the Temple Mount today was actually a Roman building located
at the edge, but outside, of ancient Jerusalem.
“the worshipers of the Wailing Wall are directing their present devotions
and venerations to a Roman edifice that their ancestors in Herod’s time
held in utter contempt.”
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the accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem from several eyewitnesses.
Josephus, a historian-priest who recorded the destruction of the temple
and the city in great detail.
Titus, the Roman general who oversaw the final ruin of Jerusalem, as well
as Eleazar, a historianand leader of the last remnant of the Jewish resistance
at Masada. These eyewitnesses give a different picture of where the temple
was located compared to what people believe today.
Josephus records that Caesar gave orders to the Romans to “demolish the
entire city and temple.” He and Titus wrote that Jerusalem was completely
flattened. Josephus wrote: “t was so thoroughly laid even with the ground
by those that dug it upto the foundation, that there was left nothing to make
those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited. …
“For the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste. Nor if anyone that had
known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known
it again. But though he [a foreigner] were at the city itself, yet would he have
inquired for [its whereabouts].”
If the temple, along with all of Jerusalem, was completely destroyed, then
the massive walls of the so-called Temple Mount should not be standing.
If Josephus had been so wrong in these statements, as modern scholars
believe, he would have been thoroughly discredited anciently.
“And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came
to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.And Jesus said unto them,
See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:1-2).
Christ was talking about the temple and every single one of the temple
buildings. Christ was not discussing the end time in the first two verses.
the Greek word Jesus used to describe the temple and buildings was heiron.
That means the entire temple, including its exterior buildings and walls.”
Christ prophesied that the entire temple, including its exterior buildings
and walls, would be destroyed in the first century!
Vincent’s New Testament Word Studies says this about heiron:
“The word temple, heiron (literally, ‘sacred place’), signifies the whole compass
of the sacred enclosure, with its porticoes, courts and other subordinate buildings,
and should be carefully distinguished from the other word, naos, also rendered
‘temple,’ which means the temple itself—the ‘holy place’ and the ‘holy of holies.’”
Here is Mark’s account of this conversation: “And as he went out of the temple
[heiron], one of his disciples saith untohim, Master, see what manner of stones
and what buildings are here!” (Mark 13:1). [ pluralize building]
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“And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there
shall not be left onestone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (verse 2).
Mark 13:1-2 are talking about the a.d. 70 destruction. Christ looked directly at
the temple and the temple buildings when He gave this prophecy and said they
would be left without a single stone upon another. None of those buildings are
standing today!
As Christ wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), He prophesied that the city would
be completely destroyed.“For the days shall come upon thee [Jerusalem], that
thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep
thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children
within thee; and they shallnot leave in thee one stone upon another …” (v43-44).
in the prophecies of Jesus, not only the stones that made up the temple and its
OUTER walls were to be torn down, but He also included within that destruction
the stones that comprised the totality of the city of Jerusalem.
Since the temple and all its walls were destroyed, what then is the edifice we
call the Temple Mount today? Why are those massive walls still standing?
Eleazar, the Jewish resistance leader, wrote, “Where is this city that was
believed to have God Himself inhabiting therein? It is now demolished to
the very foundations, and hath nothing left but that monument of it preserved,
I mean the camp of those [Romans] that hath destroyed it, which [camp] still
dwells upon its ruins ….”
Eleazar said the only thing unscathed from the war and still standing was
a facility located just beyond the border of ancient Jerusalem.
“That facility known as the Haram [or what is called the Temple Mount] was
officiallyreckoned as being beyond and outside the limits of Jewish Jerusalem.
That’s where the Dome of the Rock is today. It was not reckoned as being
part of the municipality of Jerusalem.”
Josephus said the Romans set fire to the whole city, demolishing even the walls.
Much of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem came after the war had ceased.
In regard to the total destruction of the temple and all its outer buildings,
a Hebrew version of Josephus (known as Josippon) states that when the inner
temple was set to the flames by the Romans, the Jewsknew their end was near.
So, to prevent the Romans from desecrating the temple by erecting another
‘abomination of desolation’like that of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jews systematically
tore down all the inner temple and all its outer buildingsand appurtenances in order
to leave nothing of the former temple for anyone to pollute.”
Here is what the history of Josippon states: “So the flames destroyed the holy
of holies. And when the [Jewish] leaders of the rebels and their followers who
were still in the city [of Jerusalem] saw that the holy of holies had been burned,
they burned the rest of the temple together with every mansion in Jerusalem,
so that the Romans should not rule over them. And they also burned down the
rest of the temple buildings,saying: ‘Now that the holy of holies has been
burned, why go on living? Why leave house or building?’”
“I heard this angel saying to the angels who held the torches, ‘Now destroy
the walls [of the temple and Jerusalem] and overthrow them to their foundations
so that the enemies [the Romans] do not boast and say, “We have overthrown
the wall of Zion and we have burnt down the place of the mighty God.”’”
the Jews themselves helped destroy the temple so that it not be polluted
is reflected in an early Jewish work called Second Baruch.
“f those rectangular walls of the Haram are those which surrounded the
Temple Mount, as we are informed by all authorities today, why did Josephus
and Titus leave out any mention about this magnificent Haram structure?
That is, where the Dome of the Rock is, and the Wailing Wall.
“The temple was especially vulnerable because the soldiers knew that was the
central treasury of the nation. Such great quantities of gold were discovered in
the ruins of Jerusalem in the sweep for riches that Josephus said the price of
that metal in the eastern empire plummeted to half its former value. …
Indeed, after an absence of about four months, Titus returned to Jerusalem
from Antioch and once again viewed the ruined city. Jerusalem was now turned
upside down without a stone left in place (just as Jesus said). Josephus states
what Titus saw. … ‘Yet there was no small quantity of the riches that had been
in that city still found among the ruins, a great deal of which the Romans dug up .’”
Even though people believe almost unanimously today that the Wailing Wall
is part of that former temple, before the 16th century “there was not a Jew in
the world who paid the slightest respect to that western Wailing Wall,”
