For the first time in 2000 years, the Biblical site where Jesus healed blind man to be excavated for public view

Several Biblical sites have been identified through archaeology over the course of history. They hold huge historical importance and are often tied to a theological significance.

Most of the sites were in their natural state when found by archeologists. But have locations been unearthed? Apparently not.

In the coming days, a new location will be opening to the public for the first time in 2,000 years.

The Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel National Parks Authority and the City of David Foundation have announced that a site, cherished by the Christians and Jews, which is allegedly the place where Jesus miraculously healed a blind man will be opened to the public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZplmgd8_c0

The Pool of Siloam is located in the southern part of the City of David archaeological site in Jerusalem.

“The Pool of Siloam, located at the southern end of the City of David, and within the Jerusalem Walls National Park, is an archaeological and historical site of national and worldwide importance.

According to the Bible, the pool was first built in the 8th century BCE in the reign of King Hezekiah, some 2,700 years ago, as part of Jerusalem’s water system,” Israel Antiquities Authority wrote on Facebook.

It has always been referred to as a number of rock-cut pools on the southern slope of the Wadi Hilweh, considered by some archaeologists to be the original site of Jerusalem.

According to the Gospel of John, Jesus sent the “man blind from birth” to the pool in order to complete his healing. A simpler and more popular belief is that Jesus applied mud to the eyes of the man before telling him to wash it off in the Pool. When he followed his instructions, he was able to see for the first time.

The story makes the Pool of Siloam an important historical site for Christians as well as Jews.

“The Pool of Siloam’s excavation is highly significant to Christians around the world. It was at this site that Jesus healed the blind man (John:9), and it is at this site that, 2,000 years ago, Jewish pilgrims cleansed themselves prior to entering the Second Temple.” American pastor John Hagee, the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, told Fox News Digital.

“The Pool of Siloam and the Pilgrimage Road, both located within the City of David, are among the most inspiring archaeological affirmations of the Bible,” he added.

Ze’ev Orenstein, director of international affairs for the City of David Foundation in Jerusalem, told Fox News Digital that the site ‘will be made fully accessible for the first time in 2,000 years’.

As of now, a small section of the pool has been fully excavated to be made accessible to the public. However, the vast majority of the pool will be opened later once the entire site is unearthed.

Reports have claimed that some tourists have already been able to visit the site. But full access will only be granted when the excavation is complete.

“The Pool of Siloam in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem is a site of historic, national and international significance. After many years of anticipation, we will soon merit being able to uncover this important site and make it accessible to the millions of visitors visiting Jerusalem each year,” said Jerusalem’s mayor Moshe Lion.

Archaeology: A 2,700-year-old inscription in Jerusalem proves Bible RIGHT, expert claims

The Siloam Tunnel, also known as Hezekiah’s Tunnel, is an ancient waterway carved under Jerusalem some 2,700 years ago.

The tunnel ran under the City of David, funnelling freshwater into Jerusalem from Gihon Spring, outside of the city’s walls. Mention of the tunnel is found in the Old Testament’s 2 Kings 20, where the Bible says the tunnel was constructed on the order of King Hezekiah.

According to scripture, the tunnel was carved into Jerusalem’s bedrock to ensure a supply of water during an impending siege by invading Assyrian forces.

2 Kings 20:20 reads: “Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool, and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?”

Tom Meyer, a professor in Bible and theology at Shasta Bible College and Graduate School in California, believes the tunnel is an incredible testament of the Bible’s historicity.

Professor Meyer told Express.co.uk there is ample archaeological evidence that validates the account in 2 Kings 2020.

In particular, an ancient Hebrew inscription found inside the tunnel sheds light on its construction.

Professor Meyer said: “Though the American historical geographer, Edward Robinson, was the first person to explore the tunnel in modern times – 1873 – it was a local boy named Jacob Spafford – the adopted son of the famous hymnist Horatio Spafford – who, while playing in the tunnel, stumbled upon one of the most important ancient Hebrew inscriptions ever found – 1880.

“The inscription is significant not only because it validates the Biblical account, but because it is the only inscription from ancient Israel that commemorates a public works program and is one of the oldest examples of Hebrew writing.”

The inscription was brought to the attention of local authorities but was irreparably damaged during its removal.

Hezekiah’s tunnel demonstrates once again the historical reliability of the Biblical account

Professor Tom Meyer, Shasta Bible College

However, Professor Meyer said the inscription contained a description of workers tunnelling under Jerusalem from two opposite ends.

Where the two groups finally connected, they left an inscription on the wall to commemorate their achievement.

The connection to King Hezekiah would place the tunnel’s construction at around the seventh century BC.

Professor Meyer said: “This amazing feat is mentioned numerous times in the Bible in connection with Hezekiah’s fortification preparations against Sennacherib of Assyria attacking Jerusalem.

“The Siloam Inscription is stored at the Istanbul Archeology Museum because it was discovered when Israel was under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire.

“Hezekiah’s tunnel, which still brings water into Jerusalem to this day, was an incredible feat of engineering; along with the epigraphical evidence – the accompanying Siloam Inscription – Hezekiah’s tunnel demonstrates once again the historical reliability of the Biblical account.”

Mention of the tunnel is also found in 2 Chronicles 32:1-4: “After these things, and the establishment thereof, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, and entered into Judah, and encamped against the fenced cities, and thought to win them for himself.

“And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem,

“He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city: and they did help him.

“So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?”

The tunnel is also mentioned in 2 Chronicles 32:30: “This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works

Another mention is found in Isaiah 22:11: “You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool.

“But you did not look to him who did it, or have regard for him who planned it long ago.”

Burial cave dedicated to Jesus midwife Salome reveals treasures; will open to public

Ahead of opening a burial cave dedicated to Salome, the midwife of Jesus, to the public, archaeologists have recently uncovered a number of priceless artifacts from its courtyard, the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday.

The tomb is a centuries-old Christian pilgrimage site, located in the Lachish region in central Israel.

“According to a Christian tradition, Salome was the midwife from Bethlehem, who was called to participate in the birth of Jesus,” said IAA archaeologist Zvi Firer. “She could not believe that she was asked to deliver a virgin’s baby, and her hand became dry and was only healed when she held the baby’s cradle.”

The burial cave was discovered in 1982 by antiquities looters and subsequently excavated in 1984 by Prof. Amos Kloner of the IAA. But, despite ample proof of its use as a sacred Christian site, it was never opened to the public.

For the past two months, archaeologists have excavated an elaborate courtyard of 350 square meters (almost 4,000 square feet) at the entrance to the cave, filled with intricate stone carvings, soaring arches, a mosaic floor, and the remains of a shop where pilgrims may have rented oil lamps to light their way inside the cave for their prayers.

“We found dozens of these lamps covered with carvings of pomegranates and intricate geometric designs,” said Firer.

The lamps, including more than two dozen found intact, were found together in an area that archaeologists identified as a small marketplace in the courtyard.

“We believe that pilgrims would come here, rent an oil lamp, perform their prayers inside, and go on their way. It’s like today when you go to the grave of a revered rabbi and light a candle there,” Firer said.

The cave was likely a Jewish burial cave for a wealthy family prior to its adaption as a Christian holy site. The first room of the burial cave dates to the Second Temple period, which stretches from the 6th century BCE to 70 CE. It has several chambers with multiple rock-hewn kokhim (burial niches) and broken ossuaries (stone boxes), which reflect a Jewish burial custom.

Local Christians first identified the site as the burial place of Salome in the Byzantine era and turned the spot into a pilgrimage site, explained Firer. Inner rooms of the burial cave are from the Byzantine era, from around 300 CE to 600 CE. The newly recovered oil lamps are from the 8th or 9th century CE in the early Islamic period.

Firer added that the name “Salome” or “Shlomit” was a common Jewish name in the Second Temple period in Hasmonean and Herodian families.

“The name Salome may possibly have appeared in antiquity on one of the ossuaries in the tomb, and the tradition identifying the site with Salome the midwife developed, with the cave becoming venerated by Christianity,” he said.

A trail built for kings

The work is being undertaken to open the cave to the public for the first time as part of the Judean Kings Trail, a 100-kilometer (60-mile) trail from Beersheba to Beit Guvrin featuring dozens of significant archaeological sites.

The burial cave is covered in ancient graffiti, including the words “Salome,” “Jesus,” the names of pilgrims, and crosses etched into the wall. The most impressive is an inscription in Greek that reads “Zacharia Ben Kerelis, dedicated to the Holy Salome.” Archaeologists believe that Zacharia Ben Kerelis was a wealthy Jewish patron who funded the construction of parts of the burial cave and the courtyard.

“We’re now working on ways to preserve all of these ancient carvings while opening the site to the public,” said Saar Ganor, the IAA director of the Judean Kings’ Trail Project. The current excavations are also being carried out in cooperation with the Ministry for Jerusalem and Heritage and the Jewish National Fund.

A few pilgrims still illegally enter the tomb, as evidenced by modern-day icons and candles in the altars in inner rooms, but Ganor hopes the cave’s official opening will allow greater numbers of people to safely experience the site.

“This trail, which crosses the Judean Shefelah [flatlands], is the backbone of the Jewish people’s cultural heritage, and it encompasses dozens of sites from the time of the Bible, the Second Temple, the Mishnah and the Talmud,” said Ganor. “This is a really important trail that combines tourism, history, and development.”

Early Christian Pilgrimage Site Excavated in Israel

Archaeologists have unveiled pilgrims’ lamps and other finds from the ”tomb of Salome”, a burial site named after a woman said to have assisted at the birth of Christ.

The tomb was discovered by grave robbers in what is now Tel Lachish national park, west of Jerusalem, in the 1980s.

Subsequent excavations by archaeologists have uncovered a Jewish burial chamber dating back to the Roman period that was taken over by a Christian chapel in the Byzantine era and was still drawing worshippers into the early Islamic period.

An inscription found on the walls of the grotto led the excavation team to conclude it was dedicated to Salome, a figure associated with the birth of Jesus in Eastern Orthodox tradition.

“In the cave, we found tonnes of inscriptions in ancient Greek and Syriac,” said the excavation director, Zvi Firer.

“One of the beautiful inscriptions is the name Salome … “Because of this inscription, we understand this is the cave of holy Salome.”

Salome’s role as an assistant to the midwife at Christ’s birth is recounted in the Gospel of James, a text dropped from the versions of the New Testament used by most western churches.

“The cult of Salome … belongs to a broader phenomenon, whereby the fifth-century Christian pilgrims encountered and sanctified Jewish sites,” the excavation team said.

Outside the grotto, the team found the remains of a colonnaded forecourt spanning 350 sq metres (3,750 sq ft), suggesting Salome was then a revered figure.

Shops selling clay lamps and other items intended for pilgrims were found around the courtyard, dating from as late as the ninth century, 200 years after the Muslim conquest.

“It is interesting that some of the inscriptions were inscribed in Arabic, whilst the Christian believers continued to pray at the site,” the team said.

An extremely Rare Half-Shekel Coin From Year Three of the Great Revolt discovered

Recent excavations by archaeologists from the Hebrew University in the Ophel area south of the Temple Mount uncovered the remains of a monumental public building from the Second Temple period that was destroyed in 70 CE.

Numerous Jewish coins, the majority of which were bronze, from the Great Revolt (66-70 CE) were discovered in the destruction layer. This collection also contained a particularly uncommon and rare discovery: a silver coin with a half-shekel denomination that dates to around 69/70 CE.

The Great Revolt was the first of several uprisings against the Roman Empire by the Jewish population of Judea.

The revolt was in response to the Romans’ increasing religious tensions and high taxation, which resulted in the looting of the Second Temple and the arrest of senior Jewish political and religious figures.

A large-scale rebellion overran the Roman garrison in Judea, forcing the pro-Roman King Herod Agrippa II to abandon Jerusalem.

A coin discovered in the ruins of a Second Temple-era building was most likely used to pay an annual tax for worship at the site; most coins of this type are bronze.

The dig was carried out by a team from the Hebrew University, led by Prof. Uzi Leibner of the Institute of Archaeology, in partnership with the Herbert W. Armstrong College in Edmond, Oklahoma, and with the support of the East Jerusalem Development Company, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

The rare coin was cleaned at the conservation laboratory of the Institute of Archaeology and identified by Dr. Yoav Farhi, the team’s numismatic expert and curator of the Kadman Numismatic Pavilion at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.

“This is the third coin of this type found in excavations in Jerusalem, and one of the few ever found in archeological excavations,” said the researchers.

During the Great Revolt against Rome, the Jews in Jerusalem minted bronze and silver coins. Most of the silver coins featured a goblet on one side, with ancient Hebrew script above it noting the year of the Revolt.

Depending on its denomination, the coins also included an inscription around the border noting either, “Israel Shekel,” “Half-Shekel,” or “Quarter-Shekel.” The other side of these coins showcased a branch with three pomegranates, surrounded by an inscription in ancient Hebrew script, “Holy Jerusalem.”

Throughout the Roman era the authority to produce silver coins was reserved solely for the emperor. During the Revolt, the minting of coins, especially those made of silver, was a political statement and an expression of national liberation from Roman rule by the Jewish rebels.

Indeed, throughout the Roman period leading up to the Great Revolt, no silver coins were minted by Jews, not even during the rule of King Herod the Great.

According to the researchers, half-shekel coins (which had an average weight of 7 grams) were also used to pay the “half-shekel” tax to the Temple, contributed annually by every Jewish adult male to help cover the costs of worship.

Dr. Farhi explained, “Until the revolt, it was customary to pay the half-shekel tax using good-quality silver coins minted in Tyre in Lebanon, known as ‘Tyrean shekels’ or ‘Tyrean half-shekels.’ These coins held the image of Herakles-Melqart, the principal deity of Tyre, and on the reverse they featured an eagle surrounded by a Greek inscription, ‘Tyre the holy and city of refuge.’ Thus, the silver coins produced by the rebels were intended to also serve as a replacement for the Tyrean coins, by using more appropriate inscriptions and replacing images (forbidden by the Second Commandment) with symbols.

The silver coins from the Great Revolt were the first and the last in ancient times to bear the title ‘shekel.’ The next time this name was used was in 1980, on Israeli Shekel coins produced by the Bank of Israel.”

The precious silver coins are thought to have been minted inside the Temple complex, according to a Monday statement from the Armstrong Institute.

Dyed Cotton Fibers Found at Neolithic Village Site in Israel

Around 7,000 years ago, somebody arrived in a prehistoric village in today’s northern Israel with a luxurious novelty: cotton.

Cotton was not known to the earliest civilizations rising in the Near East because it isn’t indigenous to the region, and where and when it was first domesticated remains a mystery. But now traces of this alien plant with its exquisitely soft bolls have been detected in Tel Tsaf.

This is the earliest trace of cotton found in the Near East to date by centuries, the researchers say. They believe it originated in the Indus Valley, though do not rule out an African origin.

How did cotton get to Tel Tsaf 7,000 years ago from the Indus Valley (or North Africa)? By trading, suggest Li Liu of Stanford University, Maureece Levin of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Florian Klimscha of the Lower Saxony State Museum (Hannover, Germany) and Danny Rosenberg of the University of Haifa, writing in Frontiers in Plant Science.

Good times in the Late Neolithic

Tel Tsaf contains the ruins of a village that arose about 7,300 to 7,200 years ago and would thrive for about 500 years, after which it was deserted for reasons that remain unknown. That in itself is quite the mystery given the abundance of its environs in the central Jordan Valley, south of the Sea of Galilee, Rosenberg notes. But for its time, this had been some settlement.

The wonders found during half a century of excavation there include the most ancient copper object in this part of the Middle East (there’s somewhat older in Iraq), a clay model of a grain silo – possibly indicating ritual involving food cultivation and storage – and a stamped sealing from around 7,000 years ago. This all suggests, the archaeologists surmise, that Tel Tsaf was an extraordinarily wealthy place as Late Neolithic settlements went.

Now Liu, Rosenberg and colleagues have detected cotton microfibers, at least some of which were dyed, from 7,000 years ago. This may provide further indication of trading relationships at the cusp of the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Early Chalcolithic in the valley.

It bears adding that the earliest cotton reported previously was in Dhuweila, eastern Jordan, and dates to centuries later – sometime between 6,450 years ago to around 5,000 years ago.

To be clear, it isn’t that humans strolled around in the altogether with their bits flapping in the breeze until discovering the delights of cotton. The thinking, says Rosenberg, is that the earliest garb was animal skins, whether worn to preserve modesty, for reasons of status, for warmth or for some other reason.

But hmo-kind discovered plant fibers at least tens of thousands of years ago. In 2020, archaeologists found no less than three-ply cord in a Neanderthal context in France, taking the crown from 23,000-year-old string found in Ohalo, Israel. What the Neanderthals or humans from Ohalo were doing with string, we do not know. However, the archaeologists note that the ability to create cord is the prerequisite for a host of potential developments, including textile weaving.

Textiles do not preserve well in the archaeological record, to put it mildly. Yet moving on from the Ohalo cord, evidence of early weaving pops up here and there – including an extremely complex woven basket found in a cave in the Judean Desert from 10,500 years ago. Material made of oak bast (the innards of bark), meanwhile, was found in Çatalhöyük, Turkey, from 8,500 years ago.

In short, before cotton, people in the region were using bast and flax fibers. And now Liu, Rosenberg and the team report on cotton in Tel Tsaf – definitely from afar, and seemingly before the plant had even been domesticated. And it was dyed, to boot.

What colors were the fibers tinted, and can they speak to Neolithic tastes? They cannot. Rosenberg stresses that the sample of fibers from Tel Tsaf is small (123 microfibers in total), and 16 being observed to be cotton in shades of blue, three pink, one purple, one green and three brown/black means precisely nothing about their preferences. What it does mean, the professor qualifies, is that these late prehistoric peoples were not just making textiles and fibers – they were doing further manipulation and coloring their cloths.

By the way, the most frequently used fiber in ancient Tel Tsaf was bast, and they also used flax and jute, the archaeologists report.

A story from Pakistan

Let us move onto the cotton’s origin. Why couldn’t the cotton fibers of Tel Tsaf be local? And why do they think it’s Pakistan, not North Africa?

It isn’t likely to have been grown locally because cotton is happiest in tropical and subtropical regions with ample water. It apparently didn’t grow in prehistoric Israel, and the thinking is that like the “invention” of agriculture itself – the cultivation of cotton arose independently around the world, including in the Indus Valley and North Africa. “But cultivation in North Africa was later,” Rosenberg explains.

The earliest archaeological evidence of cotton’s use is in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period at the Mehrgarh burial site in central Balochistan, Pakistan. Cotton threads were used to string copper beads about 8,500 to 7,500 years ago. It bears clarifying that the earliest known cotton fabric is a tiny fragment of actual cloth (albeit stuck to the lid of a silver vase), which was discovered at Mohenjo-daro, also Pakistan, from 5,000 to 4,750 years ago.

So, cotton was known in some context in prehistoric Pakistan at the time of its appearance in Tel Tsaf, Rosenberg says.

What cotton? Wild cotton. The plant apparently wouldn’t be domesticated for at least 2,000 years more, he explains. “Based primarily on evidence from seeds, domestication is thought to have occurred during the time of the Harappan civilization (2600-1900 B.C.E.),” the authors write.

And how might the wild cotton have been used, aside from making threads to string crude copper beads? Weaving textiles is a reasonable assumption, because cotton isn’t the stuff for baskets. As for another clothing source staple, the sheep did join our human story about 10,000 years ago, in parallel with the start of the Neolithic Revolution. However, the archaeological record of perishables is spotty at best and the earliest recognition of the charms of wool as opposed to mutton stew is not clear. Some think wool-shearing and related technology arose in the Chalcolithic; some think that in Mesopotamia it began as much as 9,000 years ago.

The invisible technology

Now let us confuse the issue. Archaeological evidence of microfibers – mainly bast but wool too – have been detected going back tens of thousands of years: for instance, in 30,000-year-old Upper Paleolithic deposits in Georgia, and from 28,000 to 13,500 years ago in northern China. Traces of bast have been found in the weird Natufian “boulder mortars” in Israel’s Rakefet Cave from about 13,000 years ago. Uses of these fibers remain mysterious, ditto the mortars.

The thing is that in contrast to stone tools and even bones, textiles decay really fast under most circumstances. It’s extraordinary for any of this “invisible technology” to survive the eons, Rosenberg says. One of the earliest examples of real-McCoy fabric was found in the so-called warrior’s grave by Jericho, from the late Chalcolithic or Early Bronze Age. He was buried with a bow and a big piece of fabric.

As for the thought that the cotton could have reached Tel Tsaf by trade thousands of years before the horse was domesticated – it isn’t a stretch. An obsidian blade originating in Turkey was found in a Neolithic settlement next to Jerusalem from 9,000 years ago and other examples of ancient stuff being where it shouldn’t abound. Asked if there’s any evidence whatsoever of trade between Tel Tsaf specifically with prehistoric Pakistan, Rosenberg has an intriguing answer: maybe.

“The only thing is beads made of olivine crystals, which we think were from Africa from around 7,000 years ago. Chemical testing shows they’re like olivine in Africa – but olivine also exists in Pakistan,” he says. “Maybe we were wrong and the olivine was from Pakistan.” Tel Tsaf also has obsidian beads hailing from Turkey and there’s also that ancient copper artifact: its origins aren’t clear, but they think it’s probably Anatolian.

“Trade” doesn’t have to mean that merchants were walking from Tel Tsaf to Anatolia or Baluchistan; artifacts may change hands over centuries before being lost or otherwise winding up in ruins that we thrill at finding thousands of years later.

In the late Neolithic and early Chalcolithic, there were massive movements of peoples, and there may have been good reason why Tel Tsaf was so prosperous in that early time – hundreds of years before metals and other accoutrements of advancing civilizations would seriously arrive. It was smack on the route of long-distance exchange networks in the southern Levant. Including, maybe, with the Indus Valley.