The History Of Baptism In The Jordan River Explained

The Jordan River is one of the most culturally significant rivers in the world. The World Monuments Fund refers to it as "lay[ing] at the heart of millennia of history, religion, and culture," while acknowledging that multiple religions consider it holy. Jesus was baptized in the waters, several of Mohammed's followers are buried along the banks, and empires have risen, fallen, and often clashed on the east and west sides. 

It's hard to do much more than that as a river. And geographically, its significance is no less important. Now serving as the eastern border of Israel, separating it from Jordan, the river flows from the Sea of Galilee down to the Dead Sea. In fact, it is such a significant body of water that both the nation of Jordan and the territory of the West Bank adopted their names from the river itself.

But most of all, the river is known for its baptisms. Nearly 1 million people are baptized in the Jordan annually (via OSU.edu), and while that stems from the baptism of Jesus, that's not the only history that the river has with the sacred rite of Christianity. 

Here is the full history of baptism in the Jordan River.

The waters of the Jordan themselves are more than a little sacred to Christianity and Judaism alike. As Naaman found out in his own reported experience, these waters have been the site of several other monumental happenings in the Bible, thus making them even more important than just as the site of so many baptisms.

For instance, when the Jews escaped captivity in Egypt, their promised land was on the other side of the Jordan (via Deuteronomy), making it the final step before their freedom. In the book of Joshua, the sacred Ark of the Covenant crossed the Jordan, stopping the flow of the river. And not far from the banks, the prophet Elijah supposedly ascended to Heaven in a flaming chariot.

Elijah's ascension is so revered that it earned its own holy site title, Elijah's Hill, alongside the spot where Jesus was baptized. All of this, again, adding to the holiness that stems from the river and its waters and making the waters themselves sacred in numerous religious denominations.

Given the historical context of Jesus Christ himself being baptized, it's important to factor in where specifically on the river, geographically, he was actually baptized. After all, the Jordan is a big river, and while baptisms have occurred all along the river on both banks, knowing the exact location has significance to several faiths so that disciples can follow in his footsteps and be baptized exactly where he was.

According to the UNESCO World Heritage site, that exact location is Bethany Beyond the Jordan, or "Al-Maghtas." It's here that the remains of numerous ancient buildings — churches, chapels, monasteries, and other places of worship — have been discovered with evidence of baptismal paraphernalia (via BBC). The remains of over 20 buildings have been found centered in this specific place which, again, is why it is strongly believed that this is where the crucial baptism took place.

Interestingly, due to the shrinkage of water in the river and the transformation of the river over the centuries, the bend where Jesus was supposedly baptized is now dry land, reports NPR, though no less sacred to the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who make the trip each year.

With the growth of the Roman Empire and the occupation of Israel in 63 B.C.E. (via Britannica), the challenges and persecutions of all sects of Christianity began. Baptism became a subversive act that the Romans wanted to stomp out, thus any baptisms around the Roman-occupied Jordan River slowed for a few centuries, until the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313 (via Khan Academy).

The Edict of Milan made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire and therefore also made baptism legal again. It was around this time when archaeological remains show the resurgence of Christian religious buildings around Al-Maghtas and the Jordan River, signifying the return of pilgrims and baptism to the waters where it had all begun.

Among the archaeological remains from the fourth century are churches, monasteries, and even caves of hermits who lived in the area, not unlike John the Baptist, who lived in the wilderness himself, as per UNESCO. But the primary evidence that baptism was back in the Jordan was what they found in and beneath the ruins of those churches.

Traditionally, baptisms had been held on both banks of the Jordan River, and to this day, it's disputed which bank is the proper bank (via NPR). But for a long stretch, baptisms were only taking place on the western bank, starting right around A.D. 614, when the Persians overtook Jerusalem. This, paired with a long history of earthquakes and floods in the area, lead to the cluster of archaeological remains.

According to the archaeological survey of the area, most Byzantine and Christian structures on the eastern bank began to fall apart at this point, since the Christians were cut off by the Islamic Sassanid Empire. From that period until centuries later, churches and other baptismal structures began to pop up primarily along the west bank to accommodate the number of people still wanting to be baptized where Jesus had been.

According to the actual historical site, the correct bank, if there is such a thing, is the east bank, but given the drying up of the exact spot Jesus was baptized, both banks have been used for pilgrims.

During Muslim occupation — with a brief crusader interlude — the evidence of baptisms and even the presence of Christians at all is essentially a big void. The very last major archaeological note comes from the 1300s, when an Orthodox monastery was supposedly constructed, but by the mid 1400s, all mention of that disappeared as well (via UNESCO).

That being the case, it's safe to say that the baptisms in the Jordan slowed considerably under Muslim occupation of the river's major holy sites. Access to the traditional route of pilgrimage was closed off until Franciscan friars completed the first documented pilgrimage in centuries in 1641 (via the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem). But even that didn't lead to any significant resurgence.

The return of documented baptisms didn't reemerge in the area until the 1930s when, according to the Patriarchate, there are videos showing Christians being baptized in the river again. And it was on that spot that they began to purchase land to reconstruct the Christian hub.

Fourteen years after the Six-Days War, Israel decided that, rather than dwell on where they couldn't have baptisms, they would instead focus more on where they could. And so, they moved the site of baptisms to Yardenit, about 65 miles north of Bethany Beyond Jordan, just down from the Sea of Galilee (via Newsweek). While this was never a historical site, it allowed for the safe return of baptism. Shops popped up selling the traditional white baptismal garbs, and unlike the closed-off areas, this location had fresher running water than the holier sites down south, reports the BBC.

Even though the landmines in the original baptismal site have been removed and the area reopened in the 21st century, Yardenit remains a baptismal site to this day, with Israel claiming up to 500,000 annual baptisms there alone.

According to BBC, Yardenit has a massive advantage in the total immersion baptismal market because of the cleanliness of the water. Just south, the river becomes saturated with waste and salination that's so polluted it probably would have left Naaman with leprosy. So, while Jesus wasn't baptized there, he also didn't have to contend with the modern river waste, making where he was baptized so special.