versions of the New Testament refer to "Bethany on the east bank of the Jordan River" (including the Douay-Rheims, NIV, NASB, NLT, RSV, IBS, and Darby). Bethabara Origen was a 3rd-century Christian scholar from Palestine. Noticing that in his time there was no place called Bethany east of the Jordan, he suggested amending the name to Bethabara, an existing place at the time. His suggestion was picked up by some, and it was used in several translations, including the King James Version. "Bethabara" ( ; בית עברה; bēt ‛ăbārāh; Βηθαβαρά; Bēthabará; "house of the ford", "place of crossing") is the name used by some versions of the New Testament for the site "beyond (i.e. east of) the Jordan" where John the Baptist preached and performed baptisms, where he met with a group of priests and Levites sent by the Pharisees to investigate his ministry, and where he baptised Jesus (Yeshua) (). The name "Bethabara" also appears on the 6th-century Madaba Map (though west of the Jordan River) and in the Talmud. The name is used in a number of versions, including the King James Version (following the Textus Receptus and in the Geneva Bible of the New Testament) the place where John the Baptist was baptizing in John 1:28 was not called Bethany, but Bethabara. It follows the New York and Moscow uncials, corrected forms of Ephraemi and Athos, along with uncial fragments from St Petersburg, Paris, minuscule 1, and family 13, backed up by Eusebius, Cyril, some Byzantine texts and lectionaries, and the Curetonian Old Syriac, Aramaic Peshitta, Armenian, and Georgian manuscripts, among others, ". The reading Bethabara became current owing to the advocacy of both Origen (3rd century) and John Chrysostom (4th century), and that same Bethabara is attested in both the 6th-century Madaba Map and in the Jewish Talmud. G. A. Smith suggests in his "Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land" (HGHL; 1915) that Bethany (house of the ship) and Bethabara (house of the ford) are names for the same place. The second place may also refer to the more northerly territory of Batanaea. Al-Maghtas Al-Maghtas is the Arabic word for a site of immersion, and implicitly of baptism. Geography Al-Maghtas is located on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, north of the Dead Sea and southeast of Jericho. The entire site, which is spread over an area of , has two distinct