Unesco has added Bethany beyond the Jordan, the site the Government of Jordan claims as the place where Jesus was baptised, to its World Heritage Site list, it was announced on Friday.
The exact site of the baptism is unknown and Israel has promoted the site Qasr al Yahud on the other bank of the Jordan as the historic location. The United Nations cultural agency did not claim to settle the dispute definitively, but said the Jordanian site was “believed to be the location where Jesus of Nazareth was baptised by John the Baptist”.
Jordan has done extensive excavation work at the site, revealing the foundations of an early Christian church in Bethany beyond the Jordan, the village clearly named in John’s Gospel to distinguish it from the Bethany near Jerusalem, where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. It also found remnants of other churches and shelters used by hermits, indicating the early Christians considered this a sacred place.
Both sites were in restricted military zones for many years after the 1967 war, when Israel seized East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, making the river the de facto border. Pope John Paul II visited Bethany in 2000, a major coup for Jordan in its claim, but made a quick stop across the river to avoid appearing partial. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI visited the Bethany site only in 2009, and Pope Francis did the same last year.
Other Christian sites that Unesco has formally recognised include: the Arab-Norman centre of Palermo in Sicily, with its cathedral and three churches and the nearby cathedrals of Cefalú and Monreale; four sections of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, including the Camino Francés; five eighteenth-century Franciscan missions in the San Antonio river basin in Southern Texas; a 242-year-old Protestant settlement in Christiansfeld, Denmark; and Ephesus in Turkey, the site of one of the first Christian communities outside of the Holy Land and home to St Paul at various points in his life.
Above: the Baptism site in Jordan
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