PHD THESIS DRAFT :

The baptism site of Jesus in Jordan.

Religious and political construction of a Christian pilgrimage site

W ith his Topographie lgendaire des vangiles en Terre sainte (1941), Maurice Halbwachs
placed the question of the location of biblical sites in the field of social sciences. A sample
of the accounts by the numerous pilgrims who have visited the Holy Land since the 4th
century suffices to show that holy places, far from being immutable, or immovably nailed to the
original location of the event which makes them sacred, are the result of fluctuating, mobile and
vague memories. A sacred place can be moved, disappear, reappear, or even split in two, for the most
concrete reasons: for example, because of new problems of accessibility; or due to evolving politics
where a state wants to enhance its power through the sacredness of a place of epiphany; or even
through connecting stories together and the evolution of dogmas, when for instance, the
geographical proximity of two places suggests a symbolic relationship between two prophets, two
miracles, two testaments. At some stage, a sacred place will crystallize all the religious, political and
social data which resulted in its emergence in the collective memory because of its present
usefulness. Religious memory, even though it tries to isolate itself from temporal society, obeys the
same laws as all collective memory: it does not preserve the past, but reconstructs it, with the help of
the material remains, rites, texts and traditions that it has left behind, but also with the help of recent
psychological and social data, in other words, with the present (Halbwachs 1997 : 221).

To understand these institutions of collective memory represented by sacred places, one must
therefore unfold the political and social logics which have, at one period or another, induced their
emergence into the collective memory of particular groups. Such is the task that this doctoral thesis
sets itself, focusing on the Baptism site of Jesus which is being created in Jordan, 8 kilometres from
the mouth of the Jordan into the Dead Sea. The birth of this major Christian pilgrimage site is the
doing of the Jordanian state authority. It is recent (the late 1990s) and finds itself in a competitive
context since pilgrims to the Holy Land currently have the choice between three different Bethanys:
the Jordanian Bethany; the West Bank Bethany, located exactly opposite the Jordanian site, on the
other bank of the Jordan river; and an Israeli Bethany, in Galilee. Nevertheless, the Jordanian project
can be singled out by the ambition of its promoters, who have obtained from several Christian
Churches that they should each build a place of worship at Baptism site.

By the end of 2014, the development of the Jordanian Bethany is still far from being completed: only
three of the places of worship have yet been built. This fact provides the opportunity to note the
actual sociological mechanisms in action, for which Halbwachs observed the historical results. The
doctoral thesis will therefore adopt a dual approach, which will combine two social sciences
questions: on the one hand, it will look into the question of the historical locations of the baptism
site, based on the Halbwachs model as reviewed by Jan Assmann (2010); on the other hand, it will

Marc DUGAS EPHE/IFPO November 2013

engage the problem of the foundation of sacred sites, seen as a twin process of physical and
material construction of located and dated monuments, and the elaboration of traditions and
canonical stories (Andzian 2010 : 10 ; Dtienne 1990). A history of the locations of the baptism (I)
with lead to an ethnography of the process of foundation of the Jordanian site (II).

1- A HISTORY OF THE LOCATIONS OF THE BAPTISM SITE

The first year of my thesis was devoted to this topic (October 2012 July 2013). My investigations in
Parisian libraries were organised around three periods identified in an earlier study.

Initially, I try to follow the line of the mnemotopy1 of the baptism of Jesus up to the early 19th
century. When do we find the first traces of pilgrimages to the baptism site? Has this site always been
located in the same place? Did it move from one century to the next and for what reasons? For this
study, I had abundant sources. From the 4th century a veritable scriptural topography [of the Holy
Land] gradually comes into being, in the form of lists of annotated names suitable to answer the
demands by the first pilgrims, of the discovery, Bible in hand, of the founding places of Christianity
(Iogna-Prat 2012: 10). Pierre Maraval and John Wilkinson have facilitated access to this pilgrim
literature in which the baptism site figures highly as one of the most important stages of the tour.

The second part of the historical study, devoted to the long nineteenth century (up to the regional
changes following the First World War), will evoke the central place held by the debates on the
location of Bethany in the beginnings of biblical archaeology. At that time, the history of the baptism
site crossed the path of the history of an institutionalisation of the topography of the Gospels by two
different groups. These were scientists coming from Europe to apply modern archaeological methods
to the Holy Land, and the different Christian institutions which, since many a year, had been arguing
over the role of custodian of the holy places of Palestine. Between these two groups arose a
dialogue on the criteria for the authenticity of the holy places, a dialogue in which the first
archaeological investigations on Bethany played an important role (Lagrange 1895; Halevi 2012).

The third part will cover the contemporary period, from the creation of the Transjordanian Emirate in
1921 to the appearance of the site under study, at the end of the 1990s. It will describe the
emergence of the current triad of Baptism sites and the weight of regional vicissitudes in the
establishment of this configuration. To follow the history of Bethany often comes back to following
the politico-religious history of the Jordan River and of the frontier that it represents. Until the 1970s,
the traditionally favoured pilgrimage site is the one currently in the West Bank, not far from the
Prodromos monastery (Deir Mar Yuhanna). It is there, on this side, and not beyond the Jordan, that
the Churches of Jerusalem built aediculae, chapels and monasteries from the 1910s to the 1930s. This
choice of location was based on a reading of the Gospels going back to Origen (Lagrange 1895), but it
can be explained particularly by practical considerations (better accessibility for those coming from
Jerusalem). Such was the case until 1967.2

1
I am borrowing this term, which designates the collective memory of places of revelation, from Dominique
Iogna-Prat (2011) and Jan Assmann (mnmotope, 2010: 55).
2
Including during the period of reunification of the two banks of the sacred river under the aegis of Jordan
(1921-1967). At that time, the Jordanians endorsed the location of Bethany in the West Bank. The aedicule
built by the Franciscans on that bank even appears on the ten dinar note issued by the Central Bank of Jordan
in 1958. It was also to the western bank that HM King Hussein brought Pope Paul VI in 1964.

2
After the Six-Day War, Jordan lost control of the West Bank and the two banks of the Jordan River
were fortified along almost the entire lower reaches of the river. The traditional site now being out of
reach, a second baptism site appears: the site of Yardenit, promoted by the inhabitants of the
Kinneret kibbutz on the narrow part of the Jordan river that was not a border, a few dozen metres
from Lake Tiberius. This site, apparently with no historical plausibility and with no roots in tradition3,
became the only Bethany accessible to pilgrims until the end of the 1990s.4 Indeed, when the peace
treaty was signed between Jordan and Israel in 1994 and that the whole length of the Jordan was
theoretically accessible once more, the Israeli army maintained the western bank as no-go military
zone. In the end, it was the Jordanian authorities which, with the forthcoming celebrations of the
year 2000 in mind, took the initiative to open a third baptism site. This site is exactly opposite the
traditional site, beyond the Jordan at the mouth of the Wadi Kharrar the site which forms the
subject of this thesis.

2- AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE PROCESS OF FOUNDATION OF THE JORDANIAN BETHANY

These historical investigations lead to an ethnographic study which will form the main body of the
thesis. It will entail following closely the foundations underway in the Wadi Kharrar, in other words
studying, amongst many other aspects, the players who are taking charge of this process, their
motivations, their interactions and the strategies they deploy to make a mark on the Holy Land
landscape. It will look at what is implicit in the spatialization of the sacred in the development of the
site, at the traditions called on to sanctify places, at the customs of the pilgrims which are gradually
taking shape.

In my masters thesis, I formed a group of questions to which this thesis should provide answers. I
chose to describe the ambivalent nature of the process in play, between politics of heritage and
religious foundation, and to show that this ambivalence was present from the very beginning. The
rediscovery, in 1997, of the archaeological remains which prove the authenticity of the site is, indeed,
the result of the convergence of political and religious actors. In the narrative of the Jordanian
officials, this convergence is symbolized by an archetypal meeting: that of the Franciscan
archaeologist Michele Piccirillo (1944-2008) and of HRH Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a member of
the Royal Hashemite family in charge of questions of religion and heritage. In some ways, this
meeting is the opening scene of the modern life of the site, the chance which incited the Jordanian
authorities to initiate excavations in November 1997, and which soon proved fruitful (Waheeb 2008
and 2012).

The ambivalence of the site continues into the next stages of its history and until today. The Royal
Commission for the development of the baptism site of our Lord the Messiah in the Jordan Valley
(now Baptism site Commission), created by decree by HM King Hussein on the 10th September
1997, demonstrates the interest of the royal family for the future of Bethany. However, the
development envisaged by the Commission is not purely about heritage. In order to reintroduce a

3
At least in the sources that I was able to consult. It is not impossible that the site in Galilee could have had an
older existence in oriental traditions, amongst the Russians in particular. This point will need to be verified.
4
Between 1967 and 2000, the Churches of Jerusalem had access to the Jordan River for only a few days a year,
in particular for the Epiphany/Theophany.

3
 religious dimension, to give Bethany a liturgical life, the Commission chose to endow a dozen of
Christian Churches with parcels of land along the Jordan River. It charged each of them to build a
place of worship there, architecturally representative of its geographical origins. Thus, since 2005,
several worksites have been started, amongst the most advanced of which are that of the
Romanesque church of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Armenian Apostolic church (built in
the pure style of the Ani cathedral), and that of the pilgrims hostel of the Orthodox Patriarchate of
Moscow, a beautiful copy of the monasteries of Sacred Russia with white walls and golden cupolas5.

In terms of how the thesis will follow the creation of the site, there are two distinct levels: the
creation of site in general, and the foundation of each of the churches on the site in particular. These
two levels interact but do not get mixed up. The main actor is not the same in the two cases. Whereas
the Jordanian state has the initiative for the creation of the global site, with regard to the
construction of the places of worship, the state allows each Church run its own project. Each of the
two levels of sites creation but also the interactions between religion and heritage brings up a set
of questions which I will try to answer. Based on inquiries in the field, the following will be necessary:

- With regard to the global site: to detail its history; to try, through meetings with Jordanian officials,
to understand better the causes for the significant involvement of the Hashemites in a place of
Christian pilgrimage; to situate this project within their heritage, touristic and diplomatic policies; to
study the strategies used to enroot the Jordanian Bethany, to situate it in face of the competition
from the Israeli and West Bank sites; and to follow the physical and symbolic construction of the site
in general.

- With regard to the process of foundation of each of the churches on the site: following the physical
and symbolic construction of the churches will make it possible to analyse the investment of
Christians in Jordan.6 How do the church institutions engage with the project suggested to them,
locally and/or at the level of their trans-national hierarchies? How do they appropriate the space
conceived of by the Jordanian state? Will their co-habitation at Bethany be the source of tensions or,
on the contrary, an occasion for dialogue and reconciliation?7 How does the foundation of each
individual place of worship articulate with the foundation of the site in general? Can a typology of
the foundations be established which would, for example, have as variables the regional history of
each Church, its doctrine on the difficult question of locating sacred, its relationship with political
authority, its local or trans-national integration, the liturgical status of the baptism in its beliefs? The
baptism site offers an experimental framework in which, precisely, all things are otherwise equal
a framework particularly propitious for drawing comparisons.8

- Furthermore, how do the political and religious promoters of the Jordanian site deal with the
immediate proximity of the West Bank site, situated exactly opposite, on the other bank of the

5
President Putin inaugurated the Russian pilgrims hostel in person on 26 June 2012, in the presence of HRH
Prince Ghazi.
6
Jordanian Christians represent between 150 000 (Fargues 1998) and 250 000 (Chatelard 2009) people, that is
2.5 to 4 % of a total population of 6 million.
7
It is not unusual that conflicts between Churches crystallize around differences over the sharing of holy
places. In Jerusalem, these frequent disputes are regulated by an Ottoman decree from 1852, currently known
as the firman du Statu quo or simply Statu quo. Confirmed by numerous international treaties, the dispositions
of 1852 were respected by the British mandate powers and then, between 1949 and 1967, by Jordan.
8
In so far as it will probably not be possible to conduct a detailed ethnographic inquiry on each of the Churches
involved, I intend to concentrate my research on the Greek Orthodox and Latin Churches (numerically the two
largest Churches in Jordan), and the Anglican Church, of more modest size. I will make a point of following as
closely as possible the process of foundation of these churches over several years.

4
Jordan River? How will the interaction between the two sites evolve? Since the mid-2000s, some of
the Churches of Jerusalem and Amman are accustomed to making an appointment to celebrate the
Epiphany together, on either side of the Jordan. These practices of religious engagement in political
space deserve a detailed ethnography. Should one think of them as capable of attenuating the
competition between the two banks of the river? Is religion able to nuance the significance of a
political border?

Through the prism of the creation of a place of Christian pilgrimage, this PhD thesis hopes to make a
contribution to the study of political and religious relationships in the Near East. It will show that the
birth of the Jordanian Bethany flows from plural logics, at the national, regional (the Holy Land, on
this side and beyond the Jordan) and global level (trans-national Churches and the diplomatic scene
on which the Hashemite Kingdom strongly advocates for the Islamic-Christian dialogue). Can one
describe the creation of the Baptism site as an arena in which the representations of multiple players
juxtapose, compete and sometime enter into conflict with one another? (Aubin-Boltanski 2007: 12,
Eade 1991: 5) Or, on the contrary, as the point of convergence between politics of heritage and
religious foundation? What link can be established between the religious sanctification of some
places and that other, newer, form of sanctification which is the creation of heritage? What link can
be established between a religious and an administrative category?

Marc Dugas
marcdgs@gmail.com
cole Pratique des Hautes tudes
Institut Franais du Proche-Orient