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The
fertile plains of Bashan in north Jordan belonged to the Amorite
King Og (Numbers 21:33),
and were renowned for their fine cattle. The dense forests of Gilead
were known for being the Prophet Elijah’s birthplace (genesis 31:21).
Both were scenes of episodes in the lives of David, Jacob, Solomon,
Elisha, Gideon, and other kings and prophets. The southern border of
Gilead was usually the Jabbok River, now Wadi Zerqa or the Zerqa
River (Genesis 32:22). Gideon and Jacob traveled along its banks
east of the Jordan (Judges 8:4-9; Genesis 33:17). Archaeological remains
of biblical towns in north Jordan include
Rammoth –
gilead (TellRumeith), which
is linked with events in the lives of Ahab, Jezebel, Elijah, and Elisha
(2 Kings 9:1, 36); and, Jabesh-gilead in Wadi Yabis Tell Abu Kharaz, or
Tell el Maqbereh, Tell Abu Kharaz, or tell el – Maqlub) (Judges 21:8
– 15;2 Samuel 2:4-7).
In
the New Testament period, north Jordan was the region of the Decapolis
(“ten cities”), where Jesus preached and performed miracles
(Matthew 4:25; Mark 5:20); the Transjordanian lands around the Dead Sea
were Perea (‘Beyond” in Greek). The Decapolis cities of Gadara (modern Umm Qais), overlooking the Sea of Galilee, is the
site of Jesus’ miracle of the Gadarene Swine (Matthew 8:28-34; Luke
8:26-37).
Other
easy to visit Decapolis cities in Jordan are: Amman (Roman
Philadelphia), with its Byzantine Churches and Roman theatres;
Jerash (Gerasa) in “ the
region of the Gerasenes” (Mark 5:19;Luke 8:26), whose Byzantine
citizens annually celebrated the miracle of Jesus’ turning water into
wine at a fountain within a large ecclesiastical complex; Tabaqat
Fahl (Pella), in the
northern Jordan Valley foothills, to which early Christians fled from
Jerusalem to escape the First Jewish Revolt in AD 66-70 and Roman
persecution in the earliest Christian centuries; and , Umm
el-Jimal, a Classical era provincial town noteworthy for its remains
of the earliest dated church in Jordan (from 345 AD).
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