During the month of March, anyone can access the ESV Study Bible for free at this website:
http://www.esvstudybible.org/online
It was a privilege to have worked on this wonderful project. This is what Justin Taylor (Project Director) wrote:
“The ESVSB was published just over four months ago and there are already 300,000 copies in print. We give God the honor and the praise, and we pray that God would use this resource to help edify and build up his church.”
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The Messiah in the Temple is an exciting project with the aim of developing a 3-D visual media of the Temple of Jerusalem. This project was conceived by the project manager Martin Severin. After reading Roger Liebi’s book of that name and my book “The Quest - Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem”, he decided with the help of Christof Frank of digi mice GmbH to make a digital version of the reconstructed Herodian Temple Mount.
You can read more about the project on the The Messiah in the Temple website, where you can also download a larger video file.
Thanks to Justin Taylor, you can watch the video on YouTube:
In May this year, I was asked to join the National Geographic team on a poster supplement for the December Issue of the magazine. The subject of the poster was the history and architecture of the Temple Mount. I had the opportunity to meet with Fernando Baptista and Patricia Healy (NGS Senior Graphics Editor and Art Researcher respectively) in New York during a conference on “The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to Messiah”. See my earlier post.
They wanted my help with the creation of a NG poster on the Temple Mount and also came to see the models I had designed and which were then on show in the Yeshiva University. This interesting poster is now available in the December issue. The poster is called “Jerusalem’s Holy Ground” and shows, from top to bottom, the Binding of Isaac, The Rock, Solomon’s Temple, Herod’s Temple Mount and the Temple Mount during the Early Muslim period. It also shows cut-away drawings of Solomon’s Temple, Herod’s Temple and the Dome of the Rock and has a timeline on the side. The other side of the poster shows a magnificent map of the Eastern Mediterranean region, named “The Crucible of History”. The poster is beautifully produced and it is worthwhile getting the National Geographic December issue if you don’t have a subscription. The magazine has for its main theme, The Real King Herod, architect of the Holy Land.
Here is a view of the poster, reproduced with permission of the National Geographic Society:
Zachi Zweig, an archaeologist who is involved with the Temple Mount Sifting project, kindly send me the paper [in Hebrew], which he gave at the recent conference on the Temple Mount at the Bar-Ilan University. I commented on this find in an earlier post. Here is an abstract:
“Hamilton describes the discovery of a plastered cistern that was excavated below the easternmost door of the present El Aksa mosque, north of Cistern 9 [according to Warren's numeration - see map]. The descent to [the cistern] was from west to east by means of a flight of steps, with the bottom step some 3 m. [10 feet] below the present floor of the mosque. The remains of some five steps were discerned, which were built against a plastered wall, which was about 90 cm wide [3 feet].
Unfortunately, Hamilton did not publish additional details - not one picture or plan. However, in the Mandatory Archives there was a photograph of the five steps, which descend to the opening of the cistern. The top of the steps is located some 1.50 - 2 m. [6-7.5 feet] below the present surface and to the south of it and adjacent to it, although at a little distance, there is a thick wall. This is most likely the same cistern. The steps appear to have been cut out of the rock and this points to the fact that the level of the top of the rock in this location is at about 1.50 m. [6 feet] below the level of the present pavement.”
The exit of the cistern is located deep below the level of the floor of the mosque. Hamilton dated it to the late Roman period. However, as the remains of a dividing wall can be discerned, Zachi concluded that it could have been a mikveh (Jewish ritual bath), see picture below:
It is located a little to the east of the underground passage which leads up from the Double Gate to the Temple Mount. Ronnie Reich has identified Cistern 6 and 36 as mikva’ot, but these are located in the original Square Temple Mount. These could have been added in the Second Temple period, as they are located close to the surface and no First Temple period mikva’ot are known.
This latest one, however, is located much lower down and in the Hasmonean extension of the Temple Mount and may therefore have been one of the earliest mikva’ot in Jerusalem:
Worshipers in the Hasmonean period, who had not purified themselves before going to the Temple Mount, perhaps had the opportunity to do so in this mikveh, if it was a mikveh indeed.
Our new line of downloadable images has proven to be very successful. It is a great way to download the reconstruction drawings or model images you need for your powerpoint presentation and you can have them immediately. And our clients are asking for more. The latest images available are reconstruction drawings of the City of Jerusalem in the various periods.
1. The City of Solomon drawing (above) was the first reconstruction to incorporate the massive fortifications that have been uncovered near the Gihon Spring. No wonder that this was the place where Solomon was anointed king. Another first in this drawing is the interpretation of the Spring Tower as part of an additional gateway to the city on the east, so that to get into the city from this direction, one had to pass through two gate systems.
2. The next drawing is more schematic, as it shows how Jerusalem developed in the Biblical period or Iron Age. It shows at bottom left the City of David as he had conquered it from the Jebusites and rebuilt it. On the right of the drawing one can see how Solomon, by building the first permanent sanctuary in Jerusalem, extended the city to the north, doubling its size.
The top part of the drawing shows Hezekiah’s expansion of the city by building a city wall around the south-western hill. This was given expression in Ps. 122.3, “Jerusalem is a city that is joined together” or, as the ESV has it “Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together”. A section of this wall has been excavated in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and called “The Broad Wall”.
3. Jerusalem in 30 A.D. This drawing was first made for The Times Atlas of the Bible and later made available as a poster. It shows Herodian Jerusalem at its peak with landmarks indicated such as the Temple Mount (of course), the Herodian and Hasmonean Palaces, the Bethesda and Siloam Pools and two alternatives for Golgotha.
In an exciting new digital download section of our online store, we are offering some of our most popular drawings and illustrations, with Bible references, suitable for powerpoint presentations. This is in response to the many requests we receive for illustrations of particular themes that you need for that class or lecture tomorrow, when there is no time to wait for material to arrive in the mail.
We have grouped some of those illustrations we think may be most helpful into sets of three or four images each. Later on we may make larger groups. To date, we have prepared the following:
The Exodus
The Tabernacle Tent
The Tabernacle Court
Solomon’s Temple Model
Solomon’s Temple Drawings
However, these are only a tiny fraction of the illustrations we have available. We need your feedback on which you would find most useful so we can go on helping you to prepare those authoritative and unforgettable powerpoint presentations.
Most images are sized at 1024×768 - suitable for powerpoint presentations.
Note - there appears to be a bug in the online store software. If you can’t find the link to Checkout once you’ve filled your shopping cart, just click the link to the blog (top left) and the “Go to Checkout” link will reappear!
Although I don’t like the title of this website (God doesn’t need a tube), it has an interesting video discussion between J R Church and Gary Stealman about my book The Quest. They didn’t get all the facts right, but they gave an enthusiastic review of my book The Quest. Worth watching.
If you are not a member of www.godtube.com, go to the website and select ‘videos’ from the menubar. Copy in this code: 20ed975e82b7fd877693 and the video should be ready for watching.
Here you can read one of the latest articles on “Jews in the Temple Area: A ‘Mount’-ing Controversy”. Three rabbis, Rabbi Yoseph, Rabbi Elyashiv and Kanievsky, demand a complete ban on Jews entering any part of the Temple Mount on the grounds that the ritual purity of the area might be violated.
On the other hand, there are a growing number of rabbis, such as Rabbi Moshe Tendler, Rabbi Yehuda Kreuzer and the rabbis of the Temple Institute, who believe that Jews should be allowed to enter onto the Temple Mount, and in an interview with IsraelNationalNews, Rabbi Kreutzer cited a well-known rabbinical source: “In short, the Radbaz [a leading halachic authority from the 1500s] ruled that the Dome of the Rock is the Foundation Stone in the Holy of Holies…. He wrote that without a doubt this is the identity of the place. He wrote in a definite way the definite identity of the place,” Kreuzner reiterated. “If so, it’s possible to do the measurements.”
The “measurements” have been done already, for there is so much archaeological evidence to show that the Rock inside the Dome of the Rock is the Foundation Stone, that is indeed possible to set out the precise location of the Temple and its courts. For the last 30 years, I have used the information of Middot, Josephus and archaeology to analyze the Temple Mount.
The pre-Herodian Temple Mount was a square platform of 500 cubits, inside of which was the soreg, a partition screen to keep out Gentiles and Jews who were disqualified from entering the inner courts. Further inside was the Court of the Women and the Azarah, the court around the temple itself, which was accessible to priests only.
The location of the soreg in the southern court depends on the location of two Temple Mount mikvaot, Cisterns 6 and 36 according to Warren’s enumeration, and the soreg should be located just to the north of them. Mikvaot were used for ritual bathing, which, of course, needs to be done before entering the holy area. Even if the rabbis would stay outside of the soreg, there is ample space on the Temple Mount for them to walk on.
The Court of the Women was located east of the raised Muslim platform and the Azarah was located on this platform. By staying off the platform, rabbis could never defile the Holy of Holies, which was located inside the Dome of the Rock. Even walking on the raised platform, there is no danger of trespassing on the Holy of Holies.
If the fear of the rabbis is to tread of the area of the Holy of Holies alone, then they should stay outside of the Dome of the Rock and the rest of the Temple Mount should be accessible to them.
On the detailed plan below, the pre-Herodian Temple Mount is indicated in yellow. and the soreg in the southern court is just north of the two mikvaot. The raised Muslim platform is grey and the Herodian Temple Complex is in red.
I was interested to see, in my daily Google Alert for the Temple Mount, on James Grant’s blog, that the new ESV Study Bible, for which I have been providing illustrations, now has its own webpage, launched by Crossways, its publisher. It is worthwhile having a look at the sample pages. Having worked with Justin Taylor, the Project Director and Managing Editor, for the last half year, with graphics winging their way for checking and correction from Wheaton, Illinois to Adelaide in Australia, and latterly to Cardiff in Wales, I can’t wait to see the final product, due out in October of this year.
The whole “painstaking process of research and refinement”, to use Justin’s words, has caused me to look into problems which I had not previously addressed. In particular, the discoveries in Jerusalem over the last few years, especially in the City of David, made it necessary for me to produce completely new reconstruction drawings of Jerusalem in the various periods - a very exciting project indeed! I have also enjoyed working with Maltings Partnership, who have rendered my drawings into works of tremendous beauty.
It has been reported that, during the present destruction on the Temple Mount, a 7 m. long wall has been found. There rightly was an outcry by archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike about these illegal diggings on the Temple Mount. Their protests, however, expressed the illegality of the excavations and their fear of the destruction of ancient remains, but they could not tell exactly what is being destroyed. It has been suggested that the wall may have been part of the wall that separated the Temple Court from the Court of the Women. According to my plan below, however, this is not possible, as that wall was located inside the eastern edge of the present-day Muslim platform. Only a full-scale excavation, of course, would make the identification of this wall possible.
Todd Bolen of BiblePlaces kindly wrote on his blog that he is interested to know what I have to say about it. It may be of interest to others also.
In order to be able to interpret what has been dug up, one needs to understand where the Herodian Temple complex was located. Since 1973, I have worked on the problems of the Temple Mount, first as field-architect of the excavations led by the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar, and later as an independent scholar. The result of my research has been published, sometimes together with my archaeologist wife Kathleen, in several places, but recently and more completely in my book The Quest. The most useful plan for understanding the Temple Mount (published on p. 355) is the one you see below:
This plan shows the present configuration of the Temple Mount with the raised Muslim platform in grey. The Herodian Temple and its courts are printed in red, while the yellow area indicates the location of the 500-cubit square pre-Herodian Temple Mount, which dates back to the Iron Age. This is the time of the Kings of Israel and Judah, and it was most likely King Hezekiah who ordered its construction (see The Quest, pp. 189-193).
On an enlarged detail of this plan, I have drawn the location of the trench that is being dug at present in blue, see below:
According to this position, it is clear to me that the long wall encountered is the eastern wall of the Chamber of the Lepers (see plan on p. 345 of The Quest) and perhaps also part of the northern gate of the Court of the Women. The latter chamber was one of the four courtyards that belonged to the Court of the Women, with the other three being the Chamber of the Woodshed, the Chamber of the Nazarites and the Chamber of the House of Oil. As this area has never been built over since the Roman destruction of 70 AD, the wall cannot belong to a post-Herodian construction. It is therefore very exciting that the first concrete evidence of the Herodian Temple complex may have been found and ironically by people who deny that there ever was a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount.
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