Archaeology: The pool of Bethesda

This site, mentioned in John 5:1-15, had long been disputed. Until the 19th century, there was no archaeological evidence for the Pool of Bethesda, so skeptics used this as proof that John’s account was written by some later zealot who did not have eyewitness knowledge of Jerusalem or an actual pool called Bethesda.

In 1956, digging at the ancient biblical site of Bethesda, near the Sheep Gate just north of the temple mount in Jerusalem, archaeologists unearthed a rectangular pool 40 feet underground with two porticos or colonnades on each side and a fifth one on the broad retaining wall that separates the northern from the southern pool.

Kyle Campbell