312 Jeremy M. Hutton named hrb[ tyb located on or near the Jordan, and possibly for a related interpretive tradition preserved in Mk 1,2-3, which was then picked up by Origen. Therefore, while the priority of the reading Bhqabara'/ in John 1,28 may remain doubtful (19), it has at least been salvaged as a remote possibility. On the other hand, the reading Bhqaniva/, which may have arisen under literary pressure from the symbolic movement of Jesus to Bethany in John 11, should be problematized to a greater extent than it typically has been. Whether the writer of the Fourth Gospel wrote Bhqabara'/ or not, only a location somewhere in the southern part of the Jordan River valley can have been intended (20). But where exactly was that locale? Setting aside the Bethany/ Bethabara question for the moment, the following section attempts to answer that question. II. The Itinerary of John 11 in Redaction-Critical Consideration In his attempts to determine the location of John’s “Bethany beyond the Jordan,” Riesner provides an overview of previous scholarship (21). The locale has been alternately associated with: a) sites in the Transjordan (Peraea) well removed from the course of the Jordan River, such as Beth Nimrah (Num 32,36; Josh 13,27; cf. Isa 15,6; Jer 48,34; modern T. el-Bleibil or T. Nimr^n) (22) and Betonim (Josh 13,26; modern H. Bat≤neh) (23); b) the more familiar Bethany near Jerusalem ≠ (19) Cf. METZGER’s note (“ejn bhqaniva/ ejgevneto {C}”, 200) that “if Bhqabara'/ were original, then there is no adequate reason why it should have been altered to bhqania”. v/ (20) Cf. PICIRILLO’s enigmatic provision (“Sanctuaries”, 443), that “there are two topographic realities that do not exclude each other — Bethabara at the river Jordan and Bethany at the spring of Wadi Kharrar…” (21) The following survey is based on RIESNER’s much more thorough pre- sentation of and bibliography for the various arguments (“Bethany”, 34-43; idem, Bethanien, 43-56). (22) F.F. BRUCE, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI 1983) 51, 66, n. 45; RIESNER (“Bethany”, 39; Bethanien, 48) points to the manifold problems with such an identification, however, including the difficulty of reading the desired baiqanabra' in any of the textual witnesses; the presence of Bhqennabriv" in Jo- sephus (B.J. 4.420 [=4.8.4]), which would have been available to Origen as an option; and finally, Eusebius’s inclusion of Bhqnemravn (Onom. 44.16-18), lacking any mention of the baptism. (23) Cf. RIESNER for bibliography on other localizations in Peraea (Bethanien, 46-48) and for counter-arguments to the sites listed here (“Bethany”, 39-40; Bethanien, 49-50).