THE
LOCATION OF THE ORIGINAL TEMPLES AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR
TODAY
What is now being unearthed has huge implications regarding the political climate in the mid east. In Mark 13:2 and Matt 24:2, Jesus says NOT ONE STONE OF THE TEMPLE WILL BE LEFT ONE UPON ANOTHER. No matter what tradition says, we must put aside the presuppositions that the Temple Mount today is where the 1st and 2nd temples were located. Jesus said no stone would remain of the 2nd Temple. Today the Western Wall is considered a part of the 2nd Temple, which contradicts the Bible and what Jesus said about those stones.
Jews say the Western Wall is the remains of the Temple. Note; Today Jews do not believe in Jesus so they will reject Mark 13:2, and Matt 24:2. The Romans destroyed the temple as Jesus described leaving no stone upon another. Who or what is to be trusted, the traditions of man or the words of Jesus? I go with the words of Jesus as being accurate. Jesus said NO STONE will remain one upon another. So that means the so called Western Wall is NOT the wall of the original temple. Today we have too many incorrect traditions in almost all the churches, so the end result is so many are believing in something that is not true.
My thoughts on this is that God intentionally delayed that knowledge until the fullness of man has come in. Now it is time for the truth to be revealed because we are now in the days of Noah, violence is everywhere, and the days of Lot when all manner of sexual impurity is rampant. So now the truth of the location can be revealed, which will have major consequences across the political world, when the first definitive Temple object is recovered from the ongoing archeological digging there, will prove that the Jews can now build a temple which is NOT on the Temple Mount. That opens a huge window to get an agreement between the Palestinians and Israel without conflict. That is the PERFECT DEAL for the antichrist to achieve, and once the Rapture happens, then the antichrist will be revealed. Israel will sign a treaty with its neighbours, but it will be a death covenant that they will sign.
Isaiah 28:14-15 New King James Version (NKJV)
14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,
15 Because you have said, "We have made a covenant with death,
And with Sheol we are in agreement.
When the overflowing scourge passes through,
It will not come to us,
For we have made lies our refuge,
And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves."
THE TEMPLE
1600 years ago the people then considered the City of David to be the place of the original temples, located a few hundred feet south from the present Temple Mount, called Mt Zion.
957 B.C. 1st temple built 586 B.C. destroyed
515 B.C. 2nd temple rebuilt on top of the 1st temple
20 B.C. Herod expanded the temple
70 A.D. Roman army under Titus destroyed the temple as Jesus described leaving no stone upon another
The Romans entered the city in 63 B.C. taking the highest point, calling it Fort Antonia, which is where the modern Temple Mount is located. The army consisted of 6000 soldiers and 4000 support workers. The only place where they could be garrisoned was on the Temple Mount, because it was the highest place in Jerusalem, military wise, and had the space to house them.
70 A.D. destruction of the temple
"Jerusalem in now demolished and hath nothing left but that monument of it preserved, I mean the camp of those (Romans) that hath destroyed it, which still dwells upon its ruins."
What is now being unearthed has huge implications regarding the political climate in the mid east. In Mark 13:2 and Matt 24:2, Jesus says NOT ONE STONE OF THE TEMPLE WILL BE LEFT ONE UPON ANOTHER. No matter what tradition says, we must put aside the presuppositions that the Temple Mount today is where the 1st and 2nd temples were located. Jesus said no stone would remain of the 2nd Temple. Today the Western Wall is considered a part of the 2nd Temple, which contradicts the Bible and what Jesus said about those stones.
Jews say the Western Wall is the remains of the Temple. Note; Today Jews do not believe in Jesus so they will reject Mark 13:2, and Matt 24:2. The Romans destroyed the temple as Jesus described leaving no stone upon another. Who or what is to be trusted, the traditions of man or the words of Jesus? I go with the words of Jesus as being accurate. Jesus said NO STONE will remain one upon another. So that means the so called Western Wall is NOT the wall of the original temple. Today we have too many incorrect traditions in almost all the churches, so the end result is so many are believing in something that is not true.
My thoughts on this is that God intentionally delayed that knowledge until the fullness of man has come in. Now it is time for the truth to be revealed because we are now in the days of Noah, violence is everywhere, and the days of Lot when all manner of sexual impurity is rampant. So now the truth of the location can be revealed, which will have major consequences across the political world, when the first definitive Temple object is recovered from the ongoing archeological digging there, will prove that the Jews can now build a temple which is NOT on the Temple Mount. That opens a huge window to get an agreement between the Palestinians and Israel without conflict. That is the PERFECT DEAL for the antichrist to achieve, and once the Rapture happens, then the antichrist will be revealed. Israel will sign a treaty with its neighbours, but it will be a death covenant that they will sign.
Isaiah 28:14-15 New King James Version (NKJV)
14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,
15 Because you have said, "We have made a covenant with death,
And with Sheol we are in agreement.
When the overflowing scourge passes through,
It will not come to us,
For we have made lies our refuge,
And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves."
THE TEMPLE
1600 years ago the people then considered the City of David to be the place of the original temples, located a few hundred feet south from the present Temple Mount, called Mt Zion.
957 B.C. 1st temple built 586 B.C. destroyed
515 B.C. 2nd temple rebuilt on top of the 1st temple
20 B.C. Herod expanded the temple
70 A.D. Roman army under Titus destroyed the temple as Jesus described leaving no stone upon another
The Romans entered the city in 63 B.C. taking the highest point, calling it Fort Antonia, which is where the modern Temple Mount is located. The army consisted of 6000 soldiers and 4000 support workers. The only place where they could be garrisoned was on the Temple Mount, because it was the highest place in Jerusalem, military wise, and had the space to house them.
70 A.D. destruction of the temple
"Jerusalem in now demolished and hath nothing left but that monument of it preserved, I mean the camp of those (Romans) that hath destroyed it, which still dwells upon its ruins."
Eleazer Ben
Jair (Commander at Masada)
"It was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited." Josephus (1st century historian)
"The hill called Zion and Jerusalem, the building there, that is to say, the temple, (has) been utterly removed or shaken." Eusebius (3rd century historian, curator of Library at Caesarea)
Micah 3:12 Zion ploughed.
Micah 3:12
Therefore because of you
Zion shall be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins,
And the mountain of the temple
Like the bare hills of the forest.
1099 A.D. the crusades came to the Temple Mount
1100 years after 70 A.D. Benjamin of Tudela, Spain, came to Palestine, and declared that the Temple Mount was the location of the original temples. That became the default statement to where the original temples were, for the next 848 years to 2018 A.D.
EVIDENCE
The city of David is on 12 acres of land south of the temple mount starting 600 feet south of the Temple Mount.
"Now as to the Tower of Antonia, it was situated at the corner of two cloisters (colonnades) of the court of the temple, of that on the west, and that in the north." Josephus
"Now as to the Tower of Antonia, it might seem to be composed of several cities. For if we go up to this Tower of Antonia we gain the city since we shall then be upon the top of the hill." Josephus
Zion; "The hill called Zion and Jerusalem, the building there, that is to say, the temple."
"It was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited." Josephus (1st century historian)
"The hill called Zion and Jerusalem, the building there, that is to say, the temple, (has) been utterly removed or shaken." Eusebius (3rd century historian, curator of Library at Caesarea)
Micah 3:12 Zion ploughed.
Micah 3:12
Therefore because of you
Zion shall be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins,
And the mountain of the temple
Like the bare hills of the forest.
1099 A.D. the crusades came to the Temple Mount
1100 years after 70 A.D. Benjamin of Tudela, Spain, came to Palestine, and declared that the Temple Mount was the location of the original temples. That became the default statement to where the original temples were, for the next 848 years to 2018 A.D.
EVIDENCE
The city of David is on 12 acres of land south of the temple mount starting 600 feet south of the Temple Mount.
"Now as to the Tower of Antonia, it was situated at the corner of two cloisters (colonnades) of the court of the temple, of that on the west, and that in the north." Josephus
"Now as to the Tower of Antonia, it might seem to be composed of several cities. For if we go up to this Tower of Antonia we gain the city since we shall then be upon the top of the hill." Josephus
Zion; "The hill called Zion and Jerusalem, the building there, that is to say, the temple."
Eusebius
(3rd century historian, curator of Library at Caesarea)
The Gihon spring and Hezekiah's tunnel was rediscovered in the 1800s. That is the only fresh water spring in Jerusalem, then and now. The priests always had to wash in clean water before doing anything in the temple. That means the spring water had to go through the tunnel to and from the temple for washing and flushing out the blood of the sacrifices.
King David bought the site for the first temple from the Jebusites, where the Gihon Spring is. It is located south of the present Temple Mount. "The Gihon spring contained an inexhaustible spring." Tacitus
Coronation of Solomon
Gihon spring; 1 Kings 1:33, 38, 45 1 Kings 8:62
33 The king also said to them, "Take with you the servants of your lord, and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and take him down to Gihon.
1 Kings 1:38 New King James Version (NKJV)
38 So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites went down and had Solomon ride on King David's mule, and took him to Gihon.
Solomon Builds the Temple
2 Chr 3:1
Solomon Builds the Temple
3 Now Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
2 Samuel 5:7 New King James Version (NKJV)
7 Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion (that is, the City of David).
2 Chronicles 3:1
Solomon built the temple. Built on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Josephus
Now Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
Solomon Dedicates the Temple
1 Kings 8:62-63 New King James Version (NKJV)
62 Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord. 63 And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered to the Lord, twenty-two thousand bulls and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord.
Imagine; 22 000 bulls, 120 000 sheep. THAT is a lot of blood that had to be washed out of the temple. That required a good sized spring flowing through the temple.
In the excavations many bones of sacrificed animals were found. Also there are blood channels to conduct the blood away after the thousands of animals were sacrificed.
There is no spring existing today on the the present day Temple Mount that has the Western Wailing Wall.
Luke 8:17
17 For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.
In conclusion, the original two temples were south of the present Roman Fort of Antonia. So when definite confirmation is found at the site of the excavation in the area called the City of David, that the original temples were there, then the door is open for the formation of the seven year covenant. This is written in Is 28:14-15, calling it a covenant with death. That starts the tribulation and also the rapture of the Church.
Maranatha!!!
God bless,
James