Mark 6:45f ‘Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dispersed the crowd. After saying good-bye to them, he went to the mountain to pray.’

Lk 9:10 appears to place the miracle at or near Bethsaida.  Matthew, whose account many judge to be based on that of Mark, omits the references to Bethsaida.  Was he, perhaps, correcting what he saw to be a minor problem in Mark’s account?  According to Jn 6:16–17, the disciples cross over to Capernaum.

Licona (Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?) thinks that it is difficult to harmonise these accounts:

‘Luke places [the feeding] at or very close to Bethsaida, whereas Mark places it anywhere but Bethsaida, since after the feeding Jesus tells his disciples to cross over to Bethsaida. Matthew, Mark, and John tell us they landed on the west side of the lake, and John tells us that is where they had intended to land. Accordingly, it will not work to harmonize the accounts by asserting the disciples intended to go to Bethsaida but were blown off course and landed in Capernaum.’

Licona summarises:

‘Either John slightly compresses or one or more of the evangelists artistically weave elements into their narrative that were not remembered in a precise manner.’

Norman Giesler berates Michael Licona for being willing to accept the ‘confusion’ of Mark, and for his willingness to ‘remain content to live with an unanswered question.’  Giesler says that ‘even Licona admits there are “possible” solutions’ and therefore seems to find it difficult to understand why Licona doesn’t plump for one of these, rather than accept the unresolved tension.  Giesler’s comments strike me as lacking integrity, a lack driven by his strong doctrine of biblical inerrancy.  For him, that doctrine is protected so long as we can think of at least one way in which the text can be interpreted in a way that resolves an apparent discrepancy.  But this is to allow the theological tail to wag the exegetical dog.

Having cleared that out of the way, I’m happy, as usual, to consider ways in which these two texts might be harmonised.  So here goes…

Mark says that Jesus made his disciples go on ahead of him ‘pros Bethsaidan‘.  Although this might well be translated ‘to Bethsaida’ it could equally mean ‘over against’, or ‘opposite’, or ‘facing’ Bethsaida’.

Besides Luke’s account, other incidental details seem confirm the location as Bethsaida:

• Mt 11:20ff and Lk 10:13ff both record Jesus as referring to his ‘mighty works’ performed in Bethsaida; but the main miracles recorded in that place are the feeding of the five thousand and associated healings (Lk 9:11);
• in his account of the feeding miracle, John does not actually say that it took place in Bethsaida, but Jn 6:5 does say that Jesus asked Philip where they could buy bread: and John records elsewhere that Philip was from Bethsaida (Jn 1:44; 12:21);
• after the feeding miracle, according to Jn 6:16-17, the disciples got into a boat at headed across the sea ‘eis‘ to (or towards) Capernaum.  Now, Capernaum is on the NW side of the Sea of Galilee, that is, across the sea from Bethsaida, which is on the NE;
• according to Mk 6:53 the disciples landed in Genessaret.  This, like Capernaum, is on the NW side of Galilee, away from, and not adjacent to, Bethsaida.

See this discussion by Lydia McGrew.

Craig Blomberg thinks it perfectly possible that the disciples were sent by Jesus to Bethsaida en route to Capernaum:

‘after the feeding of the 5,000, when Mark says Jesus told the disciples to go to Bethsaida (Mark 6:45) while John says they set off for Capernaum (John 6:17), Licona believes that “it will not work to harmonize the accounts by asserting the disciples intended to go to Bethsaida but were blown off course and landed in Capernaum.” I agree. But why not look first for a way that both statements could be true? Licona thinks the feeding miracle had to occur very close to Bethsaida because Jesus and the disciples went there first in Luke 9:10. But two verses later, Luke agrees with both Mark and John that they have moved on to “a remote place” (v. 12). The most likely region for such a place is east of the Sea of Galilee, from which one could easily refer to two different cities (both to the northwest) as the destination of the little troupe, especially if they stopped at Bethsaida en route to Capernaum. In fact, if Jesus knew the weather was going to be bad, He could have told them to head for Bethsaida first so they would stay closer to shore and not be in the open and most exposed parts of the sea.’