle.
The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle found in all four Gospels. There is a significant convergence among the accounts, and some even more significant divergences.
The most inescapable divergence among the Gospel accounts is that Luke 9:10 says the miracle took place in a "city called Bethsaida" (NRSV), or in "a deserted place belonging to the city called Bethsaida" (NKJV)5, while Mark 6:45 says after the miracle, "immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd" (NRSV).
At first glance, we appear to have a contradiction between Mark and Luke. But if we set aside "Bethsaida" as an uncertain factor for the moment, and examine the Biblical record in light of agreed-upon sites, we find there is substantial agreement between three of the accounts, while Luke gives us political information that seems to correlate with the geography of the other three. It is much better to examine the Biblical evidence carefully, than to hastily pronounce it to be in error.
Mark has the disciples leaving the miracle site and sailing across the sea toward Bethsaida, but actually landing at Gennesaret (Mark 6:53), possibly blown off course by the strong winds (6:48,51). Matthew does not mention Bethsaida but concurs in their landing at Gennesaret (14:34). Kopp6 argues convincingly for Tell el-Minyeh as Gennesaret (or, more anciently, Kinnereth; more recently, Ginosar), located on the west shore, a few miles south of Capernaum, a few miles north of Tiberias.
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