[10] Franz Delitzsch suggested that the name comes from a mishnaic Hebrew loanword from Greek, estiv/estava, that appropriately referred to stoa (στοά).

[17] In archaeological digs conducted in the 19th century, Conrad Schick discovered a large tank situated about 100 feet (30 m) north-west of St. Anne's Church, which he contended was the Pool of Bethesda.

[17][18] The Johannine text (chapter 5) describes the porticoes as being a place in which large numbers of infirm people were waiting, which could correspond with the site's possible use in the 1st century AD as an Asclepeion.

The biblical narrative continues by describing a Shabbat visit to the site by Jesus, during which he heals a man who has been bedridden for 38 years and could not make his own way into the pool.

Around 200 BC, during the period in which Simon II was the Jewish High Priest, the channel was enclosed, and a second pool was added on the south side of the dam.

When Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, he placed a roadway along the dam, and expanded the site into a large temple to Asclepius and Serapis.

In 1856, the area including the Church of St. Anne and the pool site was presented by the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I to Napoleon III of France.

The French renovated and rededicated the church (under the administration of the White Fathers), at the southeast corner of the pools, leaving the other ruins untouched.

There is a tale[citation needed] that the site was originally offered to Queen Victoria as part of the negotiations which led ultimately to the Cyprus Convention of 1878.