LOCATING THE ORIGINAL TEMPLE MOUNT

Locating The Original Temple Mount

By CMI Director, Reggie Lisemby

The Temple is usually referred to as Solomon's Temple or the Solomonic Temple. However, it was more accurately David’s Temple since David originated the dream and plan for YHWH a house. Shlomo built the ancient Wonder of the World, the largest man-made platform in the ancient world, near 145 acres. Efforts to locate the site rely primarily on two written sources, and one scientific source beyond the Holy Scriptures. The written sources are Josephus, the Jewish historian, and a Jewish tractate of the Mishnah. The scientific source is archaeology with the work of explorer Charles Warren. 

Josephus observed that from a distance the Temple appeared as a snow-clad mountain, all that was not [overlaid with] pure gold was of purest white (L. The Jewish War 5.5.6). He also described the location of the Temple and of Herod’s enlargement of the Temple Mount which was a colossal undertaking. The Temple Mount would measure today, five football fields north to south, and six football fields from east to west. Herod could not extend the mountain eastward due to the deep Kidron Valley, so he filled in the Tyropoen or Cheese-makers Valley on the west with dirt, the valley north with dirt, and a small valley in the south with dirt. Sounds simple, but Herod brought in ashlars (stones) that were 35 feet long and weighed 70 tons. Josephus says it was "the most prodigious work ever heard of by man."

Today’s Western Wall or haKotel (‘the wall”) is a section of the retaining wall Herod built to support the dirt packed in the western valley. Why is the wall so holy to Jewish people today? Because, just several hundred yards over that western or ‘wailing’ wall was the holiest place on earth, the Kodesh Kodeshim or, the Holy of Holies. The Jewish Mishnah confirms the location of both Shlomo's Temple and Zerubabel's Temple to be the same, and that the exact place has descended through the Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Crusader, Ottoman, British, and modern Israel period. 

After Herod’s man-made mountain extension, history records that Rome took site of the Jewish Temple. The Temple site was indeed known. In AD 324 the Byzantine period began in Israel. The historical records confirm that the Temple location was known and even further ostracized by what came to be called Replacement Theology. In AD 638 Jerusalem was taken by Caliph Omar who constructed the Dome of the Rock for Muslims. In AD 1099 the Crusaders wrested the Dome from the Muslims who had disfigured the Temple Mount of the Lord, and the Crusaders converted the mosque into a church called Temple Domini. They knew it was the Temple Mount. When Jerusalem fell to the Egyptian-Turkish Sultan late 12th century he tried to undo the damage done by the Crusaders of the mount. The bedrock that was the foundation for the Jewish Temple and the Crusader Church was chipped away, and pieces of chipped rock thought of as sacred were sold for gold. 

In 1948, Israel returned home although Israel today must allow the Muslims to continue with some right to the Temple Mount due to the presence of the Dome of the Rock there. So, Muslim authorities control this small plot of land that belongs to Israel, and they do not allow Israel to dig or do archaeological studies under their sacred mosque without their monitor. Even they, today fear that the Temple Mount will be found out to be the sacred location of the ancient Temple.