2,000 year old tunnel discovered in Jerusalem

Technology is taking the world into the future at warp speed and yet the past will not be left behind.

Recently, the Associated Press reported that archaeologists, under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority, discovered a tunnel while looking for ancient Jerusalem's main road.

In the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Nadav Shragai quoted archaeologists Roni Reich and Eli Shukrun as confirming that this was the tunnel that Flavius Josephus, eyewitness to the city's siege, occupation, and destruction, had recorded as a place of refuge for the Jewish people.

After three years of fierce and courageous resistance, the city of Jerusalem fell to the Roman armies, who in turn leveled the city to its foundations. This included tearing down the center of Jewish life, the Temple.

In the Bible, Jesus had prophesied that this destruction would take place approximately 40 years prior to its occurrence.

The year was 70 A.D. and the Romans enslaved or slaughtered many of the Jewish inhabitants. Some escaped into a water drainage tunnel under the city's main road where they hid before fleeing through the city's southern gate.

Pottery shards and coins, dating from the Second Temple period, which coincided with the period of the city's destruction, were found in the tunnel.

The 70 meter section that was unearthed is located between the Temple Mount and the Pool of Siloam. It is believed that the tunnel connects to another major tunnel in the Western wall area and reaches down to the Kidron River.

The tunnel passes through the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the western part of the City of David.

Important simply on its existence, the tunnel attests to the intelligence, ingenuity, and long-standing presence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel and in Jerusalem in particular.