“Bethany beyond the Jordan” 317 gospel writer has, then, artificially shifted the geographic location of the episode, presumably so that it is in conformity with the Synoptic Gospels’ location of the baptism in the wilderness of Judea. Fortna then hypothesizes that the following episode (i.e., John 1,35-49) was, in fact, introduced by what is now John 3,23-24: “John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salem…” (h\n de; kai; oJ ΔIwavnnh" baptivzwn ejn Aijnw;n ejggu;" tou' Saleivm…) (41). If Fortna’s hypothesis is correct — and I believe it is — that short statement of the Baptist’s ministry can be taken as a localization of Jesus’ baptism (according to the Signs Source) not at the Jordan River, but rather at Aenon (42). This locale, to which I return briefly below, corresponds quite well with the itinerary in John 11, if we assume that the movement from “the place where John had been baptizing formerly” to Bethany took two days. Once the author of the Gospel of John had shifted the “Aenon” notice to its current position (3,23), and inserted the “Bethany” notice (1,28), it would have been very easy to add the phrase pevran tou' ΔIordanou in both 3,26 and 10,40 in order to tie together all three verses v locating the baptismal site on the eastern side of the Jordan. Indeed, excising the phrase from each of the latter two verses (3,26; 10,40) yields a completely reasonable remaining syntactical structure: “rJabbiv, o}" h\n meta; sou', w| su; memartuvrhka"…” (John 3,26) Kai; ajph'lqen pavlin eij" to;n tovpon o{pou h\n ΔIwavnnh" to; prw'ton baptizwn… v (John 10,40) Had Riesner been looking for a locale named Aijnw;n located about two days’ travel from Jerusalem instead of a locale named Bhqaniva four days’ travel from the same city, he would have found it quite easily. The placement of the baptismal site at the more northerly Aijnw;n also alleviates the tensions that Riesner adduced in John 1 (43). Because Riesner’s identification of Bhqaniva fails, the only serious contender for the baptismal site is the traditional placement of Jesus’ ˇ baptism at the el-Magμtas/H˘agla series of fords over the Jordan River, (41) Ibid., 68; idem, Gospel of Signs, 179-180. (42) Cf. recently H. THYEN, “Ainon bei Salim als Taufort des Johannes (Joh 3,23)”, Studien zum Corpus Iohanneum (WUNT 214; Tübingen 2007) 467-478. (43) RIESNER, Bethanien, 73-77.