A Tale of Two Bethanys
🌿 A Tale of Two Bethanys 🌿 The story begins with a small but important detail in the manuscripts of the New Testament. In John 1:28 , the earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts — including P66 (around AD 200), P75 (early 3rd century), Codex Vaticanus , and Codex Sinaiticus — all read the same thing: “Bethany beyond the Jordan.” The Greek word for Bethany is G963 ( bēthania ) , and it is used for both places called Bethany in the Bible. But in the third century, the scholar Origen believed that “Bethany beyond the Jordan” must be a mistake, because the well‑known Bethany near Jerusalem was not across the Jordan River. So he suggested a different name: Bethabara , which means “house of the crossing,” based on the Hebrew root H5674 ʿāḇar , meaning “to cross over.” His idea was not based on manuscripts but on interpretive geography. Later scribes copied his suggestion, and it eventually entered the Byzantine text , the Textus Receptus , and finally the King James Vers...
