TEMPLE DENIAL VS. ARCHAEOLOGY

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Pastor Dale Morgan

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May 15, 2007, 7:11:30 PM5/15/07
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*Perilous Times

TEMPLE DENIAL VS. ARCHAEOLOGY*

May 15, 2007

The following is excerpted from The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam,
the West, and the Future of the Holy City by Dore Gold (Washington,
D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2007):

"[T]he Palestinians' battle for Jerusalem incorporates more than just
the frontal, military assault of the intifada. Its first stages entailed
a campaign by Arafat to completely delegitimize the Israeli claim to the
city. This began on the ninth day of the Camp David summit [in the year
2000], when Arafat subjected Clinton to a lecture of staggering
historical revisionism. His central argument was that the biblical
temple never existed on the Temple Mount or even in Jerusalem. Arafat
baldly asserted that 'There is nothing there [i.e., no trace of a temple
on the Temple Mount],' further insisting that 'Solomon's Temple was not
in Jerusalem, but Nablus.' ...

[This] doctrine of 'Temple Denial' quickly became a new Palestinian
dogma that was even repeated, with the firmest conviction, by
Western-educated Palestinian officials who are assiduously courted by
the international media. ...

Arafat's eventual successor, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), also embraced
Temple Denial. ... Temple Denial spread across the Middle East like
wildfire from the editorial pages of al-Jazirah in Saudi Arabia to
well-funded international seminars in the United Arab Emirates. It even
subtly slipped into the writing of Middle East-based Western reporters.
Thus Time magazine's Romesh Ratnesar in October 2003 described the
Temple Mount as a place 'where Jews believe Solomon and Herod built the
first and Second Temples.' In three years, Arafat's campaign had
convinced a leading U.S. weekly to relate the existence of Jerusalem's
biblical temples as a debatable matter of religious belief rather than
historical fact. Arafat had moved the goalposts of historical truth.

Temple Denial found fertile ground in the Arab world's universities,
particularly those with a more radical Islamist perspective, where it
would affect an entirely new generation. A lecturer in modern history at
Suadi Arabia's Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University repeated a popular
variation of Temple Denial in 2000, when he published a research arguing
that King Solomon's Temple was in fact a mosque. ...

CLAY SEAL FROM THE FIRST TEMPLE -- [In rubble that was removed from the
Temple Mount by the Palestinian-controlled Waqf and dumped in various
waste sites throughout Jerusalem] Dr. Gabi Barkai found a clay seal from
the Temple Mount with Hebrew writing. On the third line of the ancient
seal was the name Immer, which is the last name of a man, Pashur Ben
Immere, whom the Book of Jeremiah describes as an important priest in
the first Temple. Looking at a set of broken lines above the name Immer,
Barkai concluded that the seal belonged to a relative of Pashur named
Galihu Ben Immer. The clay seal proved that a noted priestly family
member at the time of ancient Israel was involved in administering the
Temple Mount. ...

JOSEPHUS' TESTIMONY -- Ancient historians from the Roman era such as
Josephus have provided detailed descriptions of the Second Temple as
well as the planning and execution of its destruction by Titus, the son
of Roman emperor Vespasian, and his successor.

ARCH OF TITUS IN ROME -- Indeed, any tourist visiting the famous Arch of
Titus in Rome can see how the Roman conquest of Jerusalem was
commemorated over nineteen centuries ago with engraved images of Roman
soldiers triumphantly carrying the Temple vessels, including trumpets
and the seven-branched Menorah, as spoils of war.

ITEMS FROM THE TENTH ROMAN LEGION -- Throughout Jerusalem's Old City, a
variety of everyday items have been found that bear the mark of the
Tenth Roman Legion--the unit that destroyed the Second Temple.

TEMPLE PLAQUES WARNING GENTILES -- Stone plaques with Greek inscriptions
from the time of King Herod warning non-Jews not to enter certain areas
of the Temple have also been uncovered. A complete plaque from the
Temple Mount is housed in the museum in Istanbul, Turkey, and a partial
plaque is housed in the Israel Museum. The plaque reads: 'Foreigner, do
not enter within the grille and the partition surrounding the Temple.'

THE TRUMPETING PLACE -- The excavation of the street level just below
the Temple Mount revealed huge blocks of stone that toppled down during
the Temple's destruction, including a site with a Hebrew inscription
reading 'To the Trumpeting Place.' This corresponds with Josephus'
account of a corner of the Temple Mount where the Temple trumpet was
blown to mark the beginning of the Sabbath. The eight-foot-long stone
was apparently hurled down by the Roman armies from the Temple area to
the pavement surrounding the Temple Mount below.

COINS FROM BAR KOCHBA REBELLION -- [Coins from the Bar Kochba revolt to
liberate Jerusalem from the Roman armies from 132-135 A.D., only a few
decades after the destruction of the Temple, depict the façade of the
Temple with the Ark of the Covenant between the pillars.]

Throughout the twentieth century, even extremist Muslim leaders and
organizations still acknowledged the Temple's existence. For example, a
guide to the Temple Mount was published in 1935 by the Supreme Muslim
Council, which at the time was headed by Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the
notorious pro-Nazi mufti of Jerusalem. Concerning the Temple Mount
('Haram al-Sharif'), the guide stated without equivocation that 'Its
identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute.' This
mimicked the language of an earlier guidebook the council had written in
1924.

Thus the claims of Arafat and his acolytes throughout the Arab world
that the Temples never existed in Jerusalem are refuted not only by the
archaeological record, but also by Islam's greatest authorities and even
by Arafat's radical predecessors.

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