In John 5:2, we read that
Now there is at Jerusalem by the
sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five
porches.
The Greek uses the present tense "is" (εστιν),
indicating that, when the Gospel of John was written, the pool was still there.
Many argue that this supports a pre-70 date for the Gospel of John (e.g.,
Robertson; Wallace). Perhaps the best argument against this argument is the
"intact view," that is, the pool survived the Jewish War intact.
Arguing against this perspective and in favour that John 5:2 is indeed evidence
of a pre-70 authorship of John, Jonathan Bernier writes that:
Contemporary scholars typically
identify the pool of Bethesda with two pools located near St. Anne’s Church in
the Muslin Quarter. The present excavator of this area, Shimon Gibson, has
argued that the southern of the two pools with a mikvah, that this was the pool
mentioned in 5:2, and that the stirring of the water mentioned in 5:7 is the result
of a sluice being opened between the two pools. Responding to Gibson, Jodi
Magness accepts that the southern pool was a mikvah but argues that “there is
no indication in any of our sources—literary or archaeological—that Jews immersed
in miqva’ot [mikvahs] for purposes other than purification, such as seeking
miraculous healing” (Magness, “Sweet Memory,” 327). Considering Gibson’s argument
to be speculative, Magness advances a speculation of her own: since we know
that at some point after 70 this area would come to serve as an Asclepeion,
Magness argues that John 5:6-7 might be alluding not to pre-70 practices
associated with the God of Israel but rather to post-70 practices associated
with the god Asclepius (Magness, “Sweet Memory,” 328). There are significant problems
with this argument, however. For instance, it is not clear when the Asclepius
cult began to operate at the site. Both André Duprez and Nicole Belayche
discuss this cult within the context of pagan religious life in Aelia Capitolina,
which from 135 was the official name for the city once known as Jerusalem.
Although Duprez allows that this cult could have been in service as early as
70, he also states that the only certainty is that it was in serve during the
time of Aelia Capitolina (Duprez, Jésus et les dieux guérisseurs, 43-54).
We have seen already that reception-critical
data make a date for John’s Gospel much later than 120 unlikely. If indeed the
Asclepeion was not in service until after 135, then on chronological grounds
Magness’s theory of anachronism is not impossible but certainly dubious.
More crucially, the practices
described in John 5:6-7 do not strongly resemble those that Magness or her authorities
on the matter—Belayche and DUprez—ascribe to the Ascelpeion (Magness, “Sweet
Memory<” 328n16, cites Belayche, Iudaea-Palestina; Duprez, Jésus
et les dieux guérisseurs). In Magness’s own summary, “Ancient sources
describes Asclepius and Serapis as healing patients through a combination of
bathing in water and dreaming during incubation” (Magness, “Sweet Memory,” 328).
The absence of either dreaming or incubation vitiates, although does not
entirely obviate, Magness’s argument from parallel. Such vitiation is particularly
problematic, as Magness’s only grounds for concluding that John 5:6-7 does not
suppose pre-70 conditions is the absence of parallel cases in which mikvahs
were associated with healing. Moreover, Magness herself grants that given the
archaeological data, John 5 might well constitute evidence that in at least one
instance Second Temple Jewish persons did indeed use a mikvah for healing
purposes (Magness, “Sweet Memory,” 327). This seems to be a more preferable
solution than a poorly fitting parallel with an Asclepeion that might have come
into existence only after John’s Gospel.
Wallace further identifies a “fundamental
problem” with “intact” arguments such as Magness’s—namely, that they “attempt
to divorce the porticoes from the pool” (Wallace, “John 5:2,” 186). Wallace
notes rightly that John speaks about not only the pool of Bethesda as existing
in the present but also the five porticoes that surround it. He thus correctly concludes
that any iteration of the intact view should demonstrate that both pool and
porticoes existed at the time that John 5:2 was written. As such, even if
Magness could demonstrate that the pool was functioning as an Asclepeion as early
as 70, she would still need to demonstrate that the porticoes remained intact. Unfortunately,
precise knowledge about the state of the pool(s) and the porticoes after 70
eludes us. Given the extent of the destruction to Jerusalem, however, we can
reasonably anticipate that the porticoes were indeed destroyed. This would be
most consistent with the evidence provided to us by Josephus (cf. Josephus, J.W.
7.1.1 §§1-3).
Considering the above, and absent
evidence that suggests otherwise, it is probable that 5:2 was written prior to
the destruction of 70, and with it the balance of the Gospel. (Jonathan
Bernier, Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early
Composition [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2022], 100-2)
