Temple in Jerusalem
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The Temple in Jerusalem or the Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash בית המקדש in Hebrew) was built in ancient Jerusalem and was the center of Israelite and Jewish worship, primarily for the offering of sacrifices known as the korbanot. It was located on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. It was the center of ancient Judaism and has remained as a focal point for Jewish services over the millenia.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the First Temple was built by Solomon. It replaced the Tabernacle of Moses. Solomon's Temple was destroyed centuries later by the Babylonians. The Second Temple was rebuilt decades later at the same location. It too was eventually destroyed, this time by the Romans.
The dual destruction of the two temples, five hundred years apart, marks two central eras in Jewish history: the first marks the beginning of the Babylonian Exile; the second marks the beginning of the Jewish diaspora.
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Etymology
The word Temple is derived not from the Hebrew but from the Latin word for place of worship, templum. The name given in Scripture for the building was Beit Adonai or "House of God" (although this name was also often used for other temples, or metaphorically). Because of the prohibition against pronouncing the holy name, the common Hebrew name for the Temple is Beit HaMikdash or "The Holy House", and only the Temple in Jerusalem is referred to by this name.
First and Second Temples
Two distinct temples stood in succession on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem:
- Solomon's Temple, from approximately the 10th century BCE, replacing the Tabernacle, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.
- The Second Temple was built after the return from the Babylonian Captivity, around 536 BCE (completed on March 12, 515 BCE).
- Herod's Temple was a massive expansion of the Second Temple including renovation of the entire Temple Mount. (It is not called the "Third Temple".) Herod the Great began his expansion project around 19 BCE. It was destroyed by Roman troops under Titus in 70 CE. Some historians suppose however that the Jews could have lit the Second Temple themselves to avoid its desecration.
Jewish views
For the last 1900 years, Jews have prayed that God would allow for the rebuilding of the Temple. This prayer is a formal part of the thrice daily Jewish prayer services.
However, not all rabbis agree on what would happen in a rebuilt Temple. It has traditionally been assumed that some sort of animal sacrifices would be reinstituted, in accord with the rules in Leviticus and the Talmud. However there is another opinion, beginning with Maimonides, that God deliberately has moved Jews away from sacrifices towards prayer, as prayer is a higher form of worship. Thus, some rabbis hold that sacrifices would not take place in a rebuilt Temple. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first chief rabbi of the Jewish community in pre-state Israel, holds that animal sacrifices will not be reinstituted. However, this is a view not shared by most Haredi rabbis.
(Rav Kook's views on the Temple service (http://www.geocities.com/m_yericho/ravkook/VAYIKRA58.htm) are sometimes misconstrued. A superficial reading of a passage in "Olat Ri'iah" indicates that only grain offerings will be offered in the reinstated Temple service. To properly understand Rav Kook's position on the matter, it is necessary to read a related essay from "Otzarot Hari'iah")
A few, very small, Jewish groups support constructing a Third Temple today, but most Jews oppose this, for a variety of reasons. Most religious Jews feel that the Temple should only be rebuilt in the messianic era, and that it would be presumptuous of people to force God's hand, as it were. Furthermore, there are many ritual impurity constrictions that are difficult to resolve, making the building's construction a practical impossibility.
Additionally, many Jews are against rebuilding the Temple due to the enormously hostile reaction from Muslims that would likely result— even were the building to be complementary to those holy to Islam currently present on the Temple Mount site, there would be high suspicion that such a building project would ultimately end with the destruction of these and the rebuilding of the Temple on its original spot.
Rebuilding the Temple in Jewish prayerbooks
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism believes and expects that the Temple will be rebuilt and that the sacrificial services, known as the korbanot will once again be practiced with the rebuilding of a Third Temple. The article on korbanot outlines many of the references. See the section about prayers calling for the restoration of the Temple.
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism has modified the prayers; their prayerbooks call for the restoration of Temple, but do not ask for resumption of animal sacrifices. Most of the passages relating to sacrifices are replaced with the Talmudic teaching that deeds of loving-kindness now atone for sin. In the central prayer, the Amidah, the Hebrew phrase na'ase ve'nakriv (we will present and sacrifice) is modified to read to asu ve'hikrivu (they presented and sacrificed), implying that animal sacrifices are a thing of the past. The petition to accept the "fire offerings of Israel" is removed.
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism calls neither for the resumption of sacrifices nor the rebuilding of the Temple, although some new Reform prayerbooks are moving towards calling for the latter as an option.
Julian's Roman "Third Temple"
There was an aborted project by the Roman emperor Julian (331-363) to allow the Jews to build a "Third Temple". There is reason to believe that Julian wanted the rebuilt "Third Temple" to be for the purpose of his own apotheosis, rather than the worship of the Jewish God. Rabbi Hilkiyah, one of the leading rabbis of the time, spurned Julian's money, arguing that gentiles should play no part in the rebuilding of the temple. [1] (http://www.gibsoncondo.com/~david/convert/history.html).
Christian views
Dispensationalist view
Many fundamentalist and evangelical Christian groups, especially those who follow a dispensationalist theology, believe that the Jewish people will build the Third Temple shortly before, or perhaps after, "true" Christians have been raptured, and just before the introduction of a popularly accepted messiah-figure. However, according to this view, this messiah-figure would not be a true messiah but rather what Christians call the Antichrist.
Evangelical view
However, in contrast to this dominant view, many evangelicals believe that in addition to this Third Temple, the Millennial Temple prophesied by Ezekiel will also be built. According to that view, while the so-called Antichrist will put an end to the sacrificial system during the Tribulation (Dan. 9:27, 11:31, 12:11), the arrival of the true Messiah will inaugurate the building of Ezekiel's Temple (see Ezekiel 40-44). This view holds that the Prince of Israel (the human descendant of David who will rule in the Kingdom) will provide the regular sacrifices (Ezek. 45:17), including sin offerings for himself and the people (Ezek. 45:22). In this view the Prince of Israel is parallel in many ways to the hoped-for messiah of traditional Judaism. Also, this view (like Orthodox Judaism) looks for and encourages both the rebuilding of the Third Temple and the resumption of animal sacrifices.
Restorationist view
This same Millenniel Temple prophesied by Ezekiel was more precisely prophesied to be built in the United States by Joseph Smith in 1828. This belief is held by more than 12 million members of the various restoration churches, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The land where the temple was prophesied to be built is in Independence, Missouri, where it is cared for by the Church of Christ (Temple Lot). One attempt to build this temple in the late 1920s did not come to completion, as the Great Depression began then. This temple is known also as the temple of New Jerusalem, or Zion. No animal sacrifices are planned for this new temple, which is to be simply the House of the Lord, where Jesus Christ will live after his return.
Protestant view
The dominant view within Protestant Christianity, however, rejects these views of the value of any future temples. It holds that since Jesus died as the "final sacrifice" for sin, all such prophecies about a future temple and restored sacrificial system have been annulled and transformed into an illustration of spiritual realities. So in terms of a rebuilt temple and restored sacrificial system, their view has much in common with Conservative and Reform Judaism, though for very different reasons.
The evangelicals who do believe in Ezekiel's Temple respond that God's prophecies cannot be negated or annulled (for that would turn them into a lie); that the sacrificial system does not compete with Jesus' atonement for sin, but is a ceremonial object lesson for confession and forgiveness (somewhat like water baptism and Communion are today); and that such animal sacrifices would still be appropriate for ritual cleansing and for acts of celebration and thanksgiving toward God.
Rebuilding the Temple today
The traditional view has held that the Temple site is located where the Muslim Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque (which is the third holiest site in Islam) are located.
Any attempt to tear down and replace these Muslim shrines with a Jewish temple is probably impossible in today's political and religious climate. The very idea of doing so at any point in the future constitutes a seemingly unresolvable problem. Nonetheless, the idea of rebuilding the Temple somewhere else is unacceptable for the vast majority of Jews. On the other hand, if the views expressed by Ory Mazar become accepted, then such a rebuilding would become possible since the Muslim structures would not be interfered with.
Modern controversy over location of Temple site
In 1999 Dr. Ernest L. Martin published a controversial book (http://www.askelm.com/temple/) called The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot based upon the idea of Ory Mazar, son of Professor Benjamin Mazar of Hebrew University. In 1995 Dr. Martin wrote a draft report to support this theory. He wrote: "I was then under the impression that Simon the Hasmonean (along with Herod a century later) moved the Temple from the Ophel mound to the Dome of the Rock area."
However, after studying the words of Josephus concerning the Temple of Herod, which was reported to be in the same general area of the former Temples, he then read the account of Eleazar who led the final contingent of Jewish resistance to the Romans at Masada which stated that the Roman fortress was the only structure left by 73 C.E. "With this key in mind, I came to the conclusion in 1997 that all the Temples were indeed located on the Ophel mound over the area of the Gihon Spring". This theory implied that Judaism was fighting to preserve the wrong location, which in turn sparked reactions from Moslems.
The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot by Dr. Martin was made even more controversial due to the fact that he had previously spent five years engaged in excavations near the Western Wall in a joint project between Hebrew University and Ambassador College, publisher of The Plain Truth magazine edited by Herbert W. Armstrong.
Recent artifact controversy
On December 27, 2004, it was reported in the Toronto-based The Globe and Mail that the Israel Museum in Jerusalem discovered that the ivory pomegranate that everyone believed had once adorned a scepter used by the high priest in Solomon's Temple was a fake. This artifact was the most important item of biblical antiquities in its collection. It had been part of a traveling exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in 2003. Experts fear that this discovery is part of an international fraud in antiquities. The report described the thumb-sized pomegranate, which is a mere 44 mm in height, as being inscribed with ancient Hebrew letters said to spell out the words "Sacred donation for the priests in the House of Jehovah."
See also
External links
- Emperor Julian the Apostate (r. 361-363 CE) plan to rebuild the Temple (http://jeru.huji.ac.il/ed26.htm)
- Julian the Apostate and the Holy Temple (http://www.gibsoncondo.com/~david/convert/history.html)
- Location of Temples (http://www.templemount.org/theories.html)
- Controversy over exact location of the Temples (http://www.askelm.com/temple/)
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