Pool of Bethesda
The Pool of Bethesda is referred to in John's Gospel in the Christian New Testament, in an account of Jesus healing a paralyzed man at a pool of water in Jerusalem, described as being near the Sheep Gate and surrounded by five covered colonnades or porticoes. It is also referred to as Bethzatha. It is now associated with the site of a pool in the current Muslim Quarter of the city, near the gate now called the Lions' Gate or St. Stephen's Gate and the Church of St. Anne, which was excavated in the late 19th century.
Name
The name of the pool is said to be derived from the Hebrew and/or Aramaic language. Beth hesda, means either "house of mercy" or "house of grace". This meaning may have been thought appropriate, since the location was seen as a place of disgrace due to the presence of invalids, and as a place of grace due to the granting of healing.Alternative renderings to the name Βηθεσδά, appearing in manuscripts of the Gospel of John, include Βηθζαθά, a derivative of Bezetha, and Bethsaida, although the latter is considered to be a metathetical corruption by Biblical scholars.
Franz Delitzsch suggested that the name comes from a mishnaic Hebrew loanword from Greek, estiv/estava, that appropriately referred to stoa.
Identification of the biblical site
According to the Gospel of John, Bethesda was a bathing pool with five porticoes.Until the 19th century, there was no clear archaeological evidence for the existence of such a pool. The Pool of Bethesda was sometimes identified by commentators with the modern so-called Fountain of the Virgin, in the Kidron Valley, not far from the Pool of Siloam, or alternatively with the Birket Isrâ'il, a pool near the mouth of the valley, which runs into the Kidron south of St. Stephen's Gate. Others identified it with the twin pools then called the Souterrains, under the Convent of the Sisters of Zion; subsequent archaeological investigation has identified these with the later Struthion Pool.
However, as early as the fifth century, there was a Byzantine church in what became the precincts of the Church of St. Anne, called the Church of the Probatike or the Church of the Lame Man. This site, as subsequently excavated by archaeologists, seems plausibly to fit the description in John's Gospel.
Archaeology
In archaeological digs conducted in the 19th century, Conrad Schick discovered a large tank situated about north-west of St. Anne's Church, which he contended was the Pool of Bethesda. Further archaeological excavation in the area, in 1964, uncovered the remains of the Byzantine and Crusader churches, Hadrian's Temple of Asclepius and Serapis, the small healing pools of an Asclepeion, the second of the two large pools, and the dam between them. It was discovered that the Byzantine church had been built in the very heart of Hadrian's temple and contained the healing pools.Gospel account
The Johannine text describes the porticoes as being a place in which large numbers of infirm people were waiting, which could correspond with the site's possible use in the 1st century AD as an Asclepeion. The biblical narrative continues by describing a Shabbat visit to the site by Jesus, during which he heals a man who has been bedridden for 38 years and could not make his own way into the pool. The healing, and Jesus' instruction to the man to take up his mat, prompts a protest that the religious customs of the Sabbath have been broken.History
First (northern) pool
The history of the pool began in the 8th century BC, when a dam was built across the short Beth Zeta Valley, turning it into a reservoir for rain water; a sluice-gate in the dam allowed the height to be controlled, and a rock-cut channel brought a steady stream of water from the reservoir into the city. The reservoir became known as the Upper Pool.Second (southern) pool
Around 200 BC, during the period in which Simon II was the Jewish High Priest, the channel was enclosed, and a second pool was added on the south side of the dam.Although popular legend argues that this pool was used for washing sheep, this is very unlikely due to the pool's use as a water supply, and its extreme depth. There has been some scholarly debate about whether the pool may have been a mikveh.
Hellenistic and Roman temples
According to Jerome Murphy-O'Connor in the 1st century BC natural caves to the east of the two pools were turned into small baths with a religious/medical function. At least one of these new pools was sacred to Fortuna the goddess of fortune, rather than Asclepius, the god of healing. Murphy-O'Connor thinks it likely that this development was founded by the Roman garrison of the nearby Antonia Fortress, who would also have been able to protect it from attack. Additionally, the location of the baths outside the then city walls would have made its presence tolerable to the Jews, who might otherwise have objected to a non-Jewish religious presence in their holy city.In the mid 1st century AD, Herod Agrippa expanded the city walls, bringing the baths into the city. When Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, he placed a roadway along the dam, and expanded the site into a large temple to Asclepius and Serapis.