gnosis92

According to Gospel of John 9:6-11, this is the location referred to when Jesus of Nazareth performed a miracle in giving sight to the blind:

6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, 7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. (King James translation)

Presumably it was destroyed when the ROmans sacked the city 67AD.
it was recently discovered through archaelogy.

Evidently the author of John's Gopsel, who located Jesus and a miracle there, had some knowledged based on personal experience, or people who did have personal experience of the pool, before its burial resulting from the Temple's destruction in 67AD. It also argues strongly for a historical Jesus, as this author locates a historical Jesus at a specific place, prior to the destruction. Eventually knowledge of this location of this pool was lost until rediscovered in 2005. Curiously, this pool is not mentioned by the synoptics nor by Paul or the rest of the new testatment, but only in John's Gospel, however there is no question it exists.

Since mythical Jesus theorists are prefer to employ the argument from silence, did other contemporary writers, such as Josepheus, Philo, Tacitus, Pliny, the essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls, talmud or rabbnic writings, etc, make mention of this pool? Did early Church fathers such as Papais or Clement make mention of this pool?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Siloam

Pool of Siloam
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Pool of Siloam (Hebrew "sent" or "sending") is a landmark mentioned or alluded to several times in the Bible, most notably in the context of where Jesus healed a man blind from birth in the Gospel of John. The present pool is located in the Silwan district of Jerusalem, just to the south (and outside) of the walls the Old City, at the lowermost portion of the Judahite city. Its first version dates from the reign of King Hezekiah, when the waters of the Gihon Spring were first transported here via a tunnel, ca. 700 BC.

On August 9, 2005, the discovery of the pool from the Second Temple period, which includes the timeframe of Jesus, was formally announced.
Contents
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* 1 The Pool Through Time
o 1.1 Hezekiah's Pool
o 1.2 Later Second Temple Period Pool
o 1.3 Byzantine Pool
o 1.4 Present Day Pool
* 2 Bible
* 3 Discovery of the Second Temple Period Pool
* 4 Silwan
* 5 See also
* 6 Sources

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The Pool Through Time

There would seem to have been at least three pools built, but with various reconstructions over time:
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Hezekiah's Pool

The first pool would have been built at the same time as King Hezekiah's tunnel from the Gihon Spring. The Siloam inscription was discovered in this tunnel in 1880, and is among the oldest extant Hebrew records. It is an accounting of the manner in which the water tunnel was constructed during the reign of Hezekiah. This pool would have been at least rehabilitated after the return from the Exile, in the early Second Temple period.
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Later Second Temple Period Pool

The second pool, which has been recently discovered, dates from the later Second Temple period. What portion of it might be Herodian is not yet understood. Any relationship to the earlier original pool is not presently known.
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Byzantine Pool

The third pool, a version of which represents the present-day pool, dates from 5th century Byzantine times, and is said to have been built at the behest of the Empress Aelia Eudocia.
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Present Day Pool

The present pool is part of the pilgrim trail. It's just a stone pool, smaller than you might think with a modest mosque hard by it (and actually over part of it). Hezekiah's tunnel is barred off, but apparently tours are possible.
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Bible

Hezekiah's tunnel is never explicitly referred to, but a celebratory inscription now in Istanbul records the event. Second Chronicles 32:2-3 does allude to this, however. A contemporary reference is found at Isaiah 8:6 which mention its waters, while Isaiah 22:9 ff. possibly makes a clear reference to the pool, in the context of the King's preparations for war, if not necessarily against Sennacherib.

1 Kings 1:33 mentions the spring.

According to Gospel of John 9:6-11, this is the location referred to when Jesus of Nazareth performed a miracle in giving sight to the blind:

6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, 7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. (King James translation)

The pilgrimage to Jerusalem was a trip that religious law required ancient Jews to make at least once a year, noted archeologist Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, who excavated the pool. "Jesus was just another pilgrim coming to Jerusalem," he said. "It would be natural to find him there."
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Discovery of the Second Temple Period Pool

In the Fall of 2004, workers making excavations for a sewer line near the present-day pool in the Silwan district outside the walls of the old city, uncovered stone steps.

Almost immediately, archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron were on the scene, and it was apparent that this was likely the Second Temple period pool. Excavation thereafter swiftly commenced and confirmed the initial supposition. A portion of this pool remains unexcavated, as it is owned by a nearby Greek Orthodox church and is occupied by an orchard known as the King's Garden (compare Nehemiah 3:15).

This find was formally announced on August 9, 2005 and received substantial international media attention.

The pool is not perfectly rectangular, but a soft trapezoid. There are three sets of five steps, two leading to a platform, before the bottom is reached. It is suggested the steps were designed to accommodate various water levels.

It is stone lined, but underneath there is evidence of an earlier version which was merely plastered. Coins found within this plaster date from the time of Alexander Jannaeus (104—76 BC). A separate additional collection of coins were found which date from the time of the Jewish War (AD 66—70).

As a freshwater reservoir, it was a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city. The New Testament pericope (John 9:6-11) suggests it was used as a mikvah (ritual bath), but as these were done in the nude and as nothing has been discovered to indicate provisions for privacy, this awaits further research.

The pool is less than 200 yards from a later reconstruction of the Pool of Siloam by the empress Eudocia of Byzantium who oversaw the rebuilding of several Biblical sites.
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Silwan

Main article Silwan

This pool was identified with the Birket Silwan in East Jerusalem. Easton's Bible Dictionary describes Silwan as "in the lower Tyropoeon Valley, to the south-east of Mount Zion." The present-day area has been much changed by archaeological excavations and is now largely dedicated to tourists.

Easton's comments that

the water which flows into Silwan intermittantly by a subterranean channel derives from a spring renamed by Christians the "Fountain of the Virgin". The length of this channel, which has several windings, is 1,750 feet, though the direct distance is only 1,100 feet. The pool is 53 feet in length from north to south, 18 feet wide, and 19 deep. The water passes from it by a channel cut in the rock into the gardens below.

pharoah

It could well be true that the author and/or people he knew had some knowledge of the pool before its destruction. It could be equally true that the pool was a famous landmark talked about by many long after its destruction, such as The Titanic.

I'm no mythicist, but I can hardly see how this argues strongly for HJ. Homer located Athena and Achilles in Troy prior to its destruction. Does the recent discovery of Troy prove that they existed? This proves only one thing, that the author was aware of his surroundings. At best, you can use this as evangelicals do to try to build a case that GJohn was an early document.

yalla

I was under the impression that:
1. A pool, alleged to be that of Siloam, was "found" decades ago, by Allbright I think. I have a reference in a book somewhere, I'll check and come back to confirm or reject my impression, it might be just my memory leading me astray...again.
2.I read about the alleged discovery of the Pool of Siloam a while back, probably the event referred to by gnosis92...BUT...I also remember reading that there was a second pool in the vicinity which may ALSO be a candidate.
Now I didn't bookmark the sites that showed these pools so I'll go and try and find them, again, to check my memory.

But, IF my recollection is accurate then.......?

Javaman

It becomes the same as utilizing the three tombs that don't contain bodies as evidence of the ressurection.

yalla

Don't trust memory.
The pool my books refer to is that mentioned in John 5.1-7.

But there are connections, so my memory was not entirely hopeless.

Firstly, one of the authors is pleased to bring up the "sceptics doubt" line..."The centuries old question mark over the pool of Bethesda has now been removed for ever" A.M Hunter "According to John" page 12.

Now the other author, J. Marsh in "St.John", calls that pool Bethzatha. But he adds that there are variants such as Bethesda, Bethsaida and Belzetha.
Anyway whatever it's called he reckons it was "previously ...identified ...the Pool of Siloam...which is south of the temple in the Valley of Kidron" p.249

So Marsh seems to know where the POS is located.
In 1968.
Same pool?
Maybe not because Marsh also says that John's pool of 5.1ff has "recently been identified with the twin pool of St. Anna".
I don't know where that is.
I do wish these guys would make up their minds because Hunter reckons the pool was excavated in the 19th century and excavations "completed in the 1930s [is that Marsh's "recent'?] laid bare the long lost pool and vindicated the almost guide book accuracy of John 5.1".

All this reminds me of the recent discovery of jars [perhaps THE jars that JC turned from holding water into holding wine] at Cana by an archeaological team happy to have found Cana at long last.
Trouble is another rival mob of diggers also found Cana....10kms away from the first Cana.
Too many Canas.

Can we detect a pattern in all this?

Haran

The following is an image of this newly discovered pool of Siloam from my recent trip to Israel (by the way, it really smelled bad here...likely due to the sewer for the Silwan Arab village (in the background) that was being put in when the pool was discovered - as a matter of fact, that black pipe on the left might be it...don't know).



The following image is of the old pool of Siloam (which I believe is supposed to date back to Byzantine times). Hezekiah's water tunnel dumps one out right at this pool.

Haran

There were two pools not to get mixed up...

The pool of Siloam (shown above) found in the southern portion of Jerusalem and the very large pools of Bethsaida found in the northern part of the city near St. Anne's church. I didn't get a picture of them, but they don't look much like pools anymore anyway because ancient Byzantine churches were built on top of them. When you look down into the area, all you really see (or at least all I saw) were the remains of these Byzantine churches.

Haran

The following is a great page showing pictures of the remains of the pools of Bethsaida.

Pools of Bethsaida

The following from the above website is the view that I remember from standing outside St. Anne's Church just west and north of St. Stephen's Gate (or the Lion Gate).

Haran

The following map shows the locations of both pools. The pools of Bethsaida are in the upper right portion of the map, and the pool of Siloam is at the bottom at the end of Hezekiah's water tunnel that snakes down from the Gihon spring.

yalla

http://www.bibleplaces.com/poolofsiloam.htm

That's a link to a site that shows the locations of BOTH POS's, there seems to be a plethora of pools.
One found in the 1900's.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05221/550792.stm

This a link to a news report.
It includes:
- Hershel Shanks reporting the find.
-"We have found the POS...exactly where John said it was"
[help me out here, where did John say it was, other than in Jerusalem?]
- "As soon as Shukron saw the two steps uncovered...we were 100 percent sure it was the Siloam Pool".

I'm a litle underwhelmed by all this, nice to find a pool in an ancient fortress city, a good find, even tho' most ancient cities probably have a couple or more, and surely a cool place for Haran to visit, but no relevance to the veracity of John that I can see.
I don't think anyone would argue that the author of John was not familiar with Jewish scriptures.
Here in oz we have a detective novelist who sets his plots in Sydney and frequently has his hero driving over the coathanger [Sydney harbour Bridge].
But the actuality of the bridge doesn't make the stories non-fiction.
Nice pool[s] but lets not go overboard about their significance to the gospel.

Edit Hey Haran you jumped in before me!