The Pool of Bethsaida

I'm sending this from inside the city walls as I wait for others to finish their lunch of falafel or shwarma. This shot is from the pool of Bethesda where in John 5 that Jesus healed the crippled man who was not able to get into the water.

This shot to the right is the pool proper. You can see how deep archaeologists have had to excavate to get to the first century level. It's way down there.

Makes you just a little skeptical about all the hype about the Via Dolorosa being THE trek Jesus actually took with his cross. But the line between faith and fact gets regularly blurred in Jerusalem, even as Christians have drawn it. "If the faithful want to believe that something happened on this spot," the thinking goes, "why should we discourage them with doubts about the certainty of the location?" Instead, we'll put up a church where 'x' marks the spot. And eventually, we'll even convince ourselves!

But these. These are ruins. Relics. And they speak so much louder than steeples and incense. Give me these any day.