**BETHSAIDA** (Aramaic: "house of the fisherman"). — A locality in Galilee, the home of Philip, Andrew, and Peter (*John* 1:44; 12:21). In *Mark* 8:23, 26, Bethsaida is presented as a village; elsewhere in the Gospels it is called a "city." Nearby took place the first multiplication of the loaves (*Luke* 9:10). It was often visited by Jesus, who preached there and performed many miracles, but it remained obstinately incredulous and was condemned (*Matt.* 11:21).
The question of its identification has long been and still is much debated. For a long time it was believed that the Bethsaida of the Gospels referred to a single locality, to be identified with the Bethsaida of Flavius Josephus (*Antiquities of the Jews*, XVIII, 9, 1; 4, 6; *The Jewish War*, II, 10, 7; II, 9, 1), situated on the Sea of Genazareth, east of the mouth of the upper Jordan, which the tetrarch Philip enlarged and fortified, giving it the name *Julias* in honor of the daughter of Augustus. Galilee extended as far as that point. At the end of the 16th century, it began to be held that the Gospels speak of two Bethsaidas: one on the eastern side (*Luke* 9:10 and *Mark* 8:22), to be identified with Josephus’ Julias, and another on the western side (*Mark* 6:45), which in all other passages must have been located in the plain of Gennesaret, perhaps at the point where the lake forms a bay at El-'Araj and Tabgha. The main reason for supposing this second Bethsaida was the difficulty of explaining *Mark* 6:45 (Jesus, on the east side of the Jordan, orders the Apostles to "go before him" by boat "to Bethsaida"), if one assumes that the Gospels speak only of Julias; but Jesus’ order can be explained as an indication of the general direction they were to take, since they were to "retrace their steps," and in coming they had passed near Julias. A Bethsaida on the western shore of the lake is never mentioned in antiquity. Perhaps it was ideally transferred there in Byzantine times, when it became difficult for Christians to visit evangelical sites beyond the lake.
Bethsaida should be identified with et-Tell, an uninhabited hill with ruins, or more precisely with Hürbet el-'Arağ, south of et-Tell.