“Bethany beyond the Jordan” 315 be reckoned from the exact time of Lazarus’ death, but rather possibly as beginning two days after that event. Second, as noted above, several ancient sources provide the rough figure of 30-40 km (= ca. 18.5-25 miles) as a full day’s travel for a band of healthy men. Although this figure provides a reasonable gauge for heuristic purposes, it does not take into account elevation gain and loss. A common contemporary formula for calculating pace while hiking and backpacking is to divide the number of miles by two, then to add an extra hour for each one thousand feet (ca. 300 m) climbed (33). This formula, moreover, does not take into account the extra time needed to descend steeply graded trails — an added consideration, if Jesus and his disciples were descending from the Transjordanian plateau. The additional time required for a net elevation loss from Bashan to the Jordan Valley and the corresponding elevation gain from the Jordan Valley to Jerusalem are data — admittedly, a relatively small proportion of a four-day journey, but a significantly greater proportion of a two day journey — which Riesner has not taken fully into account. Third, and most destructive to Riesner’s reconstructed time-line, is the textual history of the Gospel of John, and that book’s dependence on an earlier Signs Source, as already noted above (34). Riesner declared that the source division of John is “höchst problematisch” (35) and dismissed Fortna’s findings rather cavalierly: Manchmal müssen auch so versierte Literarkritiker wie Professor Fortna … sich mit trivialen Fragen wie der Topographie befassen. Und gelegentlich sind dabei die Ergebnisse bemerkenswert. Bethanien jenseits des Jordan mag nicht existiert haben, vielleicht hat es nicht einmal Bethanien geheißen, aber auf alle Fälle lag es im Süden! However, this comment too quickly dismisses Fortna’s argument. Working without the recognition made above that the use of kataskeuazw in Mk 1,2 may preserve an authentic tradition concerning v the geographic coincidence of the baptismal site with the toponym hrb[ tyb (which had become hd:bo[} tyb in a tradition preserved in Mark’s (33) E.g., K. BERGER, Hiking and Backpacking. A Complete Guide (Trailside Series; New York 1995) 31. (34) FORTNA, Gospel of Signs; and idem, “Locale”. Cf. recently H. THYEN, “Liegt dem Johannesevangelium eine Semeia-Quelle zugrunde?” Studien zum Corpus Iohanneum (WUNT 214; Tübingen 2007) 443-452; and the larger criti- cism of the Semeia Hypothesis as a whole by G. VAN BELLE, The Signs Source in the Fourth Gospel. Historical Survey and Critical Evaluation of the Semeia Hy- pothesis (BETL 116; Leuven 1994) esp. 370-377. (35) RIESNER, Bethanien, 43.