The Pool of Bethesda Was Called Fictional Until 1888

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Berean.ai · Accepted Answer

Did you know 19th-century critical scholars dismissed the Pool of Bethesda in John 5:2 as symbolic fabrication? A pool with "five roofed colonnades" seemed geometrically impossible (rectangular pools have 4 sides). Then in 1888, a Swiss architect named Conrad Schick excavated the site — and found exactly what John described. The Biblical Text — John 5:2: "Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades." Jesus then heals a paralyzed man there (John 5:1-9). The passage names the pool, gives its Aramaic name, locates it precisely (by the Sheep Gate), and specifies its architecture (five roofed colonnades). The Skeptical Case — John Invented It: F.C. Baur and the Tübingen School (19th century), followed by many later liberal scholars, dated John's Gospel to ~150-170 AD and argued its author was not from Palestine. Their claim: "five colonnades" is geometrically impossible (rectangular pools have 4 sides), so the number 5 must be symbolic (5 books of Torah? 5 wounds of Christ?). John's Gospel was called late-date theological fiction, not historical witness. Conrad Schick's 1888 Excavation: Conrad Schick (1822-1901), a German-Swiss architect and Protestant missionary who lived and worked in Jerusalem for decades, excavated under the Church of Saint Anne (in the Bezetha quarter, near the traditional Sheep Gate) in 1888. What he found: TWO large trapezoidal reservoirs, side by side. The northern pool dates to the 8th century BC (attributed to King Hezekiah); the southern pool was added during the Hellenistic period. The architectural details: FOUR colonnaded porticoes around the perimeter of the combined pool complex (north, south, east, west) + ONE additional colonnade on the central dividing dam between the two pools. Total: FIVE roofed colonnades. Exactly what John 5:2 described.