Mr. Zvi Konigsberg makes a great case for the very thing. His book "The Lost Temple of Israel" is a fascinating read. Click on The Lost Temples and couple videos will come up.
thelosttemple.com/
thelosttemple.com/
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Could Mt. Ebal have been the site of the first Temple?
- Thread starter ComeLordJesus
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The Samaritans had a counterfeit religion and a counterfeit Torah. The title of this thread in my estimation is another idle question. God chose Jerusalem and Mount Zion and that's the end of the matter.
The Samaritans believe Mt. Gerizim is sacred. As far as I know the only ruins on top of Gerizim are a Byzantine church. Since pottery shards usually give an indication as to people on the land and there was a vast amount of evidence of that on and around around Ebal, I assume that is why it was excavated. Nothing was said about evidence around Gerizim, so I don't know if it was ever considered.
No, both Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim are further north from Jerusalem. Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim are very close to each other. Here is a little basic map for you.
Consideration as to Ebal was on the basis of what Moses told them to do when they entered the Promised Land.
among the first questions we should ask is "how could the Israelites have built a temple to the LORD and the Bible totally skipped over it and only told us about the tabernacle and the threshing floor where Solomon built, and why would the Biblical narrative explicitly imply that there was no temple other than this" ? ?
we know that sites such as Bethel were used for worship, and we know that such places were damned also, both because of the worship of other gods and because the LORD explicitly directed the tabernacle to be built, and explicitly chose Jerusalem, and explicitly commanded that the Israelites were not to bring sacrifices anywhere other than the temple once it was built. this in fact damns the book of mormon within the first few chapters of its text ((the 'righteous Jew' preserving the Law in the story told in the first book of it is going around building altars and making sacrifices everywhere he goes, while the temple stands in Jerusalem, totally contrary to the Law he is supposedly preserving and knows well!!)), and it is highly relevant to this thread.
it is also true that immediately after the ten commandments are given at Sinai the law of the altar is given, regulating how one should be built, if they were to build one: such that an altar at Ebal is more than 'possible' but probable, but this doesn't leave any room at all for a temple to have been built there, esp. as the command is that any altar should be made of earth and specifically unworked stone. at the very least, no temple there could possibly have been approved by God if scripture is to be believed.
putting things like this together, i am immediately predisposed to think that Mssr. Konisberg mentioned in the OP has quite satisfied his appetite with servings of baloney, without ever reading a single word he has written.
we know that sites such as Bethel were used for worship, and we know that such places were damned also, both because of the worship of other gods and because the LORD explicitly directed the tabernacle to be built, and explicitly chose Jerusalem, and explicitly commanded that the Israelites were not to bring sacrifices anywhere other than the temple once it was built. this in fact damns the book of mormon within the first few chapters of its text ((the 'righteous Jew' preserving the Law in the story told in the first book of it is going around building altars and making sacrifices everywhere he goes, while the temple stands in Jerusalem, totally contrary to the Law he is supposedly preserving and knows well!!)), and it is highly relevant to this thread.
it is also true that immediately after the ten commandments are given at Sinai the law of the altar is given, regulating how one should be built, if they were to build one: such that an altar at Ebal is more than 'possible' but probable, but this doesn't leave any room at all for a temple to have been built there, esp. as the command is that any altar should be made of earth and specifically unworked stone. at the very least, no temple there could possibly have been approved by God if scripture is to be believed.
putting things like this together, i am immediately predisposed to think that Mssr. Konisberg mentioned in the OP has quite satisfied his appetite with servings of baloney, without ever reading a single word he has written.
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((now that i've poked around a little))
i think the title of Mssr. Konisberg's book is not well chosen
we're talking about archaeological work at mt Ebal, Deuteronomy 27:1-8, and Joshua 8:30-35. the Bible describes an altar not a temple and in the context of scripture these are very different things. i've only poked around a little, but it seems that whether a temple existed or not at Ebal remains debatable, and whether if it did, it was an Israelite temple, is also debatable, and even if so, whether it was a temple to God or to Ba'al or someone else is debatable as well -- but given the book of Deuteronomy, if all these other things are true, whether such a temple was sanctified by God or not is not at all debatable. altar, yes, with undressed stones covered in plaster, with the Law written on them, yes. temple, no - yet given what we know about the faithfulness of the people . . .
i think the title of Mssr. Konisberg's book is not well chosen
we're talking about archaeological work at mt Ebal, Deuteronomy 27:1-8, and Joshua 8:30-35. the Bible describes an altar not a temple and in the context of scripture these are very different things. i've only poked around a little, but it seems that whether a temple existed or not at Ebal remains debatable, and whether if it did, it was an Israelite temple, is also debatable, and even if so, whether it was a temple to God or to Ba'al or someone else is debatable as well -- but given the book of Deuteronomy, if all these other things are true, whether such a temple was sanctified by God or not is not at all debatable. altar, yes, with undressed stones covered in plaster, with the Law written on them, yes. temple, no - yet given what we know about the faithfulness of the people . . .
There is mention of it in Scripture.
"And when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the Lord God giveth thee, thou shalt set up great stones, and plaster them with plaster. Deut.27:2
v.4 Therefore when ye shall pass over Jordan, ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day in mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster.
v.5 And there shalt thou build unto the Lord thy God an altar, even an altar of stones: thou shalt lift none iron instruments upon them.
The interesting thing is there are two sets of walls and he asks "I started to consider the sets of walls. for what purpose would the ancients build two sets of walls around an altar site? If it were a single wall, perhaps it could be understood as being like a Greek temenos, a wall surrounding a holy structure. But in Ebal there are two sets. Why?" Pg.113
pg.114...I turned my attention to the two sets of walls. The walls at Ebal even the large outer wall were not built to provide military defense. There were no higher than one and one half meters, or five feet. By comparison, the wall that surrounds nearby Shechem is gigantic 25 feet tall, extremely thick and offers only a few well-fortified entrances.
He says that the Temple in Jerusalem has the same set up to keep the Levites and the Holy of Holies separate.