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A Gospel of John Passage Is Proven True

It turns out that a specific passage from the Gospel of John wasn't a religious conceit, that is a kind of poetic license John took to prove a point. It's true. Now there is proof. When the sewer line in the Old City of Jerusalem needed repairs in the fall of 2004, the workmen made a historic discovery: the biblical Pool of Siloam. The Gospel of John cites this as the place where Jesus cured the blind man. Theologians have long thought the setting of the pool was a "religious conceit" used by John to illustrate a point. Turns out, the place is real. And it's exactly where John said it is, reports The Los Angeles Times of a new study published in the Biblical Archaeology Review.

What's more, it is much grander than anyone ever realized with three tiers of stone stairs on three sides that allow easy access to the water. Each group of steps is separated by narrow landings. The pool is about 225 feet long. The Pool of Siloam is not only a holy site for Christians, but also Jews. In ancient times, Jews who made their annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem gathered at this very reservoir. Since Jesus was a Jew it would have been natural for him to have gone here, too. Scholars have long said that the place didn't exist and was just created by John as the setting for Jesus' miracle when he cured the blind man. A gospel that was thought to be "pure theology is now shown to be grounded in history," New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary told the L.A. Times.

Hezekiah built the pool to provide a safe water supply to the people of Jerusalem in case they were attacked by the Assyrians. The workers also built a tunnel measuring 1,750 feet under the City of David that connected to the Gihon Spring in the adjacent and less vulnerable Kidron Valley. This pool was destroyed in 586 BC by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, but rebuilt in the 1st century BC before being destroyed again in 70 AD by Titus, the man who would become the Roman emperor.

Fast forward to the fall of 2004: When the men repairing the sewer line uncovered two steps, the work stopped so the antiquities' experts could have a look. They didn't have to look long before they were "100 percent sure it was the Siloam Pool," Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority told the L.A. Times. How could they be so sure? When the workmen crafted the steps centuries ago, they buried four coins in the plaster, all of which date from 103 to 76 BC. In addition, in the soil in one corner of the pool, the archaeologists found a dozen coins that date from 66 to 70 AD, indicating that the pool was being filled in at that time.