Footnote 3 – Why Jesus Went Back to Galilee

According to John 1:28, this took place at “Bethany beyond the Jordan.” I suspect that the name “Bethany beyond the Jordan” is an invention of one of the editors of the Fourth Gospel, who assumed that since the Baptist had an audience, there must have been a town. The complete disappearance of a town with this name in little more than a century—Origen could find no trace of it not long after 231 A.D. (Commentary on John 6.204)—is highly suspicious to anyone aware of the tenacity of place-names in the Middle East.