Bethsaida

Bethsaida ( ; from ; from Aramaic and , from the Hebrew root ; ), also known as Julias or Julia (), is a place mentioned in the New Testament. Julias lay in an administrative district known as Gaulonitis, now the Golan Heights.

Historians have suggested that the name is also referenced in rabbinic literature under the epithet ().

The location of ancient Bethsaida or Julias has not been positively identified by modern researchers, of the three original candidates el-Araj being lately favoured due to the most recent discoveries, displacing et-Tell as the front-runner.

New Testament According to , Bethsaida was the hometown of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip. Jörg Frey finds this attribution credible. In Mark 8:22–26, Jesus restored a blind man's sight at a place just outside the ancient village of Bethsaida. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus miraculously fed a multitude of people near Bethsaida.

History Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (77–79 CE), places Bethsaida on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. The Jewish historian Josephus says Bethsaida, at that time called Julia, was situated 120 stadia from the lake of Semechonitis, which is now the much drier Hula Valley not far from the Jordan River as it passes into the middle of the Sea of Galilee.Josephus, The Jewish War 3.10.7

The much later De situ terrae sanctae, a 6th-century Christian itinerarium, describes Bethsaida's location in relation to Capernaum, saying that it was distant from Capernaum.Rami Arav & Richard Freund (eds.), Bethsaida: A City by the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee, vol. 3, Truman State University 2004, p. xii, The distance between Bethsaida and Paneas is said to have been .

Identification: candidates Although Bethsaida is believed to be located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, within the Bethsaida Valley, there is disagreement among scholars as to precisely where. Since the nineteenth century, three places have been considered as the possible location of biblical Betsaida:

El-Araj, an archaeological site at the place where the upper Jordan River flows into the Sea of Galilee is proposed by a second group, led by Mordechai Aviam, under the auspices of the center for Holy Land Studies (CHLS).Pfister, Samuel DeWitt. "Where Is Biblical Bethsaida?", Bible History Daily, Biblical Archaeological Society, June 16, 2019. It is also known as Beit HaBek, "House of the Bey", due to the ruins of an old mansion at the site. Et-Tell, an archaeological site on the east bank of the Jordan River, is promoted by the Bethsaida Excavations Project, led by Rami Arav. El-Mesydiah or el-Mes‛adīyeh, an archaeological site and former Bedouin winter village about from the mouth of the River Jordan on the Jordanian side, is the third candidate, but the least likely one.

El-Araj

According to Josephus, around the year 30/31 CE (or 32/33 CE) Philip raised the village of Bethsaida in Lower Gaulanitis to the rank of a polis and renamed it "Julias", in honor of Livia, also called Julia Augusta, (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III (PIR), Berlin, 1933 – L 301 the wife of Augustus. It lay near the place where the Jordan river enters the Sea of Galilee.Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII, ii, 1; The Jewish War, II, ix, 1; III, x, 7; The Life of Flavius Josephus, 72.

Julias/Bethsaida was a city east of the Jordan River, in a "desert place" (that is, uncultivated ground used for grazing), if this is the location to which Jesus retired by boat with his disciples to rest a while (see and ). The multitude following on foot along the northern shore of the lake would cross the Jordan by the ford at its mouth, which is used by foot travelers to this day. The "desert" of the narrative is just the barrīyeh of the Arabs, where the animals are driven out for pasture. The "green grass" of , and the "much grass" of John 6:10, point to some place in the plain of el-Baṭeiḥah, on the rich soil of which the grass is green and plentiful, compared to the scanty herbage on the higher slopes.

In 2017, archaeologists announced the discovery of a Roman bathhouse at el-Araj, which is taken as proof that the site was a polis in the Roman Empire period. The bathhouse was located in a layer below the Byzantine layer, with an intervening layer of mud and clay that indicated a break in occupation between 250 and 350 CE. They also found what might be the remains of a Byzantine church building, matching the description of a traveller in 750 CE. On account of these discoveries, the archaeologists believe that el-Araj is now the most likely candidate for the location of Bethsaida.

In 2019, what some describe as the Church of Apostles was unearthed by the el-Araj excavations team during the fourth season at the site of Bethsaida-Julias / Beithabbak (el-Araj), on the north shore of Sea of Galilee near where the Jordan river enters the lake. The excavation was carried out by Prof. Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret College and Prof. R. Steven Notley of Nyack College. This Byzantine period church is believed by some to have been built over the house of the apostle brothers, Peter and Andrew. Only the southern rooms of the church were excavated. A well-protected ornamental mosaic floor, gilded glass tesserae, and a marble chancel decorated with a wreath have been found in some of the excavated rooms. According to Professor Notley:

In 2022, the archaeological team uncovered a large mosaic that is over 1500 years old containing an inscription. This invokes St. Peter as "the chief and commander of the heavenly apostles". and mentions a donor named "Constantine, a servant of Christ". These terminologies are consistent with Byzantine usage. Because of this, Notley said that this "strengthen[s] our argument that [it] should be considered the leading candidate for first century Bethsaida."

In August 2025, in the wake of a wildfire along the northern shore of the Kinneret, small mounds across the el-Araj archaeology site are being excavated as "mini-tells."Wildfire unveils lost biblical village of Bethsaida

Et-Tell

Archaeologists tend to agree that the capital of the kingdom of Geshur was situated at et-Tell, a place also inhabited on a lesser scale during the first centuries BCE and CE and sometimes identified with the town of Bethsaida of New Testament fame.

The first excavations of the site were conducted in 1987–1989 by the Golan Research Institute. In 2008–2010, and in 2014, archaeological excavations of the site were conducted by Rami Arav on behalf of the University of Nebraska of Omaha, Nebraska.Israel Antiquities Authority, Excavators and Excavations Permit for Year 2008, Survey Permit # G-31; Excavators and Excavations Permit for Year 2009, Survey Permit # G-45; Excavators and Excavations Permit for Year 2010, Survey Permit # G-42; Excavators and Excavations Permit for Year 2014, Survey Permit # G-46 According to Arav, the ruin of et-Tell is said to be Bethsaida, a ruined site on the east side of the Jordan on rising ground, from the sea. However, this distance poses a problem, as a fishing village situated far from the shore of the Sea of Galilee would be problematic. In an attempt to rectify the problem, the following hypotheses have been devised:

Tectonic rift activity has uplifted et-Tell; the site is located at the West Asian end of the active and massive Great Rift Valley of Africa. The water level has dropped due to increased population usage and land irrigation. In fact, the excavation of Magdala's harbour has proven that the ancient water level was much higher than it is today.F. D. Troche, "Ancient Fishing Methods and Fishing Grounds in the Lake of Galilee" Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 148:4 (2016) 290–291. The Jordan River delta has been extended by sedimentation."Bethsaida- An Ancient Fishing Village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee", Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 21 Mar 2000

Bronze and Iron Ages

Excavations indicate that the settlement was founded in the 11th century BCE, in the biblical period. Et-Tell was inhabited during both the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Researchers associate the fortified town there with Geshur, which is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.

During the Iron Age, the site of et-Tell was very likely the capital of the Kingdom of Geshur.

Archaeologist Rami Arav, the head of excavations at et-Tell for many years, identified in 2018 the First Temple period city there with biblical Zer, a fortified city mentioned in .

Most imposing archaeological finds, mainly from the Stratum V city gate, date to the 8th century BCE, but as of 2024, archaeologists have found the northwestern chamber wall of the Geshurite city gate of Stratum VI, dating to the 11th-10th centuries BCE. The et-Tell site would have been easily the largest and strongest city to the east of the Jordan Valley during the Iron Age II era.

The Iron Age city at et-Tell was destroyed in 734–732 BCE during the campaign of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III, an event that also marked the end of the kingdom of Geshur. Archaeological evidence indicates a violent destruction, including widespread burning, structural collapse, and particularly heavy damage at the city gate. Finds such as arrowheads and the state of storage areas point to fighting and the exhaustion of supplies. The remains also show that portions of the gate complex were later dismantled and removed. Taken together, this evidence indicates that the Iron Age city came to an end in this episode and did not recover its former status.

Hellenistic and Roman periods Et-Tell was reinhabited again in the third century BCE and continued on a lesser scale during the first century CE. Archaeological excavations at site have revealed fishing gear, including lead weights used for fishing nets, as well as sewing needles for repairing fishing nets. The findings indicate that most of the city's economy was based on fishing on the Sea of Galilee. Two silver coins dating to 143 BCE, as well as Seleucid bronze coins, bronze coins from the time of Alexander Jannaeus, King of the Hasmonean dynasty (reigned c. 103–76 BCE), and one coin from the time of Philip the Tetrarch (a son of Herod the Great), ruler of the Bashan (reigned 4 BCE – 34 CE), were discovered at the site.Aryeh Kindler, "The Coins of the Tetrarch Philip and Bethsaida", Cathedra 53, September 1989, pp. 26–24 (Hebrew) Philip the Tetrarch applied the name "Julias" () to the site, which he named after Caesar's daughter.Josephus, Antiquities 18.2.1. (18.26)

El-Mesydiah El-Mesydiah, also spelled el-Mes‛adīyeh, is a third candidate, but generally considered the least likely one. It is located on the present shoreline, but preliminary excavations, including the use of ground penetrating radar, initially revealed only a small number of ruins dating from before the Byzantine period. Gottlieb Schumacher was inclined to favor el-Mes‛adīyeh, which stands on an artificial mound about east of the mouth of the River Jordan.

One or two Bethsaidas? According International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, many scholars maintain that all the New Testament references to Bethsaida apply to one place, namely, Bethsaida Julias. The arguments for and against this view may be summarized as follows.W. Ewing. Bethsaida. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915.

Galilee ran right round the lake, including most of the level coastland on the east. Thus Gamala, on the eastern shore, was within the jurisdiction of Josephus, who commanded in Galilee.Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War, II, xx, 4. Judas of GamalaFlavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII, i, l. is also called Judas of Galilee.Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII, i, 6 If Gamala, far up the slope towering over the eastern shore of the sea, were in Galilee, a fortiori Bethsaida, a town which lay on the very edge of the Jordan, may be described as in Galilee.