Hezekiah’s Tunnel

Do the new dates hold water?

For more than a hundred years, an extraordinary water tunnel in Jerusalem has been attributed to King Hezekiah, who dug it to protect the city’s water supply during the Assyrian siege of 701 B.C.E. Hence its name, Hezekiah’s Tunnel. However, recent scholarly publications now argue that the tunnel was not built by Hezekiah but by his predecessor or his successors. In the web-exclusive discussion Regarding Recent Suggestions Redating the Siloam Tunnel, leading archaeologists Aren Maeir and Jeffrey Chadwick propose that Hezekiah had ample time to construct the tunnel during the revolt against Assyria.
Read Aren Maeir and Jeffrey Chadwick’s Regarding Recent Suggestions Redating the Siloam Tunnel in Bible History Daily.
Read Hezekiah’s Tunnel Reexamined in Bible History Daily for more on the arguments for and against redating the tunnel.
Read Ayreh Shimron’s responses to readers’ letters about the construction of the water system in the Bible History Daily scholar’s response Hezekiah’s Tunnel Revisited.