Overview
After the Crimean War the Ottoman Sultan presented the ruined church of St. Anne (then the 'Salahieh' school) near St. Stephen's Gate to the Emperor Napoleon. While the French-appointed monks cleared the grounds they found a deep rock-cut 'cistern' with steps. Conrad Schick planned and published it in the Palestine Exploration Fund's Quarterly Statement for July 1888.
Schick's report describes a pool cut 30 ft into rock, 55 by 12.5 ft, with a flight of 24 steps down from the east, lying beneath a later apsed building (read as a church) whose floor was carried on vaults. The PEF editors added that Schick had found 'a second pool to the west of this, forming what is called a twin pool'.
The editors then argued from John 5:2: 'the only possible way for a pool to have five porticoes (unless it is a pentagon) is to be a double or twin pool, so that there may be one portico along each side and one for the wall of separation.' That is an argument from the text to the plan; the 1888 report does not describe standing porticoes.
What the evidence shows
- Rock-cut pool 55 ft E-W x 12.5 ft N-S, 30 ft deep, 24 steps from the east (Schick, PEF QS 1888).
- North wall of masonry with four piers on rock bases carrying arches, spaces later filled in (PEF QS 1888).
- A second pool west of the first ('twin pool') reported by Schick in 1888.
- A later apsed building (c. 70 x 25 ft) built over the pool after c. 10 ft of earth had accumulated (PEF QS 1888).
- Pilgrim testimony forms 'a continuous chain of evidence from the 4th to the 12th century' for the site, per the PEF editors citing Sir Charles Wilson (1888).
- Before 1888 the name 'Bethesda' had been attached to the Birket Israil pool north of the Haram (PEF QS 1888).
Open questions
- What the five porticoes were: the PEF editors (1888) proposed one portico on each of four sides of a double pool and a fifth on the dividing wall. U. C. von Wahlde ('The Puzzling Pool of Bethesda', BAR Sept/Oct 2011, as summarized by BAS) describes 'a rectangular pool with two basins separated by a wall' and reads the southern basin, with 'broad steps with landings', as a mikveh and the northern as its reservoir (otzar). The mikveh function is a reading of the stepped design, not an inscription.
- Healing cult: whether the site was also, or later, a healing sanctuary (a reading in some later literature) was not documented in the sources cited here and is left open.
- Exact dates of construction of each basin and of the dividing wall are not available from a primary excavation report cited here; they stay open here rather than being filled with secondary figures.
Sources
- C. Schick (with editorial notes by the PEF / C. R. Conder), 'Pool of Bethesda' / 'Recent Discoveries in Jerusalem', Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 20:3 (July 1888) 115-134, DOI 10.1179/peq.1888.20.3.115 link excavation report
- C. Schick, 'Further Report on the Pool of Bethesda', Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 22:1 (1890) 18-20, DOI 10.1179/peq.1890.22.1.18 link excavation report
- Urban C. von Wahlde, 'The Puzzling Pool of Bethesda', Biblical Archaeology Review (Sept/Oct 2011) link study
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- Old entry: 'the very location where Jesus performed the miracle of healing a blind man'. John 5:5-9 describes a man infirm for 38 years told to take up his bed and walk; the blind man healed at a pool is John 9 (Siloam).
- Old entry: 'discovered in 1888 during archaeological excavations conducted by a team of researchers'. The pool was exposed by the monks clearing the St. Anne's property and recorded and published by Conrad Schick in 1888 (PEF QS July 1888).
- Old entry: 'The pool, which features five covered colonnades'. No standing colonnades were found; the five porticoes are a reconstruction argued from John 5:2 and the twin-pool plan.
- Old entry: 'Dimensions: Approximately 15 meters long, 10 meters wide'. The only measurements read (1888) are 55 x 12.5 ft for one basin, 30 ft deep; the full two-basin complex is larger. The 15 x 10 m figure has no source here.
- Old entry: 'Acts 8 (Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch)' has no connection to this pool.
- Old entry: 'dates back to the 1st century CE'. The pools are rock-cut and older than, or at least in use during, the 1st century; the old entry's date was not sourced.
2024–2026 check incomplete: limited: Crossref and the BAS page (revised 2026-09-01, originally 2013) checked; no 2024-2026 excavation report surfaced. Web-search budget ran out before a full news sweep