Thus asks a ynetnews article today last Saturday (hat tip to Jim Davila, and thanks to Gerald Pragier for the date correction).

Here is another example of the kind of insta-sensationalism that plagues archaeological work in the Levant these days. Note precisely what the article by Ofer Petersburg says:

There’s a buzz of excitement among archeologists. In recent days, archeological digs in Jerusalem revealed a tunnel that, according to a number of estimates, leads to a pool used by King David.

The very first paragraph reveals that the answer to the title question is a resounding “No.” No pool or “spa” has actually been uncovered. What has been uncovered is a tunnel that might connect to a pool. But then again, it might not. As the article later correctly states, “In order to ascertain whether it is really King David’s spa, it will be necessary to dig for several months to the other end of the 30 meter long
tunnel.”

Of course, getting to the other end of the tunnel and finding a pool there, if there is a pool there, will not demonstrate that the pool is “King David’s spa.” It is worth pointing out that the article is quite vague about whence the connection with King David comes. According to the first paragraph, “a number of estimates” connect the tunnel with “a pool used by King David.” It’s worth asking what that number is, and who’s doing the estimating. Five Israelite archaeologists? Ten Israeli journalists? One Israeli archaeologists, five wire service reporters, and the guy who sells falafel down the street in east Jerusalem? Elsewhere the article claims that “Archeologists posit that it leads to a pool, originally located next to a garden full of fruit trees, where King David and other kings of the dynasty used to bathe,” but the article does not name any of these “archaeologists.” Who is positing this claim? (By the way, in case you don’t know what “posit” means, it means to state as a fact something that hasn’t been proven, because you assume that it will be proven.)

The only actual archaeologist cited by name in the article is Ronny Reich, who cautiously demurs from the claims made in the rest of the article!

Professor Ronny Reich of Haifa University, the leading archeologist at the David City dig, does not believe that the tunnel leads to King David’s baths and said that only when the dig uncovers dateable artifacts will they be able to posit what lies at the other end.

It’s as if the reporter completely ignored Reich while writing the rest of the article, then tucked him away in the last paragraph. Already when you have a prominent archaeologist cited by name who disagrees with anonymous “archaeologists” and a vague “number of estimates,” you should probably go with the expert. But let’s tease this out just a little bit more to make sure it’s explicit why “King David’s spa” is nowhere in sight, at least not yet. In order for anyone to claim with credibility that “King David’s spa” has been found, the following pieces must all fit together:

  1. The tunnel—the only thing that’s actually been uncovered in this investigation—must be shown to connect to a larger structure at the end.
  2. That larger structure must be shown to be a pool.
  3. The pool must be shown to have been used as a bath. (This may be impossible to prove incontrovertibly, so we’ll be dealing with probabilities at this stage.)
  4. The pool must be shown to have been in use in the first half of the 10th century BCE. (This will depend on datable artifacts, as Reich told the reporter.)
  5. The pool must be shown to have been used by King David. (Of course, this will embroil us in the debate over whether King David actually existed; long-time Higgaion readers will recall that I think the Tel Dan stela settles this debate in the affirmative.)

So what we have here is a tunnel that might lead to a pool that might have been used as a royal bath and might be as old as the 10th century BCE. Everything after “a tunnel” in the preceding sentence is speculation. The reporter has taken a bunch of speculation and gotten attention for it by putting King David’s name in the headline.