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Contested Temple Mount History?

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Aerial view of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Andrew Shiva’s photo is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Aerial view of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Andrew Shiva’s photo is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

A recent New York Times article by Rick Gladstone, titled “Historical Certainty Proves Elusive at Jerusalem’s Holiest Place,” set out to discuss the history and modern political complexities of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims. The piece, which was originally published on October 8, 2015, has drawn a great deal of criticism. For example, Gladstone suggested that scholars have not been able to “definitively” answer whether the ancient First and Second Temples of Jerusalem ever stood on the Temple Mount. Regarding this article, Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks said, “How could a New York Times reporter be so wrong? He obviously had predilections.”

The New York Times has since issued a correction following a Letter to the Editor from Dr. Jodi Magness, the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The correction reads:

Correction: October 9, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the question that many books and scholarly treatises have never definitively answered concerning the two ancient Jewish temples. The question is where precisely on the 37-acre Temple Mount site the temples had once stood, not whether the temples had ever existed there.

Below, read a reaction to the New York Times article by Temple Mount history expert Leen Ritmeyer as well as Jodi Magness’s NYT Letter to the Editor.*

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The So-Called “Elusive” Location of the Temple in Jerusalem

By Leen Ritmeyer
Originally published on Ritmeyer Archaeological Design on October 9, 2015

Rick Gladstone wrote an article [recently in the] New York Times, called “Historical Certainty Proves Elusive at Jerusalem’s Holiest Place,” in which he asserts that neither the location of the First and Second Temples can be determined:

The question, which many books and scholarly treatises have never definitively answered, is whether the 37-acre site, home to Islam’s sacred Dome of the Rock shrine and Al Aqsa Mosque, was also the precise location of two ancient Jewish temples, one built on the remains of the other, and both long since gone. [Ed. Note: This paragraph has since been revised.]

He apparently hasn’t contacted the right people and/or read the right books. He quotes Matthew J. Adams, Dorot director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, as saying “This is a very politically loaded subject” and “It’s also an academically complex question.”

Gladstone had to admit that Rivka Gonen, in her book “Contested Holiness: Jewish, Muslim and Christian Perspectives on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,” wrote that the reference in the Biblical text [to Mount Moriah, the location of Solomon’s Temple] “has been widely interpreted to mean the high point on the hill above the City of David — the rock now under the Dome of the Rock.”

Some historians have said that independent scientific verification of such a reference is problematic. But then, it depends on who you go to for clarification.

Many archaeologists agree that the religious body of evidence, corroborated by other historical accounts and artifacts that have been recovered from the site or nearby, supports the narrative that the Dome of the Rock was built on or close to the place where the Jewish temples once stood.


Explore the BAS Store for Temple Mount books and DVDs featuring such prominent scholars as Leen Ritmeyer, Yosef Garfinkel, Madeleine Mumcuoglu and Dan Bahat >>


As Yisrael Medad pointed out in his blog, “Gaby Barkay and Tzachi Dvira are missing. Eilat Mazar is missing. Dan Bahat, too.” These are archaeologists that are actively working in Jerusalem and familiar with the archaeological evidence. My own work on the Temple Mount is also ignored because my conclusions about the location of Solomon’s and Herod’s Temples are based on observation only and not on archaeological evidence, although it is directly derived from it.

ritmeyer-herod_temple_dome

This plan shows Herod’s Temple, courts and Altar (beige) in relation to the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of the Chain (blue). The Rock inside the Dome of the Rock was the Foundation Stone of the First and Second Temples on which the Holy of Holies was built. The Dome of the Chain stands on the former Porch that was built in front of the magnificent Temple built by Herod. Photo: Ritmeyer Archaeological Design.

So, ignorance is bliss, as it allows one to play a safe political card, with academics such as Kent Bramlett concluding: “I think one has to be careful about saying it stood where the Dome of the Rock stood.”

It is sad indeed when Biblical scholars and even archaeologists are afraid to speak out on important issues such as the location of the Temple in Jerusalem because of the political tensions in Jerusalem concerning the Temple Mount.

This post was originally published on Leen Ritmeyer’s website Ritmeyer Archaeological Design. It has been republished with permission.

leen-ritmeyerLeen Ritmeyer is an archaeological architect who has been involved in all of Jerusalem’s major excavations. He was chief architect of the Temple Mount Excavations, directed by the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar, and of the Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, directed by the late Prof. Nahman Avigad, both of the Hebrew University. Together with his wife, Kathleen, he runs a firm called Ritmeyer Archaeological Design, which produces teaching and learning tools used throughout the world and offers consultancy on archaeological background and illustration. In 2006, his major work, The Quest: Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, was published after thirty years of intensive research.


The Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Originally published in the New York Times on October 12, 2015
To the Editor:

I am one of the specialists interviewed for “Historical Certainty Proves Elusive at Jerusalem’s Holiest Place” (news article, Oct. 9).
The question of the existence and location of two successive temples on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is not nearly as contested as the article suggests.

Literary sources leave little doubt that there were two successive ancient temples in Jerusalem dedicated to the God of Israel (the first destroyed in 586 B.C., and the second in 70 A.D.). These sources and archaeological remains indicate that both temples stood somewhere on the Temple Mount.

The only real question is the precise location of the temple(s) on the Temple Mount. The site of the Dome of the Rock is the most likely spot for various reasons, despite the lack of archaeological evidence or excavations. I know of no credible scholars who question the existence of the two temples or who deny that they stood somewhere on the Temple Mount.

JODI MAGNESS
Chapel Hill, N.C.
The writer is a professor specializing in early Judaism at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

magnessJodi Magness holds a senior endowed chair in the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism. During the course of her career, Professor Magness has participated in 20 different excavations in Israel and Greece, including codirecting the 1995 excavations in the Roman siege works at Masada. Since 2011, she has directed an excavation project at Huqoq in Galilee, where mosaics depicting Samson in the Bible have been uncovered.


Update, October 14, 2015: An Editors’ Note to this New York Times article has been added. It reads:

Editors’ Note: October 13, 2015

An article on Thursday, with the headline “Historical Certainty Proves Elusive at Jerusalem’s Holiest Place,” examined the scholarly debate about two ancient Jewish temples on the Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians. While the article laid out the history of the Jewish temples and the archaeological and historical evidence about them, the headline and a passage in the initial version of the article implied incorrectly that questions among scholars about the location of the temples potentially affected Jewish claims to the site and Israel’s broader assertion of sovereignty over Jerusalem. In fact, as the article was later corrected to clarify, the scholarly debate is a narrower one, focused on the precise location on the Temple Mount where the long destroyed temples once stood. All versions of the article should have made clear that the archaeological and historical uncertainties about the site — unlike assertions by some Palestinians that the temples never existed — do not directly challenge Jewish claims to the Temple Mount.


Notes:

* Special thanks to Joseph Lauer for compiling these sources.


More on Temple Mount history in Bible History Daily:

Searching for the Temple of King Solomon

Sifting Antiquity on the Temple Mount Sifting Project

What the Temple Mount Floor Looked Like
by Frankie Snyder, Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira
As published in Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2016

The Stones of Herod’s Temple Reveal Temple Mount History

The Temple Mount in the Herodian Period (37 BC–70 A.D.) by Leen Ritmeyer

What Did Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem Look Like?

Tenth-Century B.C. Stone Seal Discovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project

Herod’s Temple Mount Revealed in Al-Aqsa Mosque Restoration

Ancient Chisel Unearthed at the Western Wall

Study Investigates Western Wall Erosion


 


12 Responses

  1. Dennis B. Swaney says:

    Mohammad used both the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible as sources when he created the Koran. Since both had various “prophets” doing mythological actions, he created his own myth about riding a flying horse (like Pegasus from Greek mythology) to Jerusalem. When the original Islamic terrorists assaulted and took over Jerusalem they looked for proof of the myth without success (being dead, Mohammad couldn’t help), they chose the highest point in sight, the remains of Herod’s Temple Mount. They did this either arbitrarily or with the help of a local telling them where Herod’s Temple was located.

    As for Raquel Baranow’s post, there were only two cohorts of Roman auxiliaries based in Jerusalem. One was located in the Herodian palace and the other in the Antonia Fortress attached to the north west corner of the Temple Mount. So the idea the Temple Mount was a Roman Legion base before 70 CE, is incorrect since the Antonia was of sufficient size for a cohort.

  2. David Reynolds says:

    I do have what I hope is a quick question. How old are the stones on top of the mount? Has it been re-paved with stone, or do those worn stones date back that far or further? How can we tell?

  3. Robert Ellison Smith says:

    Is not the Mount Jewish property?

  4. alexander varghis says:

    Daverno is right DOR was built on TM just to plant on top
    Leen Ritmeyer is one of our brothers in the faith

  5. Gary W. Harper says:

    It has to be remembered that in any conquest or occupation, the victors are aware of what they conquered, or occupied.

    It is misguided, to think that peoples from a mere 2,000 years to several hundred years ago, are far more stupid than are today’s representatives of the species. I, personally, think that the converse is true.

    There would have been Jews living, and Romans, and Muslims, who would have definitively stated where the Temple once stood. And this is where the Dome has thus been constructed.

    While historical records are discontinuous, the generations are not thus truncated, nor abrogated. So, there is a local oral tradition, which would, of necessity, have located the Rock.

    After all, they found Troy, from the “legends”, how many years after it was gone? But Jerusalem itself, was continuously occupied, by some peoples, at all times, was it not?

    So, it stands to reason, that any of the post-Temple occupants of Jerusalem would know the location of something as important as the Rock which is considered to be the Foundation of the World…

    To the Jews, the Rock would be a matter of national identity. To the Romans, it would be a matter of pride, possessing it. To the Muslims, it would be both…

  6. davemo says:

    Then the people who built the Dome of the Rock got it wrong, too. Their goal was certainly to plant it right on top of the Temple Mount.

  7. Robert L. Tucker says:

    Racquel, you’re a nudnik.

  8. Peter Aleff says:

    Ritmeyer’s detailed work on the Temple Mount locates the exact corners of the original 500 x 500 cubit square Temple precinct. In addition, he cites a comment by a renowned medieval Rabbi who gives exact dimensions regarding where on that square the Temple Court was located. Rabbinic sources from the first and second centuries CE add the dimensions for the Temple and Altar within that Temple Court, and Ritmeyer showed from photos of the Rock where on that Rock the foundation for the portable Arch of the Covenant had been dug out. This place coincides exactly with the center of the Inner Sanctum as derived from those Rabbinic dimensions, so the chain of reasoning is complete and consistent, and it takes prejudice or bad faith to argue against this reasoning. The location of that foundation pit and its exact size are the archaeological proof that Ritmeyer’s deductions are correct and more reliable than all the mere speculations from lots of other authors who offer no such tangible confirmation.

  9. D says:

    The Second Temple was located at the Temple Mount — that’s a fact, no matter what Cornuke says. The First Temple is more difficult, because much of that period’s Jerusalem cannot be excavated.

    As for the NYTimes’ article, what can we say? The Times has become a disgrace, especially its absurd anti-Israel bias, and the owners’ (the Sulzbergers’) desperate attempt to hide their Jewishness — so similar to a previous generation’s owners, in the 1940s, avoiding the topic of the Holocaust.

    While the Times has its pretensions, it can no longer be considered the “newspaper of record.” It has become a joke and an embarrassment — a scandal, not a newspaper.

  10. joseph salowitz says:

    Raquel is correct. In an excellent book, published in 2014, titled “Temple”, by Robert Cornuke, the author talks with the Israeli archeologist in charge of the excavations at the City of David, and makes a convincing case that ALL of the Jewish Temples were located in the City of David. http://townhall.com/columnists/robertknight/2014/07/31/was-the-temple-mount-not-the-site-of-solomons-temple-n1872583/page/full

  11. Becky Burgin says:

    “He obviously had predilections.” No kidding.

  12. Raquel Baranow says:

    While it has not been widely published, it assuredly has been known for more than 40 years that the 45-acre, well-fortified place that has been mistakenly called the “Temple Mount” was really the Roman fortress—the Antonia—that Herod built. The Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque are contained within these walls.
    Read more: http://www.wrmea.org/2011-august/misunderstandings-about-jerusalem-s-temple-mount.html

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12 Responses

  1. Dennis B. Swaney says:

    Mohammad used both the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible as sources when he created the Koran. Since both had various “prophets” doing mythological actions, he created his own myth about riding a flying horse (like Pegasus from Greek mythology) to Jerusalem. When the original Islamic terrorists assaulted and took over Jerusalem they looked for proof of the myth without success (being dead, Mohammad couldn’t help), they chose the highest point in sight, the remains of Herod’s Temple Mount. They did this either arbitrarily or with the help of a local telling them where Herod’s Temple was located.

    As for Raquel Baranow’s post, there were only two cohorts of Roman auxiliaries based in Jerusalem. One was located in the Herodian palace and the other in the Antonia Fortress attached to the north west corner of the Temple Mount. So the idea the Temple Mount was a Roman Legion base before 70 CE, is incorrect since the Antonia was of sufficient size for a cohort.

  2. David Reynolds says:

    I do have what I hope is a quick question. How old are the stones on top of the mount? Has it been re-paved with stone, or do those worn stones date back that far or further? How can we tell?

  3. Robert Ellison Smith says:

    Is not the Mount Jewish property?

  4. alexander varghis says:

    Daverno is right DOR was built on TM just to plant on top
    Leen Ritmeyer is one of our brothers in the faith

  5. Gary W. Harper says:

    It has to be remembered that in any conquest or occupation, the victors are aware of what they conquered, or occupied.

    It is misguided, to think that peoples from a mere 2,000 years to several hundred years ago, are far more stupid than are today’s representatives of the species. I, personally, think that the converse is true.

    There would have been Jews living, and Romans, and Muslims, who would have definitively stated where the Temple once stood. And this is where the Dome has thus been constructed.

    While historical records are discontinuous, the generations are not thus truncated, nor abrogated. So, there is a local oral tradition, which would, of necessity, have located the Rock.

    After all, they found Troy, from the “legends”, how many years after it was gone? But Jerusalem itself, was continuously occupied, by some peoples, at all times, was it not?

    So, it stands to reason, that any of the post-Temple occupants of Jerusalem would know the location of something as important as the Rock which is considered to be the Foundation of the World…

    To the Jews, the Rock would be a matter of national identity. To the Romans, it would be a matter of pride, possessing it. To the Muslims, it would be both…

  6. davemo says:

    Then the people who built the Dome of the Rock got it wrong, too. Their goal was certainly to plant it right on top of the Temple Mount.

  7. Robert L. Tucker says:

    Racquel, you’re a nudnik.

  8. Peter Aleff says:

    Ritmeyer’s detailed work on the Temple Mount locates the exact corners of the original 500 x 500 cubit square Temple precinct. In addition, he cites a comment by a renowned medieval Rabbi who gives exact dimensions regarding where on that square the Temple Court was located. Rabbinic sources from the first and second centuries CE add the dimensions for the Temple and Altar within that Temple Court, and Ritmeyer showed from photos of the Rock where on that Rock the foundation for the portable Arch of the Covenant had been dug out. This place coincides exactly with the center of the Inner Sanctum as derived from those Rabbinic dimensions, so the chain of reasoning is complete and consistent, and it takes prejudice or bad faith to argue against this reasoning. The location of that foundation pit and its exact size are the archaeological proof that Ritmeyer’s deductions are correct and more reliable than all the mere speculations from lots of other authors who offer no such tangible confirmation.

  9. D says:

    The Second Temple was located at the Temple Mount — that’s a fact, no matter what Cornuke says. The First Temple is more difficult, because much of that period’s Jerusalem cannot be excavated.

    As for the NYTimes’ article, what can we say? The Times has become a disgrace, especially its absurd anti-Israel bias, and the owners’ (the Sulzbergers’) desperate attempt to hide their Jewishness — so similar to a previous generation’s owners, in the 1940s, avoiding the topic of the Holocaust.

    While the Times has its pretensions, it can no longer be considered the “newspaper of record.” It has become a joke and an embarrassment — a scandal, not a newspaper.

  10. joseph salowitz says:

    Raquel is correct. In an excellent book, published in 2014, titled “Temple”, by Robert Cornuke, the author talks with the Israeli archeologist in charge of the excavations at the City of David, and makes a convincing case that ALL of the Jewish Temples were located in the City of David. http://townhall.com/columnists/robertknight/2014/07/31/was-the-temple-mount-not-the-site-of-solomons-temple-n1872583/page/full

  11. Becky Burgin says:

    “He obviously had predilections.” No kidding.

  12. Raquel Baranow says:

    While it has not been widely published, it assuredly has been known for more than 40 years that the 45-acre, well-fortified place that has been mistakenly called the “Temple Mount” was really the Roman fortress—the Antonia—that Herod built. The Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque are contained within these walls.
    Read more: http://www.wrmea.org/2011-august/misunderstandings-about-jerusalem-s-temple-mount.html

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