Archaeology and the New Testament

Archaeology and the Reliability of the New Testament

by Dr. Sean M. McDonough, Associate Professor of New Testament, who taught New Testament at Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji Islands, where he also served as Chair of the Biblical Studies Department before coming to Gordon-Conwell in 2000. Published CONTACT (Winter 2005/2006)

Much of the discussion in New Testament archaeology surrounds the identification of specific places mentioned in the biblical texts. Sometimes this can yield important insights. For example, the five-porticoed pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem (John 5) was thought by some to be a fiction invented by John to symbolize the Pentateuch or some other five-membered set. But archaeological study has demonstrated that John spoke about the pool because it was there, and he said it had five porticoes because it did. Just last year, excavators in Jerusalem uncovered another pool mentioned in John’s gospel: the pool of Siloam to which the blind man of John 9 was sent.

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