Another post on The Temple Mount

 This can be viewed as a follow up to this post.

https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2020/04/there-is-lot-of-misinformation-related.html

To further back up why I have come to support The Temple being on The Temple Mount I recommend these two videos, the first one is shorter and from a more Evangelical perspective.

Nelson Walters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBT2UPaV_Z0

Temple Institute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh5yQiPYuo0

I'm not exactly in 100% agreement with these videos, they support the Dome of the Rock view which I still have issues with.  And they of course are unaware of my argument that the Biblical City of David was Bethlehem.

But for helping to explain why the Gihon Spring view doesn't hold water they are a good starting place.

There is a lot of Misinformation related to the Archaeological facts about The Temple Mount

I finally started to just read some stuff from those who defend the official mainstream position.  And the people wanting to remove The Temple from the Mount altogether are misrepresenting a lot of facts especially in regards to the Antonia Fortress.

Wherever Antonia was it certainly wasn't the entirety of the Temple Mount.  And it probably may not have been where Jesus was tried before Pilate, and there are etymological issues with identifying the Gabbatha of John 19 with a Rock like the Dome of The Rock's.

One thing I've been noticing for awhile in those supporting the Gihon Spring or Nea Church location flat out ignore Hadrian's Temple to Jupiter when discussing the history since they want to claim nothing else was ever built on the same site.  We know even from a secular pagan gentile source that Hadrain did that, Cassius Dio.  And Jerome says the Statue of Hadrian standing over the Holy of Holies was still there in his day. Jerome identifies it with the Abomination of Desolation of Matthew 24 but still clearly had a Futurist understanding of Revelation.  For that eschatologically influenced reason he might be off on it being exactly where the Holy of Holies was, many think Antiochus's AoD was in the Holy of Holies when in fact 1 Maccabees says it was on the Brazen Altar.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the Baalbek Temple built by the same architect so closely resembles the basic lay out of The Temple Mount, with the Hexagonal Court being what become the Dome of The Rock and the Temple proper being the Al Aqsa Mosque.  Though the Southern Conjecture/Al-Kas fountain view proponents of whom I have been one in the past are perhaps assuming too much about the location of the Equestrian Statue being the same.

I'd like to see the primary sources on Byzantine Jerusalem's Church of Holy Wisdom discussed by someone without an agenda.  How true is it that it stood where the Dome of the Rock is now and that it was identified with a location relating to the trial(s) of Jesus?

Those who believe the Temple was where the Dome currently is say that spot was identified as such by Muslims right from the time of Umar.  For one the oldest Muslin worship site on the Mount is the Al Aqsa Mosque, the current silver domed building is slightly younger then the Dome of the Rock but it was still where Muslims prayed first.  And even then many scholars now think even that oldest primitive Al Aqsa Mousge doesn't go back to Umar but was founded by Muawiyah.

There is no real detailed contemporary account of what Umar did in Jerusalem.  The account typically used by Gihon Spring proponents is a 14th Century account.  Given my personal theories about the early history of Islam(that it was really just an Ishmaelite form of Christianity originally), I suspect Umar never intended any Mosque to be built in Jerusalem as he wanted it to remain a city for the previous People of The Book and if he prayed anywhere it was only the location just a little east of the Holy Sepulcher.  He captured the city because of his alliance with the Jews and Miaphysite Christians who'd been persecuted by Heraclius.  The Qurran does teach that the Land of Israel belongs to the Children of Israel.

Likewise when the Crusaders controlled Jerusalem they called the Al Aqsa Mosque the Temple of Solomon and the Dome of The Rock the Temple of The Lord, The Lord in Christianity is Jesus meaning that name implies a New testament significance.

I'm going to Copy/Paste from The Bordeaus Pilgram (333 AD) via this website.
http://andrewjacobs.org/translations/bordeaux.html

There are in Jerusalem two big pools to the side of the Temple, that is, one to the right, another to the left, which Solomon made, but inside the cite there are two twin pools with five porches, which are called Bethsaida.

There those who have been sick for many years have been healed.

These pools have water which becomes scarlet when disturbed.

There is a crypt there where Solomon tortured demons.

There is the corner of the highest tower, where the Lord went up and he said to the one who was tempting him, and the Lord said to him: Do not tempt the Lord your God, but him only should you serve (Matt 4:7, 10).

There is the cornerstone about which it was said: stone, which the builders reproved, this has been made the head stone (Matt 21:42).

And under the pinnacle of the tower there are many chambers, where Solomon had his palace.

There is also the chamber in which he sat and wrote about wisdom; but the chamber itself has a single stone for its roof.

There are also very great pools of water underground and a great pool built with work.

And in that building where the Temple was, which Solomon built, in the marble before the altar is the blood of Zechariah which you would say was shed today; indeed, there appear to be traces of the soldier's boots, who killed him, throughout the area, such that you would think they had been pressed in wax.

There are two status of Hadrian; not far from the statues is a pierced stone to the Jews comes every year and they anoint it and they lament with a groan and they tear their garments and then they withdraw.

There is the house of Hezekiah, King of Judah.

I have come to believe all of this section is about stuff on The Temple Mount.  After this he heads south out of what was then the city proper where he observed the Pool of Siloam then goes to the Western hill which was considered to be Zion at that time.

The use of the name "Bethsadia" is confusing because the New Testament and Josephus use that of a place not anywhere near Jerusalem.

There are at least two probably three different stones refereed to here. However people confident The Dome is the site of The Temple seem to treat all three as the same and as being the titular Rock under that Dome.  I have my doubts any of them really match that Rock but the best bet is that the modern "Well of Souls" is what this Pilgrim identified as the chamber where Solomon wrote "the book of Wisdom" (whether that is the apocryphal text or they meant Proverbs I won't venture to guess).  This association could explain why a Church built there later was called Holy Wisdom, but again I need an unbiased way to analyze the more obscure primary sources on that Church.

When the Pilgrim says "and in that building where" he's clearly moved to a more specific location and so the stone that will be mentioned last can't be identified with the two prior stones.  Those two stones are explicitly not in The Temple proper.

Identifying the Dome of The Rock as the Temple's Location depends on the "pierced stone" the Jews came to anoint every year (we know elsewhere that day was the 9th of Av, not Yom Kippur as one article I read criticizing Cornuke assumed).  This stone was (believed to be) either a Cornerstone of The Temple or one which was supposed to be where The Ark rested and so probably only slightly larger then The Ark itself, something more like the Stone around which The Church of the Seat of Mary was constructed.  But on second thought this Stone is not actually likely to be where the Holy of Holies was since The Jews have always been adamant about not risking accidentally walking over it.

So yes, I still consider the Dome itself the least likely of spots on The Mount to place The Temple.  I have become more open to the Dome of The Tablets view because that places it directly due west of the Golden Gate.  However the narrative thrust of the Pilgrim's description could be seen as moving southward and thus placing The Temple south of the presumed Chamber that Solomon wrote the Book of Wisdom in.

I am far from making up my mind on this issue.  I'm still attracted to the Nea Church being the site of at least one of The Temples, or maybe David's Tabernacle.

Update: An article called The Byzantine Presence on The Temple Mount arguing for the Gihon Spring view is very misinformed and since fact checking it's claims I now doubt that Saint Sophia/Holy Wisdom was on the Temple Mount.

It once accuses a Wilson of wrongly conflating the Church of the Blessed Mary with the Nea Church of the Theotokos.  However it is in fact well known that both those names were used for the same Church.  Cyril of Scythoplis account of the Church's origin makes clear that Sabas's request was just of a Church for Saint Mary.  It was Justinian who took the prerogative of using the title Theotokos because of his agenda of trying to unify the Chalcedonian and Miaphysite churches while scapegoating the Nestorians.  Both this source and Procopius only refer to Justinian building one Marian Church, and none of this article's sources are aware of the Theotokos Church if they were indeed different.

The Saint Sophia Church is clearly near by and so I'm now thinking was maybe where the Armenian Church of the Archangels is with it's presumed trial location changing.  Carefully reading that article's own sources the "Stone" venerated here that Jesus stood on is clearly a smaller portable "stone" not something like what the Dome is built over.

I personally think the tradition of sealing off the East Gate began in the Byzantine era by Christians who felt it was time to fulfill Ezekiel 46:1 since Jesus had already entered at his Triumphal entry.

Revisiting my Bethlehem as Zion The City of David argument

[Update: this is now a defunct post, I'm back to agreeing entirely with my original argument.]

[Update July 2025: The Better version of this my original argument is here. 

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2023/12/zionthe-city-of-david-wasnt-jerusalem.html]

I think I might be prepared to support Bob Cornuke's location for The Temple.

And perhaps also his corresponding site for Golgotha, even though I had been hostile to it at first.  But aspects of how he makes the argument are still wrong.

First because Zion the City of David was not Jerusalem at all but Bethlehem.  But what that means is verses saying the Ark was taken out of the City of David when placed in the Temple are no longer against Cornuke's site.  I do believe what we today call the Old City was Jebus, and perhaps remained the entirety of Jerusalem until the return from Captivity.  Perhaps Nob and Gibeon were what we now call The Temple Mount?

Another argument against Cornuke's site is saying a threshing floor wouldn't be near a Spring because of contamination risks.  But I have also argued that The Temple wasn't on the threshing floor, the threshing floor must be east of Jerusalem since Yahuah stopped there approaching Jerusalem.  Maybe 1 Chronicles 3:1 is just saying aspects of the Construction began there, perhaps materials were built and ritually purified there before being moved into the city.  Genesis 22 tells me that Moriah is the site of the Crucifixion not The Temple.

Stephen in Acts 7:44-50 says Solomon didn't follow David's intent for The Temple.  I think the Eschatological Tabernacle will be Zion.

As far as if what we today call the Gihon Spring is the Biblical Gihon, well what the name Gihon refers to is the most confusing subject of all, since it's a River in Genesis 2.  And if you don't think that's the same Gihon then you can't prove the Gihon associated with Solomon's coronation is the same one associated with Hezekiah either.

I still think it's possible the first and second Temples weren't on the same spot. If Cornuke's site is only one of them it's probably Solomon's.  The thing is so much debate about The Temple focuses on what Mountain or Hill it was built on when I suspect Solomon's Temple wasn't on a mountain at all, I think when he was at the High Place at Gideon Yahuah made him realize the Tabernacle shouldn't be on a High Place.

I spent over a year being very interested in the theory that The Temple was were Justinian built the Nea Eklessia of the Theotokos, where now stands the Armenian Church of the Archangels and the Garden of the Resurrection.  And I still think Justinian might have believed he was rebuilding The Temple.  But there are some issues with this argument.

They use quotes from Medieval Rabbis saying the Gentiles never built on the site of The Temple, maybe the Nea had been forgotten by the Jews by that time, but it's also possible the "Market of the Jews" actually refereed to the Old City not what we now call the Jewish Quarter.

And the thing about the orientation of that first century synagogue is, I don't think the idea of needing to Pray in the direction of The Temple existed yet in the first century, neither Testament of The Bible alludes to such an idea. I think it's a post 70 AD Rabbinic custom that influenced the development of Islam.

I think maybe the next archeological mystery Cornuke should tackle is The Nativity, I don't think Jesus was born at the traditional site of the Nativity which was an Adonis Cave. I've talked about how the Church of St David by King David's Wells claims to be where David was buried, well right by it is a Church of St Joseph.  I believe Jesus was born in a House Joseph owned.  And Conruke could also look for the Migdol Eder while he's at it.

I don't agree with the traditional site of Kiriath-Jearim either, since it's too far north.  As a city that like Jebus marked the border between Benjamin and Judah I think it was probably on close to the same latitude as the Old City.  But since it's ultimately on Judah's side unlike Jebus which was on Benjamin's side, that makes it if anything a little south of the Old City.

If it was west of Jebus, then I think it may have been on what we today know as the Western hill, primarily south of the modern Zion Gate of Suiliman's Wall.  But if it was East of Jebus, then perhaps the Ark once rested where Jesus was buried,.  A possibility I consider symbolically interesting since one of the few times that Hebrew word for Ark is used in reference to something other then The Ark is also the first time it's used, in the last verse of Genesis where the KJV translates it "Coffin" referring to the burial of Joseph who was a type of Christ.

Zion, which is The City of David

[Update July 2025: The Better version of this is here. 

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2023/12/zionthe-city-of-david-wasnt-jerusalem.html]

Solomon's Temple was NOT in the City of David.

If you think it was, I suggest you read 1 Kings 8:1, the account of The Ark being placed in The Temple.

"Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel, unto king Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahuah out of the city of David, which is Zion."

And also 2 Chronicles 5:2

"Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel, unto Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahuah out of the city of David, which is Zion."

David's Tabernacle was not on the same land as Solomon's Temple, that's where these "The Temple wasn't on The Temple Mount" people are confused.

The land that Solomon built The Temple on, David purchased after the whole Census and Plague episode recorded in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, (and referenced again in 2 Chronicles 3:1).  So it can't possibly be the same spot near the Gihon Spring where David placed The Ark when he began his reign in Jerusalem.

In 2 Samuel 24:23, though English translations sometimes obscure this, Araunah (Ornan in Chronicles) is called a King.  He was the King of a separate Kingdom, so the land he owned was clearly not within The City of David.

There are also many reasons why you wouldn't put a threshing floor anywhere near a spring.

Now I don't know if the Second Temple was on the same spot as the first.  But I believe the evidence places the Second Temple's Holy of Holies about where the Al-Kas Fountain currently is, and that the Antonia Fortress was where the Dome of The Rock is.

Prophetic verses get used to back up saying there is a spring or river under The Temple.  Ezekiel 40-48's Temple will be no where near the same spot as Solomon's, it's miles north of Jerusalem, I've argued about where Beth-El was. And by then events like the 7th Bowl of Wrath will have totally changed the geography of the region.

In both Poetic and Prophetic books Zion gets used poetically, it doesn't always mean it's strict Geographical definition it has in the two verses that started this post.

I still support the Southern Conjecture

I have a post where I originally explained my support for the Southern Conjecture/Al-Kas Fountain view.  And then another one where I deal with one particular objection to it's Escatological significance.

Latter I did a post in response to some new information I learned where I considered changing to the Gihon Spring view of The Temple's location.  That post was made and revised as my mind was being pretty chaotic on the subject and it still seemed clear I wasn't really gonna do that.  All the reasons for  rejecting that view I hold now are explained there, or in links provided there.

So I am just making this post to clarify.  I believe the Temple was where the Al-Kas fountain is.  But the Gihon Spring is interesting and I think probably the Location of the Tabernacle of David.

I'm now rethinking the Southern Conjecture.

I've posted a lot on that in the past.  I placed a lot on it really.  But it was Chuck Missler who first introduced me to it, and now he seems to have a new theory.
 http://www.baseinstitute.org/pages/temple/22

I have agreed with all Cornuke's earlier theories.  But I'm not gonna believe this just because it's him however.

Some aspects of it happen to overlap with why I like the Southern Conjecture.  Arguably this could still fit the Muslim Holy sites being the Outer Court trodden under foot by the Gentiles in Revelation 11.

I also think of 1 Kings 11:7, where on a Hill outside of Jerusalem is where Solomon latter built a High Place for Chemosh and Moloch.  Some translations say this Hill was "east of Jerusalem", but the KJV simply says "in the hill that is before Jerusalem".  The current traditional Temple Mount is north of the City of David.  (Udpate: I'm now aware most scholars think that is the Mount of Olives.)

The theory was around before Conruke and Missler recently jumped onto it.  Here is an article critical of it from a site that supports the Al-Kas fountain view.
http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-jerusalem-temple-mount-ophel-gihon-spring.htm
http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-jerusalem-temple-mount-threshing-floor-aqueduct.htm

One aspect of the debate over The Temple's location I feel gets overlooked is this. The Tabernacle David placed The Ark in when he first made Jerusalem his capital is NOT the exact same plot of land The Temple of Solomon was built on.  David did not buy the threshing floor on Mount Moriah until after the Plague following his Census, which was late in his reign after Absalom was dead already.  The Ark remained in that earlier Tabernacle until The Temple was complete.

Another thing over looked from II Samuel 24:23 is that Aruanah was a King.  " All these things did Araunah, as a king, give unto the king. And Araunah said unto the king, The LORD thy God accept thee."  Wikipedia says that English translations try to obscure or confuse this fact.  But I feel it's apparent enough in the KJV as I just quoted.  So I'm not sure the assumption that this land must be within what David originally conquered is as solid as Cornuke and others think.

Descriptions of the Future Messianic Temple tell us nothing about the Location of Solomon's Temple, or geography as we know it at all.  Ezekiel has a very different Geography for the entire region, and his Temple is miles North of Jerusalem not within it.  I'm attracted to the view that Ezekiel's Temple is actually on on near Shechem or Shiloh.  So it annoys me they spend so much time quoting from the last 9 chapters of Ezekiel and related Prophecies.

And one has to be careful doing a word study of Zion as well.  Zion became very much a poetic name rather then a technical term.  Anytime the borders of Jerusalem grew, that too became Zion.  Then there is the Heavenly Zion of Psalm 48 which will descend as New Jerusalem.

I also feel the Southern Conjecture is consistent with Jesus saying not one Stone would be left.   As the diagrams of it show, the wailing wall in that view is not one of The Temple's wall.

The link I provided critical of this view agrees that the Antonia fortress was built on the Temple mount.  And it was all Roman construction after the Bar Kochba Revolt, when Hadrian's Temple complex was build.

Something else I'm thinking about.  All these debates about the Temple's Ancient Location get brought into theories eschatologically about how the Third Temple which The Man of Sin will desecrate gets built.  But I'm thinking lately, what guarantee is there that Temple will even be built on the accurate place?

Jesus said the Abomination of Desolation will stand in the Holy Place.  Some might insist he wouldn't have worded it that way if it wasn't the authentic site of Solomon's Holy Place.  But the Holy Place is just a title for the innermost sanctum of The Tabernacle originally, which was portable.  It is believed at some point after Solomon it was decreed it can't move again, but as I've said I don't believe the even further future Ezekiel Temple is on the same location.  The 70th Week Temple I believe must stand in Jerusalem, the same city The Two Witnesses will preach from in Revelation 11.  But maybe not exactly where the old ones where located.

And I've seen some theories say the Second Temple wasn't actually on the exact same site as Solomon's.

I'll have to think over this for awhile.