Temple Stones Unearthed -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Bible and Spade (First Run)
Volume: BSP 01:1 (Winter 1972)
Article: Temple Stones Unearthed
Author: Anonymous


Temple Stones Unearthed

In Luke 21.6 Jesus made the following prediction regarding the Temple: “The days will come, in which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” Archaeologists have now recovered some of these stones.

Christ’s prophecy was fulfilled in A.D. 70 when the Romans leveled Jerusalem. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century, tells us, “Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency. .. in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valour had subdued.” The only remains of first-century Jerusalem standing today are the so-called “Tower of David”, one of the towers of Herod’s western fortress-palace, and the walls of the platform or mount on which the Temple rested.

Excavations by Professor Benjamin Mazar of the Hebrew University at the southern and southwestern fringes of the Temple Mount are bringing forth much new information about the Temple of Jesus’ day. One of the significant discoveries has been that of massive stones which were sent crashing down in A.D. 70 from the top of the Temple Mount onto a paved Herodian street below.

One of these huge stones, weighing about eight tons, is inscribed in Hebrew which reads, “To (or belonging to) the place of the blowing of the trumpet.” The stone had originally rested on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount, over 100 feet from where it was found. Built into the stone is a niche in which a man could stand. From this niche a priest would blow a trumpet to signal the beginning and the end of the Sabbath each week.

(Josephus, Wars Of The Jews, VII, 1:1; Jerusalem Post Weekly, January 11, 1971 and August 3, 1971.)

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