John 1:28

28. In Bethabara Nearly all the ancient manuscripts read Bethany instead of Bethabara. The latter name was substituted for the former by Origen, because he knew a Bethabara but not a Bethany near the Jordan. Stanley, however, maintains that Bethabara is the right reading. If Bethany or Bethania is the true reading, it nevertheless may be in the Aramaic a different word, as well as a different place from the Bethany of Lazarus and his sisters on Mount Olivet. The former may be a word signifying the place of (ferry) boats; the latter the place of dates.

Perhaps this long-debated question has been rightly settled by a late very scholarly traveller in Palestine, Revelation Mr. Tristam, (1864,) who identifies Bethabara with Beth-Nimrah, a little north of the Bethabara on our map. It is probably the ford passed by the Baptist’s great type, Elijah the Tishbite, on his way to his ascension. Quarantania, the Mount of Temptation, is in sight. It is a place amply supplied with convenient waters. Its very name in the Septuagint, Baethanabra, is about half way between Bethany and Bethabara, and might be transformed either way or both ways. Numbers 32:36; Joshua 13:27.