“Bethany beyond the Jordan” 321 Jesus’ baptism before the gospel writer brought the source into conformity with the Synoptics — at “Aenon near Salim” (Jn 3,23) further to the north (Ainwn hJ ejg/gu" tou' Savlhm), about 8 miles south of Scythopolis (biblical Beth Shean) (58). That more northern site was visited by the pilgrim Egeria in the late 4th century (59), and may have been a conditioning factor in John Lightfoot’s location of Bethabara at the Abarah Ford to the northeast of Beth Shean (60). Riesner rightfully criticized Lightfoot’s location of Bethabara, stating that “today one usually accepts the location as being a region much further to the south (somewhere opposite the mouth of the Jabbok)” (61). But if we anchor Bethabara to the location of hbr[h tyb in Josh 15,6.61; 18,22 (cf. also 18,18), we find that even the placement of the locale at the mouth of the Jabbok is too far north. In those verses, the city serves as a waypoint in the boundary between Judah and Benjamin (15,6), and is claimed by both Judah (15,61) and Benjamin (18,22). Indeed, it would appear that the Gideon narrative, in which hrb tyb appears (Judg 7,24 bis), entails a crossing near the mouth of the Jabbok, since Sukkoth and Penuel (Judg 8,5-9) lie in the area surrounding the alluvial plain of the Jabbok (62). But this does not mean that seizing “the waters as far as Beth Barah, and the Jordan” (Judg (58) Ibid., 35-36 nr. 1, pl. 1. (59) Ibid., citing the itinerary of Egeria (15.1); see WILKINSON, Egeria’s Travels, 110-111 and map on p. 109. Cf., however, J. MURPHY-O’CONNOR, “John the Baptist and Jesus: History and Hypotheses”, NTS 36 (1990) 359-374, esp. 364-365 (quote from p. 365), who identified Aenon with the one km line comprising five springs “[o]n the eastern slope of Mount Gerizim” near to the modern village S˝lim, about 4.5 km east of T. Bal˝t≤a (biblical Shechem). (60) J. LIGHTFOOT (Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in Quattuor Evangelistas [ed. J.B. CARPZOV] [Leipzig 1670] 911-916, subsequently published in English as Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae. Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations [Ox- ford 1859] I, 327-333, esp. 332-333, cited in RIESNER, “Bethany”, 41) also “iden- tified Bethabara with the Bethbarah of Judges 7:24” — a judgment with which I have concurred above — but the location so far north is inconsistent with all the evidence for the location of Bethabara, and can only be related to the existence of a Ma˙˝d≥at ‘Ab˝ra in the vicinity of Beth Shean; see D.A. DORSEY (The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel [Baltimore 1991] 111), who notes that the ford was, in periods after the Iron Age, the most important ford of the region; and C.R. CONDER – H.H. KITCHENER, The Survey of Western Palestine (London 1882) II, 79. (61) RIESNER, “Bethany”, 41; see also idem, Bethanien, 51-52; and Y. AHA- RONI – M. AVI-YONAH, The Carta Bible Atlas (Jerusalem 42002) 63, map 76. (62) See, e.g., J.M. HUTTON, “Mahanaim, Penuel, and Transhumance Routes: Observations on Genesis 32-33 and Judges 8”, JNES 65 (2006) 161-178.