1 I shall use the traditionally accepted title ‘John's gospel’ to refer to the Fourth Gospel without wishing to make any claims regarding authorship.

2 The Greek New Testament (ed. B. Aland et al.; UBS 4th ed. [corrected], 1993) 315. UBS 4 reads Bηθανίᾳ, but only with a rating of C which indicates that ‘the Committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text’ (3).

3 Origen, Commentary on John, 6.221, in Heine, R. E., Origen: Commentary on the Gospel according to John Books 1–10 (FC 80; Washington: The Catholic University of America, 1989) 228Google Scholar.

4 Origen, Commentary on John, 6.206, in Heine, Origen, 225.

5 Origen, Commentary on John, 6.205, in Heine, Origen, 225.

6 Byron, B., ‘Bethany Across the Jordan: Or Simply Across the Jordan’, Australian Biblical Review 46 (1998) 36–54Google Scholar, here 42.

7 Cf. Byron, ‘Bethany’, 46–7, and Origen, Commentary on John, 6.204–37, in Heine, Origen, 224–33.

8 See Byron, ‘Bethany’, 38–40 for discussion and bibliography.

9 Parker, P., ‘Bethany beyond Jordan’, JBL 74.4 (1955) 257–61Google Scholar, here 258.

10 See Byron, ‘Bethany’, 39–40 for discussion and bibliography.

11 Byron, ‘Bethany’, 37, 39.

12 Brown, R. E., The Gospel according to John I–XII (AB 29; New York: Doubleday, 1966) 44Google Scholar.

13 Brownlee, W. H., ‘Whence the Gospel according to John?’, John and Qumran (ed. Charlesworth, J. H.; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1972) 166–94Google Scholar; Riesner, R., ‘Bethany beyond the Jordan (John 1:28): Topography, Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel’, Tyndale Bulletin 38 (1987) 29–63Google Scholar; Köstenberger, A., John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004) 65–6Google Scholar; Carson, D. A., The Gospel according to John (PNTC; Leicester: Apollos, 1991) 146–7Google Scholar.

14 Barrett, C. K., The Gospel according to John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (London: SPCK, 2nd ed. 1978) 175Google Scholar.

15 E.g. Becker, J., Das Evangelium nach Johannes, Kapitel 1–10 (Ökumenischer Taschenbuchkommentar zum Neuen Testament 4/1; Würzberg: Gütersloher Verlaghaus Gerd Mohn, 1979) 92Google Scholar; Brown, John, 44–5; Lincoln, A. T., The Gospel according to Saint John (Black's New Testament Commentaries; London: Continuum, 2005) 112–13Google Scholar; Schnackenburg, R., The Gospel according to St. John (3 vols.; London: Burns and Oates, ET 1968) 1.295–6Google Scholar; Thyen, H., Das Johannesevangelium (HNT 6; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 117–18Google Scholar, 505; Wilckens, U., Das Evangelium nach Johannes (NTD 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998) 39Google Scholar.

16 Schulz, S., Das Evangelium nach Johannes (NTD; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978) 38Google Scholar.

17 Brownlee, W. H., ‘The Ceremony of Crossing the Jordan in the Annual Covenanting at Qumran’, Von Kanaan bis Kerala: Festschrift für Prof. Mag. Dr. Dr. J. P. M. van der Ploeg O. P. zur Vollendung des siebzigsten Lebensjahres am 4. Juli 1979 (ed. Delsman, W. C. et al. ; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1982) 295–302Google Scholar.

18 Brownlee, ‘John’, 169.

19 Jastrow, M., ‘בׇּתְנַיׇּיא,בּוּתְנַן,בּׂותְנְיִין,בּׂותְנׇיִים,בּותְנַיֵּי’, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Bavli, the Talmud Yerushlami and the Midrashic Literature (London: Shapiro, Vallentine & Co., 1926) 151Google Scholar. (See for example the use of בׇּתְנַיׇּיא for בׇּשׇׁן in the Jerusalem Targum of Deut 32.14.)

20 Schalit, A., ‘βαταναία’, A Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus (Suppl. 1; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968) 25Google Scholar. (See for example Josephus Ant. 9.159 [Bαταναία] and 12.136 [Bατανα].)

21 Brownlee, ‘John’, 169.

22 Brownlee, ‘John’, 169. Riesner (‘Bethany’, 53–4) develops a similar argument, and adds, ‘the variation between τ and θ is no difficulty’, being attested elsewhere (53).

23 Riesner, ‘Bethany’, 63. Thus Brownlee's and Riesner's analyses support the location of John 1.28 as Batanaea = Bashan, but with the original text of John 1.28 reading Bηθανίᾳ understood as OT Bashan. Thus no emendation is required. I do not, however, wish to make quite so strong a claim regarding the original reading of John 1.28 given the many variants in spelling, and since the move to assimilate the locations of John 1.28 and 11.1 could easily have occurred at an early stage in the transmission of the text, possibly for the sort of theological reasons that Riesner outlines. The point that I wish to develop is that the location of 1.28 is to be understood as Batanaea = OT Bashan, even if there is no good reason to doubt the original reading as Bηθανίᾳ.

24 Unless stated otherwise all translations are from the NRSV.

25 Brownlee, ‘John’, 171. He also refers to John 1.15 here. I am not sure that the associations that he seeks to make here with John 1 are convincing, but in the wider context of the gospel the idea of Jesus as shepherd is clear (e.g. John 10.14), suggesting a resonance with Micah 7.14–15.

26 Brownlee, ‘John’, 171–2.

27 Brownlee, ‘John’, 172. Thus the conclusion that Riesner and Brownlee reach is similar—that John assimilates the two locations for symbolic theological reasons.

28 Simundson, D. J., ‘The Book of Micah’, The New Interpreter's Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996) 7.533–89Google Scholar, here 588.

29 Hillers, D. R., Micah (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 90Google Scholar.

30 Cf. McKane, W., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah. Vol. 2. XXVI–LII (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996) 1270Google Scholar. LXX (Rahlfs) reads καὶ ἀποκαταστήσω τὸν Iσραηλ ϵἰς τὴν νομὴν αὐτοῦ καὶ νϵμήσϵται ν τῷ Kαρμήλῳ καὶ ν ὄρϵι Eφραιμ καὶ ν τῷ Γαλααδ καὶ πλησθήσϵται ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ (Jer 27.19 LXX).

31 Holladay, W. L., Jeremiah 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah Chapters 26–52 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989) 393Google Scholar.

32 Cf. Holladay, Jeremiah, 411. See also Keown, G. L., Scalise, P. J. and Smothers, T. G., Jeremiah 26–52 (WBC 27; Dallas: Word, 1995) 357–64Google Scholar for a sympathetic critique of Holladay and a survey of other approaches to ‘authenticity’ and to the development of the text.

33 There is little discussion of the specific textual problem of Bashan in the commentaries (e.g. Keown, Jeremiah 26–52, 344–67; Rudolph, W., Jeremía [HAT 1/12; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1968] 301–2Google Scholar).

34 Robert Hayward, after discussing the difficulty of dating, argues that the foundations of Targum Jeremiah ‘were laid already by the early second century A.D.’ (The Targum of Jeremiah Translated, with a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes [The Aramaic Bible 12; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1987] 38).

35 Jastrow, ‘‘מַתְּ׳,מַתְנׇן,מַתְנַן’’, 864.

36 He understands the reference to Carmel in similar terms, thus reading ‘they [Israel] shall be provided for in a fruitful and fat land’, since Carmel signifies fruitfulness and Bashan fatness (Hayward, Targum, 181).

37 Tov, E., ‘Jeremiah’, Qumran Cave 4 X: The Prophets (ed. Ulrich, E. et al. ; DJD 15; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997) 145–207Google Scholar, esp. 172, 184.

38 In addition to these prophetic texts it is possible that there is an intertextual resonance between Amos 4.1 and John 4 with regard to Bashan, although it is difficult to know whether this is intentional.

39 Charlesworth argues that cognates of בשׁן mean ‘dragon-snake’ in early western Semitic, and that owing to considerations of meter and parallelism the text should read מחר בשׁן, thus rendering the verse, ‘The Lord spoke: “[From the den of] the dragon-snake I will bring (them) back, I will bring (them) back from the depths of the sea’ (Charlesworth, J. H., ‘Bashan, Symbology, Haplography, and Theology in Psalm 68’, David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts [ed. Batto, B. F. and Roberts, K. L.; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004] 351–72Google Scholar, here 360). See Tate, M. E., Psalms 51–100 (WBC 20; Dallas: Word, 1990) 182Google Scholar for a defence of the traditional reading of the text as the location Bashan.

40 Charlesworth, ‘Bashan’, 355.

41 Braude, W. G., The Midrash on Psalms (Yale Judaica Series 13; 2 vols.; New Haven: Yale University, 1959) 1.546Google Scholar. Moreover the KJV renders the verse, ‘The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea’.

42 The root occurs 81 times in Joshua. It occurs 22 times in the 41 verses of Josh 3–4 that narrate the crossing of the Jordan.

43 Hawk, L. D., Joshua (Berit Olam; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2000) 15Google Scholar.

44 Cf. Nelson, R. D., Joshua (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 59Google Scholar, and Jobling, D., ‘“The Jordan as a Boundary”: Transjordan in Israel's Ideological Geography’, The Sense of Biblical Narrative: Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible II (JSOTSS 39; Sheffield: JSOT, 1986) 88–134Google Scholar, here 125–6.

45 Nelson, Joshua, 59–60.

46 Polzin, R., Moses and the Deuteronomist (New York: Seabury, 1980) 138Google Scholar.

47 Brownlee, ‘Ceremony’, 297–8 (Brownlee's translation).

48 Brownlee, ‘Ceremony’, 295.

49 Brownlee, ‘Ceremony’, 300.

50 Brownlee, ‘Ceremony’, 302.

51 Moloney, F. J., The Gospel of John (SP 4; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1988) 52Google Scholar. This account launches the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, which, together with the third occurrence of the phrase (10.40), then forms an inclusio around the public ministry of Jesus in a postulated ‘original form’ of John (see Brown, John, 54). For the reading that I am developing it will be unnecessary to probe the history of the text that we now have.

52 Moloney, John, 107–8.

53 Bultmann, R. (The Gospel of John: A Commentary [Oxford: Blackwell, ET 1971] 392–4)Google Scholar takes 10.40–42 with what follows rather than with what precedes, although this appears to be a minority view.

54 Cf. Brown, John, 414; Moloney, John, 314. Thyen develops the link between 10.40–42 and the significance of the witness of John the Baptist (Johannesevangelium, 505–6).

55 Moloney, John, 317.

56 Cf. Moloney, John, 315–17.

57 Moloney, John, 317.

58 For a number of recent perspectives on the question of John's attitudes to ‘the Jews’, see the collection of papers in Bieringer, R., Pollefeyt, D. and Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, F., eds., Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 2001)Google Scholar. For a recent, detailed analysis of the portrayal of ‘the Jews’ in John, and its significance, see Hakola, R., Identity Matters: John, the Jews and Jewishness (NovTSup 118; Leiden: Brill, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hakola argues for an ambivalence in John's portrayal of Jewishness.

59 It is interesting to note, however, that it is symbolism drawn from the OT itself that is used to subvert the traditional significance of the temple and land.

60 Indeed the rejection of ‘the Jews’ as portrayed in the world of the text in John seems to be associated with violence and evil deeds, rather than with Jewishness per se. For example, R. W. L. Moberly suggests, ‘the portrayal of the Jews as “of the devil” in John 8 is entirely correlate with their murderous intent toward Jesus, as eventually realized in John 19. To abstract and essentialize this portrayal and to suppose on that basis that John is “anti-Semitic” is to commit a major error. It is “of the devil” to be murderous, not to be Jewish’ (‘Johannine Christology and Jewish-Christian Dialogue’, Scripture's Doctrine and Theology's Bible [ed. M. Bockmuehl and A. Torrance; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008] 70–93, here 90). Moreover, the rejection of the temple is also associated with its corruption through ‘commercialization’ (2.12–25). In other words, in the world of the text Jewish society is portrayed as being pervaded by corruption and violence, and it is this that is to be rejected to follow Jesus, however this might or might not reflect the historical circumstances of Jesus' ministry.

61 This may suggest that μνω (10.40) ought to be read in the imperfect rather than aorist form, even if it is the only occurrence of μνω in the imperfect in John, since the imperfect would emphasize Jesus' abiding presence ‘across the Jordan’ outside the land. Here is where people must go to find life with God. (Cf. Brown, John, 413; Morris, L., The Gospel according to John [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, rev. ed. 1995] 471)Google Scholar.

62 Cf. Dunn, J. D. G., The Theology of Paul the Apostle (London: T&T Clark, 2003) 375–7Google Scholar.

63 Interestingly, Brown perceives land as an important theme in 1.10, which he translates with a parenthetical comment about the land thus emphasizing its importance; ‘To his own [land] he came, yet his own people did not accept him’ (John, 414).

64 Commentary on the Gospel of John 7.1 in Elowsky, J. C., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture New Testament IVa: John 1–10 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006) 365–6Google Scholar.

65 Cf. Brown (John, 54) who regards 10.40–42 as the original ending of Jesus' public ministry. If this is correct, then the symbolic significance of 10.40 is strengthened.

66 If John regards God as dwelling here in Bashan then an ironic inversion of Ps 68.16–17 (Heb.) is suggested comparable with the ironic inversion of the symbolism of crossing the Jordan.

67 Hakola, John. Hakola does not consider the themes developed here, however.