Thursday Watchdog: Archaeologists Just Found The Plumbing Behind the Temple

Photo via Виктор Соломоник at pexels.com

2,000-Year-Old Aqueduct to the Temple Mount Uncovered

Archaeologists have exposed a 300-meter section of Jerusalem’s Lower Aqueduct south of Ramat Rachel. The system carried spring water from the area south of Bethlehem, through Solomon’s Pools, toward Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Researchers believe the aqueduct originated in the Hasmonean period and remained in use, with modifications, for nearly two millennia. Jewish Telegraphic Agency

This doesn’t “prove Jesus.” We don’t need archaeology to do that. It does something archaeology more and more of recently: it reconstructs the real physical world in which the Bible happened.

Jerusalem at festival times needed enormous quantities of water for residents, pilgrims and ritual activity. This aqueduct shows the infrastructure behind the biblical setting.

So What?

That makes the Gospel world less like a stained-glass picture and more like a real city filled with engineering, crowds, water systems and ordinary human life.

It gives us another substantial piece of Second Temple Jerusalem—the Jerusalem Jesus and His disciples knew.

Rick Tryon

Website | + posts

Child of God, husband, father, grandfather, rabblerouser, songwriter, pot stirrer, waiting for the King.

Bible Rebel

Curious Fearless Faith