Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

UN Sides With Jordan in Jesus Baptism Spat

The United Nations’ cultural agency has designated the east bank of the Jordan River as a World Heritage Site, saying Jordan’s side of the river is “believed to be” the place where Jesus was baptized.

Tourists and religious pilgrims also come to Israel to get baptized on the river’s west bank, at a site operated by Israel in Palestinian-claimed territory.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization declared the heritage site earlier this month, The Associated Press reported Monday.

The river, which is featured prominently in the Hebrew Bible and Christianity’s New Testament, runs through Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, serving as a border between Israel and Jordan.

Scholars interviewed by the AP said it is not possible to pinpoint the precise location of the baptism. New Testament accounts of the baptism do not specify on which side of the river it took place, and there is no historical evidence of the incident, which took place more than 2,000 years ago. Currently, two sites — one, Qasr al-Yahud, operated by Israel in the West Bank and the other in Jordan — cater to Christian tourists and pilgrims. Qasr al-Yahud attracted half a million visitors last year, while the Jordanian site, called al-Maghtas, attracted tens of thousands.

UNESCO’s favoring of the Jordan site “has nothing to do with archaeological reality,” Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill told the AP. “We don’t have any sites with evidence or archaeological remains that were continuously venerated from the first century on.”

A Palestinian Tourism Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with journalists, told the AP that both banks of the river should receive the same treatment, but that “it’s not easy for us to defend a site we have no control over.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.