BETHSAIDA (Aramaic: “house of fishing”). — A locality in Galilee, homeland of Filippo, Andrea, and Pietro (Io. 1:44; 12:21). In Mc. 8:23, 26, B. is presented as a village; elsewhere in the Gospels it is called a “city.” The first multiplication of the loaves took place in its vicinity (Lc. 9:10). Jesus often visited it, preaching there and performing several miracles; but it remained stubbornly unbelieving and was anathematized (Mt. 11:21).
The question of its identification has been, and still is, much debated. For a long time it was held that B. in the Gospels designated a single locality, to be identified with the B. of Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Iud., XVIII, 9, 1; 4, 6; Bell. Iud., III, 10, 7; II, 9, 1), situated on the Lake of Genesareth, east of the mouth of the upper Jordan, to which the tetrarch Filippo, having enlarged and fortified it, gave the name Iulias in honor of the daughter of Augustus. Galilee extended as far as there. At the end of the sixteenth century it began to be held that the Gospels speak of two B.: one eastern (Lc. 9:10, and Mc. 8:22), to be identified with the Iulias of Fl. Josephus, and the other western (Mc. 6:45 and in all the other passages), which must have been situated in the plain of Genesareth, perhaps in the inlet formed by the lake at Hán Minjah and Tábjah. The principal reason for supposing this second B. was the difficulty of explaining Mc. 6:45 (Jesus, east of the Jordan, orders the Apostles to “go ahead of him,” sailing toward B.), if one supposes that the Gospels speak only of Iulias; but Jesus’ command can be explained as an indication of the general direction to be taken by those who were with him, since it was a matter of “turning back,” and on their way there the disciples had passed close to Iulias. A B. on the western shore of the lake is never mentioned in antiquity. Perhaps it was transferred there in imagination in Byzantine times, when it began to be difficult for Christians to visit the Gospel localities beyond the lake.
B. is to be identified with et-Tell, an uninhabited hill with ruins, or more precisely with Hírbet el-'Arağ, south of et-Tell.