The Pre-70 <scp>ce</scp> Dating of the Gospel of John: ‘There <i>is</i> (ἔστιν) in Jerusalem … a pool … which has five porticoes’ (5.2)

Abstract This article argues that the statement in John 5.2, ‘There is (ἔστιν) in Jerusalem […] a pool […] which has five porticoes’, offers internal evidence for dating the Gospel prior to 70 ce , when Jerusalem was destroyed. Scholars usually discard the use of the present tense ‘is’ as a mere instance of the historic present, but this view is untenable, as I show by discussing the most recent grammatical studies concerning the historic present. Moreover, I argue that the formula ‘There is in …’ (ἔστιν δὲ ἐν) followed by a location (in the dative), with an architectural structure as the subject, is a formula that has been used since Herodotus’ time in geographic and topographic descriptions that assume the existence of this structure at the time of writing. I subsequently demonstrate that the colonnaded pool complex of Bethzatha had likely been destroyed and/or dismantled during the First Jewish Revolt, when the Bezetha area, where the pool was located, was twice destroyed and was also stripped bare of timber to construct the Roman earthworks that were thrown up against the walls of Jerusalem to help the Romans take the city. Archaeological reports on this neighbourhood confirm its desolation after 70 ce , and Eusebius’ description of the pool confirms the disappearance of its porticoes. Finally, I draw attention to the unanimous depiction of Jerusalem in Flavian and post-Flavian literature as a city entirely destroyed, burned down and reduced to ashes. This means that if the Gospel’s author describes the colonnaded Pool of Bethzatha as still standing, then the Gospel must have been written (and edited) prior to 70 ce .