Pretty interesting case being made in the documentary below. I have not researched these guys making these claims.
Thesis: The temples were not located at the top of the hill where the current Dome of the Rock sits, but outside the modern Jerusalem walls in the City of David over a spring.
Cliff Notes: -the Dome of the Rock sits where the Roman fort was, not the temples. The courtyards dimensions fit the standard Roman forts dimensions. Housed thousands. -OT passages talk about the temple being by/on top of a spring. -There is only one natural spring in Jerusalem, the Gihon spring in the City of David, not the top of the hill. -Josephus has been ridiculed about being 'wrong' when describing the temple because people think it should be on top of the hill. If you put the temple over the Gihon spring, Josephus's descriptions line up perfectly. -the actual rock at the base of the Dome isn't flat enough to be a threshing floor like David bought for land for the temple. Was thought to be where Jesus stood 'trial.' That's why there's a bunch of crosses carved into the Rock and an early church built there after Roman rule ended.
I have no familiarity with the archeology of the region, but that's not an argument I've ever seen made, even in very skeptical circles. I've only ever heard of denial about the location of the Second Temple from groups like the old PLO leadership. I don't think even current PLO leadership holds to that. This source is kind of odd. Everything else on their YouTube page is kid's music.
I totally did a double take on who uploaded it. I thought for sure this isn't the original producers. Who knows.
I think it's an interesting question that doesn't get asked because of the inertia of the local politics over Jerusalem, and just human nature- of course the temple HAD to be on the top of the hill. God demanding flowing water and being over a spring seems to be way more theologically consistent than just picking the highest point. I think an outsiders perspective could be way less biased here.
They weren't throwing crap against a wall and seeing what stuck, seemed to rely on what is considered reliable sources.
Who knows if these guys are right. This would be the most perfect illustration of human nature if they are. Jews gonna kick off WW3 just to build a temple (that God wouldn't let David build because he shed too much blood) on a spot that never was the temple. All for a God who said he would destroy the temple, leave no stone on top of one another, and create a new dwelling place for God in all of us anyway.
Part of the problem is judging what was true 2000 years and how similar the landscape is to today. I know there is an underground river in Jerusalem that was covered up for centuries, so it's hard to say that since there's no spring on the Temple Mount today that means there was never a fresh water source. But I could be wrong.
You would think they could tell by the location of what remains of the "Wailing Wall"….Unless it's actually a wall to something other than the Temple…
They do address that. There was an excavation under the wall and they found a coin that dates to Tiberius reign. So around Herod's time. Not Solomons time.
So these guys don't believe the wailing wall is a surviving wall.
You would think they could tell by the location of what remains of the "Wailing Wall"….Unless it's actually a wall to something other than the Temple…
They do address that. There was an excavation under the wall and they found a coin that dates to Tiberius reign. So around Herod's time. Not Solomons time.
So these guys don't believe the wailing wall is a surviving wall.
Thanks..I thought that part of the wall was built during Herod's reign during the expansion?? I'm by no means an expert nor have studied much about historical Jerusalem so I'm probably wrong…
Correct. I'll have to watch it again and do some closer examination. They claim the coin came from Tiberius reign, but after Herod would have lived.
So was temple construction still ongoing after his death? We're the Roman's building up their fort as well? Is someone playing fast and loose about the location of this coin?
Seen this before and it makes a lot of sense. After all, there were tons of ritual washings required at the temple, and there are accounts of a multitude of baths and washing areas just outside it. A natural spring would almost be a necessity.
There are also a lot of passages throughout the OT where "worshipping in high places" is associated with worshipping false gods. So there's no reason to automatically assume that God's Temple would have been built at the highest point around. It would be pretty ironic if Jews and Muslims are arguing over a hilltop like pagans while the actual site of the old temple is down the street
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Wilson's Arch alone really handled the water requirements. The Antonia fortress, and all of the jewish material at the top of the hill is dispositive. This is all commonly known. From the link above;
Quote:
Summary of Revisionist Errors 1. Jesus did not predict that every single stone in every single building in first century Jerusalem would be torn down to bedrock by the Romans. This hyper literalizing of Jesus' words is not supported by the context of his statements, the point he was making, or the archaeological evidence (Mt 24:12, Mk 13:12, Lk 21:56, Lk 19:4144). Paradoxically, revisionists (wrongly) claim the existing Temple Mount platform was actually the superstructure of the Antonia Fortress. If this were the case, and the hyper literal interpretation of Jesus is correct, then why is the platform consisting of 30 courses of stone still there? 2. The present-day Temple Mount was not the superstructure of the Roman Antonia Fortress. Its remnants have been found on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount, confirming Josephus' statements about its location and its destruction by Jewish rebels during the Great Revolt. 3. Josephus did not claim that an entire Roman legion could have been housed or must have been housed in the Antonia Fortress. The word Josephus uses to describe the Roman legion is distorted by the revisionists to support this claim. 4. Archaeological evidence unearthed from around the Temple Mount is entirely Jewish in nature. This includes inscriptions and iconic objects near Robinson's Arch, gentile prohibition and the place of trumpeting inscriptions, opus sectile pavers, and Jewish ritual baths (miqvaot). If the Temple Mount was the Roman Antonia Fortress instead, there would be no such archaeological evidence. 5. Revisionists misinterpret future looking prophetic passages in Joel and Ezekiel to claim that there must have been a spring in the Temple complex. Nowhere does the Bible say that there was a spring inside the Temple complex in antiquity. 6. The Temple did not need a spring inside its complex to operate the biblical sacrificial system. Millions of gallons of water were available by way of cisterns, aqueducts, and miqvaot. Water could also be brought by manual labor from the Gihon Spring, and also from the Strouthian Pool, and the Pools of Bethesda and Siloam. Thus, the Temple did not have to be over or next to the Gihon Spring. 7. Upon close examination and analysis, ancient sources which purport that the Temple had a spring within its precinct are problematic and unreliable. The Letter of Aristeasto Philocrates (83120) is the best-known example. As it pertains to the geography of Israel, Aristeas is unreliable. The letter states that the Jordan River flows into the Mediterranean Sea! It clearly was not authored by someone who had visited Jerusalem. Dr. Stripling and Dr. Craig Evans will examine Aristeas and other sources in detail in a forthcoming article in the Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin. 8. Archaeological evidence from the City of David has irrefutably shown that a massive garbage dump was there in the first century, right where the revisionists claim that the Temple stood. This makes it physically impossible for the Temple to have stood in the City of David in the days of Jesus. 9. All relevant biblical texts indicate that the Temple was built on Mount Moriah, not in the City of David. 10. Revisionists wrongly argue that the statement "Solomon repaired the millo" means he built the Temple in the City of David (1 Kgs 9:18, 9:24, 11:27). The biblical texts say no such thing, and they clearly distinguish the Temple from the millo: "And this is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the Lord and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer" (I Kings 9:15). 11. The use of the term "Zion" in the Bible does not necessitate that the Temple was in the City of David. The meaning of Zion changed over time and was used differently depending on the context. "Zion" is used over 150 times in the OT, often as a synonym for Jerusalem. "For out of Zion shall go forth the Law [Torah], and the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:3). The term is not limited to the City of David, and often encompassed what it now the Temple Mount. The phrase "Mount Zion'' is also used many times and is not limited to the City of David. 12. Archaeological discoveries found in and around the Temple Mount indicate that the Temple stood there, not down in the City of David. Archaeological evidence does not migrate uphill. Erosion migrates archaeological material downhill. This is Archaeology 101. 13. Solomon brought the ark of the covenant UP AND OUT of the City of David and into the Temple. Thus, the Temple was not in the City of David. "Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers' houses of the people of Israel, in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion" (II Chronicles 5:2). 14. Araunah's threshing floor was not located in the Jebusite fortress in the City of David (2 Sam 24:1825, 1 Chron 21:1830, 2 Chron 3:1). The threshing floor and the Temple itself were on Mount Moriah: "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (2 Chronicles 3:1). 15. A large city wall from the time of Hezekiah on the eastern slope of the City of David has been discovered just south of the Gihon Spring. This wall stood at the time when the revisionists claim that the Temple and its massive superstructure stood in the same place. This discovery, like the garbage dump from the time of Jesus, makes the revisionist theory physically impossible. 16. Qualified, trained, and credentialed archaeologists disagree with one another on just about everything regarding the archaeology of Israel with one salient exceptionthe location of Solomon's and Herod's Temple on the modern-day Temple Mount in Jerusalem!
It is exciting though that some are seeing this as a spark of interest. A lot of archaeology is happening in our time.
Sometimes despite muslim efforts to hide/destroy the history...
