Ancient History Reconsidered

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Was the Temple Mount Built by the Romans?

In November 2011, a Roman coin of the Roman consul Valerius Gratus was discovered in the lowest course of the Kotel (Kotel HaMaravi, the Western Wall – also known as the Wailing Wall) which dates the wall no earlier than 17/18 CE. This means that the wall, which supposedly belongs to Herod’s temple, dates to around 24 years after Herod’s death. (See, for example, the article Coins from 17AD found under Jerusalem’s Western Wall hints sacred site NOT built by Herod at www.dailymail.co.uk.) This shows that parts of the temple were still in course of being built long after Herod’s death. The problem is that the wall is supposed to form part of the temple foundation. The general concensus of opinion is that the temple was not completed in Herod’s day.   

In his book Temple, an American explorer by the name of Bob Cornuke has provided compelling evidence to show that the whole of the Temple Mount complex comprised the Roman fort, known as Fort Antonia, and that the true location of the temple was a quarter of a mile to the south of the fort in the old part of the city, known as the City of David. Josephus claimed that the Roman fortress obscured the view of the temple when viewed from the north of the city. (Wars of the Jews v.v.8.) Cornuke interprets this as meaning that the temple could not possibly have been seen for the simple reason that the temple was not located on the Temple Mount. Josephus described the size of the fortress in the following words: “insomuch that, by having all conveniences that cities wanted, it might seem to be composed of several cities, but by its magnificence it seemed a palace.” (Ibid.) According to Cornuke, the suggestion that this is describing the small rectangular building in the far corner of the site is untenable.

The Roman garrison is said to have housed around 10,000 personnel. Cornuke argues that the fort will have housed stables for all the horses as well as blacksmiths, court rooms, barracks for the soldiers, officers’ quarters, granary etc. The picture on the right shows what a Roman fortress typically looked like, and this same layout was employed in all of their fortresses. If we compare this with the Temple Mount, it becomes abundantly clear, according to his reasoning, that the whole of the Temple Mount comprised the Roman fort and that there would not have been room for a Jewish temple within the fort.

Cornuke continues to explain how the name Temple Mount was first applied by the Christian Crusaders and the designation has stuck despite being wrong. Using passages from the Bible, he proceeds to provide evidence which seems to show that the temple was built on the spring of Gihon, which runs through the Old City of David, and not through the Temple Mount, whose only source of water, he assures us, is from a Roman reservoir. Water from a Roman reservoir would not have been suitable nor of sufficient quantity to meet the halachic requirements for the washing and preparation of the sacrifices. For Mr Cornuke’s explanation, you are invited to watch the video Prophecy in the News - Search for the Temple on Youtube.

Despite his convincing arguments, Cornuke is completely wrong. In the video, Cornuke argues that the walls and buildings on the Temple Mount do not date to any time prior to the Roman Era, which statement is simply false. Archaeological evidence shows that many parts of the Temple Mount predate the Roman occupation by many centuries. Even Josephus tells us that the Tower of Antonia was originally built by John Hyrcanus, the first of the High Priests of the Hyrcanian family around 107 bce, as a place to hang the priestly vestments:

“Now on the north side [of the temple] was built a citadel, whose walls were square, and strong, and of extraordinary firmness. This citadel was built by the kings of the Asamonean race, who were also high priests before Herod, and they called it the Tower, in which were reposited the vestments of the high priest, which the high priest only put on at the time when he was to offer sacrifice.” (Antiquities 15.403.)

If the temple was located in the City of David, the suggestion that the priestly vestments were carried all that way to the north of the Temple Mount would not make sense. Note also that the fort, which is here called a citadel, was square - not rectangular as Cornuke argues.

The Tower was later rebuilt by Herod the Great who added his palace to it. (Josephus, Antiquities 18.90) The Tower was therefore not even built by the Romans! Josephus certainly makes no mention of the granaries or stables which Cornuke would have us believe existed inside the fort, and to date, no excavations have revealed any such buildings.

To capture the temple area, the Romans had to force their way through a place Josephus called Bezetha, taking first the Tower of Antonia. (Wars of the Jews 2.325) Bezetha was located alongside the Tower of Antonia. (Wars of the Jews 5.142) If the temple was in the City of David, there would be no reason to take the Tower first!

Josephus even informs us that there were great cloisters “erected around the temple” (Wars of the Jews 1.401) Those cloisters (covered walkways) at one time adjoined the Tower of Antonia. (Wars of the Jews 2.330 and 2.402)

“The cloisters [of the outmost court] were in breadth thirty cubits, while the entire compass of it was by measure six furlongs, including the tower of Antonia; those entire courts that were exposed to the air were laid with stones of all sorts. When you go through these [first] cloisters, unto the second [court of the] temple, there was a partition made of stone all round, whose height was three cubits.” (Wars of the Jews 5.190 - emphasis mine)

This tower was in the northern-most corner of the Temple Mount. The length of six furlongs encompasses the temple and reaches to the Tower. This would not be possible if the temple was located where Cornuke places it. In his description of the temple, Josephus makes it abundantly clear that it was built alongside the tower known as Tower of Antonia.

“Now as to the tower of Antonia, it was situated at the corner of two cloisters of the court of the temple; of that on the west and that on the north.” (Wars of the Jews 5.238)

Also, the City of David, where Cornuke argues the temple was located seems to have been called Acra by Josephus:

“But the other hill, which was called ‘Acra,’ and sustains the lower city, is of the shape of a moon when she is horned.” (Wars of the Jews 5.136)

This crescent moon shaped hill can only be the City of David. Josephus, however, places the temple further north on the hill we nowadays know as the Temple Mount.

Josephus also tells us that the temple compound was square, each side of its walls being one furlong (600 feet) long. (Antiquities 15.391) This accords with the length of the southern wall of the Temple Mount, but is far too large to be accommodated in the City of David as proposed by Cornuke.

Cornuke also makes great play on the fact that the Jews would not have made use of an aqueduct to provide the water to the temple for purification purposes, arguing that the Gihon Spring in the City of David was the only possible source. He seems to be totally oblivious to the fact that the Jerusalem Talmud (Yoma iii, fol. 41 - not to be confused the similarly named Section called Yoma in the Babylonian Talmud) actually states that the water for the temple was piped from Etam (vars. Atan or Etan) near Bethlehem in the north. The Hebrew words אמת המים used in this Talmudic passage can mean ‘canal’, ‘conduit’ or ‘aqueduct’. Remains of this water conduit is still evident today and runs to the southern part of the Temple Mount.

The discovery of a Roman coin of late date in the bottom course of the Kotel HaMaaravi (Western or Wailing Wall) shows that this wall must have been built after the temple had been built. We must bear in mind, however, that construction work was an ongoing thing. The wall itself is too centrally placed to have been part of the temple itself, but the important thing to emphasise is that the stones were cut in the same way that other stones on the site were cut and which predate the Roman period of occupation. The stones are not even typical of the Roman style of construction. To suggest that the wall is Roman because the Roman garrison was stationed in the Tower of Antonia, which itself is not of Roman construction, is pushing credibility to its limit.

As for the argument used by Cornuke that the Romans had to run “down” to the apostle Paul’s assistance (Acts 21:32), Cornuke overlooks the fact that the tower was built on a higher elevation to the rest of the Temple Mount, as can be seen from the graphic reconstruction presented above.

“And as the entire structure resembled that of a tower, it contained also four other distinct towers at its four corners; whereof the others were but fifty cubits high; whereas that which lay upon the southeast corner was seventy cubits high, that from thence the whole temple might be viewed; but on the corner where it joined to the two cloisters of the temple, it had passages down to them both, through which the guard (for there always lay in this tower a Roman legion) went several ways among the cloisters, with their arms, on the Jewish festivals, in order to watch the people, that they might not there attempt to make any innovations; for the temple was a fortress that guarded the city, as was the tower of Antonia a guard to the temple; and in that tower were the guards of those three.” (Wars of the Jews 5.238 emphasis mine)

The Roman general Tacitus described the water supplies for the temple as follows:

“The temple resembled a citadel, and had its own walls, which were more laboriously constructed than the others. Even the colonnades with which it was surrounded formed an admirable outwork. It contained an inexhaustible spring; there were subterranean excavations in the hill, and tanks and cisterns for holding rain water.” (Cornelius Tacitus, The History 5.12)

These subterranean excavations are evident under the Temple Mount but not in the City of David. The Babylonian Talmud even informs us that the water for the temple had to be drawn from a pit or a well and that Ben Katin devised a machine for this purpose, the machine connecting the water from the well to the lavers which were used by the priests for washing. (Yoma 37a – see also note 16 in the Soncino English translation) In Zevachim 21b of the Babylonian Talmud, we learn that this ‘machine’ was built of wood, had a stone weight which was lowered to lift the water and was operated by some form of pulley system.

Norma Robertson has spent 16 years studying the archaeological reports and everything that Josephus and other writers have recorded about the temple and has done an excellent job of demonstrating that the temple was located on the southern extremity of the Temple Mount. Her four part video can be viewed on YouTube starting with Part 1: Locating Solomon’s Temple. Her book is also available as a free download from http://templemountlocation.com/. This, without any shadow of a doubt, is where the temple was actually located.

Dated 9 Jan 2014.
^©AHR Researches.