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Todd Bolen/bibleplaces.com

HEALING WATERS. The remains of a Byzantine basilica dominate the site of the Pool of Bethesda—its foundations rising above the ruins of the earlier pools below. North of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount at the current location of St. Anne’s Church along the Via Dolorosa, the Pool of Bethesda played a role in Jewish, pagan and Christian religions. In the Second Temple period, a northern and southern pool, each approximately 45 feet deep, collected rain water. The southern pool likely served as a public mikveh, a Jewish bath for ritual purification. In the early Roman period, an Asclepion—a sanctuary to Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine and healing—was built to the east of these pools.