Those who wish to discount the Bible as being anything other than the writings of simple people trying to understand their world in an unscientific and irrational time, here is a report of a rediscovery that substantiates biblical history and geography.
It is perfectly legitimate, in my opinion, to suggest that John or any of the biblical writers use allegory and story telling to convey religious truths, but many demand that that is what the Bible is all about – and as proof they often discount historical and geographic accounts as untrue. This was the case with the Hebrew Testament cities of Sodom and Gomorra, which many scholars used to prove the unreliability of biblical accounts because they did not believe the cities ever actually existed. Until they were found, that is. There are many such examples. Now, the Pool of Siloam has been found. I love it when this happens.
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.