11-23-08

 

Sanhedrin—the Supreme Court of 71

Rachel Imance

Jerusalem, Israel 93228

Email:  secretariat@thesanhedrin.org

 

Temple Institute

19 Misgav Ladach

Old City, Jerusalem, Israel 97500

Email:  temple@temple.org.il

 

Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement

Gershon Salomon

PO Box 18325

Jerusalem, Israel 91182

Email:  gershon@templemountfaithful.org

 

Biblical Archeological Society

Hershel Shanks

4710   41^st St NW

Washington, DC 20016

Email:  bas@bib-arch.org

 

Gentlemen:

 

In my letter of a week ago, mention was made to the problem of defining the Eastern Gate for the Temple Mount.  There are a couple of other issues which hopefully you will also address in the coming days in the context of determining the site location for the Third Temple.  Perhaps you have already looked at these further issues.  If not, let me mention them to you herein.

 

The Mishna (Mid 2:1) is clear enough that the Temple Mount (clearly the pre-Herodian 2d Temple and likely the 1^st Temple as well) measured 500 cubits square.  Presumably the Mount walls surrounded this 500 cubits square site.  Based on the typography of the Mount, there were natural protecting valleys directly to the east (Kidron) and west (Tyropoeon).  The northeast area had the Bezetha valley/ravine and a manmade fosse cutting the northwest area from the Bezetha to the Tyropoeon.  The south had the Millo and the city of David for protection.  We can rest assured that Solomon built the site to take advantage of the natural features for protection.  While the eastern and western walls were built in a reasonable straight north-south line, the typographical features in the north may not have dictated a precise east-west line. 

 

Ezekiel 40-46 outlines a coming Temple with a 500 cubits square layout with the Temple in the center of the north-south line.  But this Temple is the prophesied millennial Temple and is certainly not to be understood as defining the 1^st, 2d or 3d Temples.  We’ve never seen Ezekiel’s Temple and won’t until the Messianic age.  Therefore, there is no reason to grasp Ezekiel as justification to center the 1^st or 2d Temples in the 500 cubits square.  I submit that neither of the prior Temples was centered on the Mount. 

 

Leen Ritmeyer’s book “Secrets of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount” reveals a step some 500 cubits (depending on how the cubit is calculated) from the Eastern wall.  This work also outlines the probable area in the Eastern wall of where the original 1^st and pre-Herodian 2d Temples extended north.  Ritmeyer shows the difference in the Eastern walls of Herodian stones versus earlier stones.  It’s entirely plausible that the Herodian foundation wall stones were laid to the north of the pre-Herodian north wall. 

 

Ritmeyer also notes that at 500 cubits south of this possible north wall, there is a bend in the Eastern wall.  He believes that this bend shows the end of the original 1^st and early 2d Temples’ Eastern wall and the start of the Hasmonean extension to the south.  While we can’t be completely sure that the evident difference in the stonework defines the north wall and the bend shows the south wall, we can logically assume that those walls were near those points. 

 

Thus, the 500 cubit square Temple Mount in 1^st and pre-Herodian 2d Temples can be approximately known.  But the remaining problem is to determine the exact site of the Temple.  While numerous persons choose to try to center the 1^st Temple and early 2d Temple on the Mount, there is no Scriptural reason to do so.  It is mere speculation based in part on the traditional Jewish belief that the Temple was at the Dome of the Rock.  But traditional beliefs are not necessarily 100% accurate (as in the case of the relevancy of the Western, so-called Wailing, wall in Jewish worship and literature). 

 

My approach here is to simply accept the context and words of I Kings, particularly chapter 7, which detail the building of Shlomo’s palace and government buildings on the Temple Mount square, along with the Temple.  This cite mentions the Lebanon Forest Bldg (an armory), the Hall of Judgment, the Hall of Pillars (perhaps a waiting area for people), Shlomo’s palace, the Egyptian princess’ home, and perhaps other buildings.  Most or all of these buildings were quite large.  With 1000 wives/concubines, there was a need for a big palace or large adjoining building to house the women.  Before 1967, it appears that most Jewish students of this subject generally believed that indeed the Temple Mount enclosure included the Temple as well as the government buildings as cited in I Kings (as Josephus [Ant. Viii], the Soncino Books of the Bible, The Temple by Alfred Edersheim and others all report). 

 

Sholomo was no dummy.  He knew the future of his kingdom depended on the Temple and its religion.  He would have built his palace directly next door (He would have never chosen an area to the far west near the present Jaffa gate/citadel area as some now try to assert).  The location of the armory and judgment house on the Temple Mount is there for obvious reasons as well.  From 984BCE to the times of Zerubbabel, the Maccabees, the Hasmoneans, and the Sanhedrin, and into the 1^st century CE, the governing powers regularly located themselves on the Temple Mount—with the exception of the evil Amalekite Herod (and I don’t understand why Herod did not locate on the Mount; although Herod’s racial/ethnic status, his links to paganism and the people’s general hatred of him may have influenced him to not agitate the people further by locating himself directly on the Temple Mount).  Yes, even the Romans used the nearby Antonia fortress for government. 

 

These pre 1967 writers generally showed/allowed the Temple in the northwest corner area of the Mount and the other buildings in a line south (and off-setting to the east) of the Temple.  Obviously, the Temple was fairly close to the northwest corner of the Mount and not too far distant from the Antonia fortress because persons at the Temple and fortress could see each other and could orally converse back and forth during the Roman siege (as Josephus states).  I don’t see how this reality could have been possible from a site as far away as the present Dome of the Rock. 

 

The text of I Kings 7 describes the buildings as if they are in a line from north to south—starting with the Temple in the northwest corner area.  I Kg 7:6-12 even links the courts of Sholomo’s buildings into the great court of the Temple Mount itself.  There is no way to miss it, unless one wants to be deliberately rebellious in opposition to the Scriptures; the 1^st Temple Mount certainly included a series of buildings which covered much of the 500 cubits square area.  The theory of a centrally located Temple surrounded by a large open outer court area simply won’t hold water.  There is no basis for it.

 

The bottom line here is that those persons involved in research on the question of location may wish to go back to Kings and have a hard look at the several buildings which Sholomo built on the Mount in that possible 500 cubits square area. 

 

There is still one more issue which you also might wish to address if you have not previously considered it.  It seems very likely that Hadrian in c135CE built his temple of Jupiter on the site of the later Dome of the Rock.  Surely, Helena in the 4^th century CE built her monastery over the Jupiter site (c 326CE).  It is believed that this Helena construction stayed there until it was taken down by Omar and the Moslems in c 637CE.  Yet, history suggests at least one to three more attempts to build the Third Temple and/or as a minimum, reinstitute the daily sacrifice. 

 

“The Coming Last Days Temple” by Randall Price suggests that c363CE the Roman Emperor Julian accumulated materials and made preparation to rebuild the Temple.  Very likely, his effort cleared/cleaned the site and may have started the daily sacrifice.  I cannot envision that he would have done anything to Helena’s monastery.  In c443CE, there could have been some cleaning of the site by Empress Eudoxia.  It’s not clear what happened under her.  But we can be sure that she did not mess with the monastery made by Helena.  And last, in c 614CE, during the Persian invasion, the site was cleared/cleaned and the daily sacrifice resumed for three or so years.  Again, the Persians didn’t touch Helena’s monastery.  The monastery stayed in place till Omar destroyed it in c637CE. 

 

At this point, it becomes crystal clear that the true Temple site was cleared/cleaned and used for the daily sacrifice several times after Helena built her monastery.  We can bank on it that the people involved in these efforts at the Temple site would not dare have touched Helena’s monastery (at the site of the later Dome of the Rock).  Obviously, Helena’s monastery did not sit on the true Temple site. 

 

The above two issues are things which have been on my mind in addressing the site for the coming Third Temple.  These are issues which must be addressed at length and resolved.  If proper research has not been made on these issues, perhaps someone in a responsible position should do so at once.

 

Shalom,

 

R. D. Bradshaw

PO Box 473

Calder, ID 83808 USA

Phone 208-245-1691; email:  rd.idaho@gmail.com