Is there any hard archaeological evidence whatsoever for Solomon's Temple?

Question

From what I understand, there is not; but I'm ready to be educated to the contrary if anybody has any reliable information.

I know the Islamic Waqf oversaw a construction project on the Temple Mount in 1999 that involved the removal of several tons of "refuse," which was later examined by archaeologists, who found artifacts such as shards of pottery in the material, some of which may perhaps be dated to roughly the Solomonic period - but this is hardly evidence of monumental architecture from that time.

Archaeologists like Silberman and Finkelstein have noted that of the period in question, no trace has been found of anything beyond a small village settlement on the site.

It seems that a large part of the problem of verification is that the site has remained a religious hub for centuries, and vested religious and political interests control it and restrict archaeological investigation.

I've always been fascinated by the legends, but is there any verifiable truth to them at all?

Answer 1

They aren't allowed to dig the site, so not much. There is evidence of layers of construction which seems to back it, but they haven't been able to really sort it all out since they can't dig. Most of the stuff that has been sorted out is to recent.



You are right about the surroundings. There wasn't much there that far back.

Answer 2

Yes. There's sections of wall. Pottery that you have described. There is also a stone that seems to have broken from the top corner with the inscription "trumpeting place" where trumpets would have been sounded at prayer time.



There was another temple built on the same spot a few hundred years later that reused much of what remained. If you are simply looking for evidence of * a * Jewish temple on the spot then there's plenty for Herod's temple (destroyed 70 AD), but the later temple makes it harder to find evidence for the earlier.



As far as the Saudi Arabia suggestion above, it is important to note that even if the biblical Mount Sinai were to be in Saudi Arabia, Mount Sinai was said to be far from the Holy Land where the temple was built. Also, the guy that claimed to have found it was Ron Wyatt. Not the most trustworthy "scientist"!

Answer 3

The Wall - an outer wall of the Temple- is still standing, and there is no serious archaeologist who doubts that it is the Temple wall. Excavations of tunnels under the wall are also remarkable - you can take a tour of them today - which line up exactly with descriptions of the ground level entryways (the current ground level is at least 15 feet above the original floor, due to centuries of building.



The fact is that any excavating around the al aqsa mosque is highly difficult to do - there is a tunnel under the Temple Mount that is in danger of collapsing if it is not shored up, and an old walkway that has collapsed and is being rebuilt (again, for safety reasons), and both projects have sparked riots from the Muslim community, who are suspicious that Israel is using the work as a subterfuge to destroy the mosque. Regardless of the fact that if it was allowed to collapse, Israel would be blamed with undermining the structure. Only Muslims are politically able to oversee an excavation where it would matter, and it is in their best interests to pretend there were never Jews in Jerusalem at all - and so they do.

Answer 4

At 907 years after Moses death, 420 years after Solomon's temple and 391 years after Solomon died, the Promised Land is desolate, all are captive to Babylon yr 3460 and 606 BC and Matt.1:1-17; 14 generations to Christ born. 2Ki.25:8,27-30; 2Chr.36:20-23; Jer.52:31-34; Eze.1:2; Jehoiachin is lineage to Joseph the husband of Mary, Mary is lineage of Nathan, David's son, Mary is mother of Jesus. Yr 3530, 536 before Christ Ezra 1:1-13; Dan.10:1; Cyrus gives decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. Herod has spent 46 years to restore the temple that Jesus did visit during his first coming. He ascended yr 33, that temple was destroyed yr 70, and there may not have been left one trace of it as to the prophecy of Jesus.

Answer 5

I recently read a very interesting book which suggested that the Holy Land is actually in Saudi Arabia, not Israel. I had previously read one where a guy snuck into Saudi Arabia and found what he believed to be the real Mt. Sinai...with altars and the 12 memory stones at the base and everything.



The Saudis don't let people go around exploring things, unfortunately...but it would be interesting if it were possible.



Of course, now I can't remember the name of the book, dangit.

Answer 6

I've never really considered it or researched it. The site is also very controlled, which does not make it any easier.



There have been ground penetrating radar (I think, this is a faint memory from a "naked archaeologist" episode) or similar that seems to indicate a structure was there, but that could have been Herod's temple.

Answer 7

from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/





The crowning achievement of King Solomon's reign was the erection of a magnificent Temple (Beit ha-Midkash) in Jerusalem. His father, King David, had wanted to build a great Temple for God a generation earlier, as a permanent resting place for the Ark containing the Ten Commandments.



A divine edict, however, had forbidden him from doing so. "You will not build a house for My name," God said to him, "for you are a man of battles and have shed blood" (I Chronicles 28:3).



The Bible's description of Solomon's Temple suggests that the inside ceiling was was 180 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 50 feet high. The highest point on the Temple that King Solomon built was actually 120 cubits tall (about 20 stories or about 207 feet). According to the Tanach (II Chronicles):



3:3 The length by cubits after the ancient measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.



3:4 And the porch that was before the house, the length of it, according to the breadth of the house, was twenty cubits, and the height a hundred and twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold.



He spares no expense in the building's creation. He orders vast quantities of cedar from King Hiram of Tyre (I Kings 5:20­25), has huge blocks of the choicest stone quarried, and commands that the building's foundation be laid with hewn stone. To complete the massive project, he imposes forced labor on all his subjects, drafting people for work shifts lasting a month at a time. Some 3,300 officials are appointed to oversee the Temple's erection (5:27­30). Solomon assumes such heavy debts in building the Temple that he is forced to pay off King Hiram with twenty towns in the Galilee (I Kings 9:11).



When the Temple is completed, Solomon inaugurates it with prayer and sacrifice, and invites non­Jews to come and pray there. He urges God to pay particular heed to their prayers: "Thus all the peoples of the earth will know Your name and revere You, as does Your people Israel; and they will recognize that Your name is attached to this House that I have built" (I Kings 8:43).



Until the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians some four hundred years later, in 586 B.C.E., sacrifice was the predominant mode of divine service there. Seventy years later, a second Temple was built on the same site, and sacrifices again resumed. During the first century B.C.E., Herod greatly enlarged and expanded this Temple. The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E., after the failure of the Great Revolt.





As glorious and elaborate as the Temple was, its most important room contained almost no furniture at all. Known as the Holy of Holies (Kodesh Kodashim), it housed the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, the tablets disappeared when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple, and during the Second Temple era, the Holy of Holies was a small, entirely bare room. Only once a year, on Yom Kippur, the High Priest would enter this room and pray to God on Israel's behalf. A remarkable monologue by a Hasidic rabbi in the Yiddish play The Dybbuk conveys a sense of what the Jewish throngs worshiping at the Temple must have experienced during this ceremony:



God's world is great and holy. The holiest land in the world is the land of Israel. In the land of Israel the holiest city is Jerusalem. In Jerusalem the holiest place was the Temple, and in the Temple the holiest spot was the Holy of Holies.... There are seventy peoples in the world. The holiest among these is the people of Israel. The holiest of the people of Israel is the tribe of Levi. In the tribe of Levi the holiest are the priests. Among the priests, the holiest was the High Priest.... There are 354 days in the [lunar] year. Among these, the holidays are holy. Higher than these is the holiness of the Sabbath. Among Sabbaths, the holiest is the Day of Atonement, the Sabbath of Sabbaths.... There are seventy languages in the world. The holiest is Hebrew. Holier than all else in this language is the holy Torah, and in the Torah the holiest part is the Ten Commandments. In the Ten Commandments the holiest of all words is the name of God.... And once during the year, at a certain hour, these four supreme sanctities of the world were joined with one another. That was on the Day of Atonement, when the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies and there utter the name of God. And because this hour was beyond measure holy and awesome, it was the time of utmost peril not only for the High Priest but for the whole of Israel. For if in this hour there had, God forbid, entered the mind of the High Priest a false or sinful thought, the entire world would have been destroyed.



To this day, traditional Jews pray three times a day for the Temple's restoration. During the centuries the Muslims controlled Palestine, two mosques were built on the site of the Jewish Temple. (This was no coincidence; it is a common Islamic custom to build mosques on the sites of other people's holy places.) Since any attempt to level these mosques would lead to an international Muslim holy war (jihad) against Israel, the Temple cannot be rebuilt in the foreseeable future.





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Source: Joseph Telushkin. Jewish Literacy. NY: William Morrow and Co., 1991. Reprinted by permission of the author.









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- what's with all the thumbs down?

Answer 8

no there isnt , and proof that there isnt is that the aqsa mosque and all the islamic buildings are still there , u think the jews are gonna go digging if there was nothing there , they would be humiliated, and i dont think thier worried about the arabs feelings ,if it were there they would've knocked that stuff down in 1948.

Answer 9

Yes,

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071023-jerusalem-artifacts.html

http://www.baptiststandard.com/2003/2_3/pages/tablet.html

Answer 10

No, there isn't.



They found the remains of something in 2007 that they tried to relate to it, but it didn't fit the story at all, so they gave up trying to force that story on it.

Answer 11

Yes, but the evidence is being destroyed

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57445



http://www.topnews.in/first-evidence-human-activity-unearthed-jerusalem-s-solomon-temple-24334

Answer 12

nope--no evidence at all--turns out the one piece some believers had that supposedly did--was procurred by the same guy that had perpetrated a couple other archeological frauds.

Answer 13

not a 100% sure- but u need to change ur avatar *pic* coz it's distracting!

Answer 14

Yes but they have to have permission from the Arabs to build and dig i believe it will happen

Answer 15

Only a little thing called the "Wailing Wall", which is the still standing foundation of the Temple. Millions of people visit it annually.

Answer 16

"I've been to the one in Jerusalem myself, in the year 1994."



"There is even the one still there, in Beirut, Lebanon."

Answer 17

No

Answer 18

heh heh, you said "hard"

Answer 19

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.



Lo, sons are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.



(Psalm 127. A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.)







Kings Come to Ancient Israel

After the conquest of the land and the death of that great leader Joshua, the tribes of Israel settled into the chaotic, disjointed, and disorganized period described in the Book of Judges. This whole time period of nearly four centuries was characterized by the repeated descriptive phrase, "In those days there was no king in the land, everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (Judges 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25) Failure to drive out and exterminate the corrupting Canaanites who lived previously in the land caused these peoples to grow back like poisonous weeds until they oppressed and harassed Israel.



During this time God graciously raised up "judges" (shophetim) who reversed the status quo for a season by calling on God and rally the people around the One who had chosen them and commissioned them to occupy the land.



Moral and spiritual conditions were very low at Shiloh when the prophet Samuel was born. The Levitical priesthood under Eli was about to be disqualified in the deaths of Eli's disreputable sons Hophni and Phinehas. Although God had desired to rule Israel as their invisible Monarch and Lord, the people clamored for a national champion to rule them:





Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and carne to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, "Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint for us a king to govern us like all the nations." But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to govern us." And Samuel prayed to the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel, "Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds which they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, hearken to their voice; only, you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them."



So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking a king from him. He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots - and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your menservants and maidservants, and the best of your cattle and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in that day."



But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel - and they said, "No! but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles." And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the LORD.



And the LORD said to Samuel, "Hearken to their voice, and make them a king. (1 Samuel 8:4-22)



The first king chosen, Saul of the tribe of Benjamin, a son of Kish - though a man of proven military ability - failed the tests God gave him and was soon disqualified (1 Samuel 15) leaving the newly formed "monarchy" in a state of civil war.



Young David, a Bethlehemite shepherd lad from the tribe of Judah was then chosen by God. As everyone knows, he proved by his wise choices to be a man "after God's own heart." As a great military strategist David united the tribes and extended the national boundaries so that in his time Israel enjoyed a greater fraction of the land promised to Abraham than has ever since been the case.



David ruled as king for seven years and Hebron, then established his throne in Jerusalem after overcoming the ancient Jebusite (Canaanite) community there. His reign continued there in Jerusalem for the next 32 years. Secure on his throne and dwelling in a magnificent palace of cedar and stone, David began to be concerned that he, the visible king, dwelled in a magnificent house, but the invisible King of kings still dwelt in an aging temporary tent, the Tabernacle of Moses.



At first the prophet Nathan gave David approval to construct a temple, but the following night God intervened. Speaking to Nathan in a dream God laid out for David an amazing covenant whose promises continue to this present day. God committed himself to establishing the house of David forever, to a specific land and people (Israel), and to a temple (see 2 Samuel 7). Messiah, in fact, would be one of David's sons.



David, a man of war, was not, however, to build the First Temple. That task was given to his son Solomon, although David drew up the plans.



The fact that other nations had temples and Israel did not is not the reason The First Temple was to be built. The Temple was to be a memorial to Israel to turn her heart away from the idols of the surrounding nations. The Temple would provide them for an incentive not to practice the same evil things as the Canaanites.



After the Temple was built, the Tabernacle was dismantled. It may have been stored in a room under the Temple Mount. It is quite possible it is still there to this day, as many rabbis and authorities in Jerusalem believe.





Araunah's Threshing Floor

David was by no means a perfect king. He had a number of wives and his marriages were apparently nothing to boast about. His grievous sin of murder and adultery in the case of Bathsheba brought war in David's household for the rest of his days. Yet when confronted with his sin David showed contrition and repentance (Psalms 32, 51 for instance).



Late in his reign David carelessly chose to take a census of the army acting against the advice of General Joab and other army leaders. The Lord was provoked to great anger at David who evidently had forgotten that the strength of Israel was in her God and not in the number of her soldiers or skill in battle. Confronted with the seriousness of his poor judgment by the prophet Gad, David was given three choices by God as to the consequences that were to follow this serious mistake on the part of the king. The three choices given him were (1) three years of famine, (3) three years of devastation by Israel's foes, or (3) of three days of destruction (pestilence) wrought by The Angel of the Lord, (see 1 Chr. 21, 2 Sam 24 for the accounts).



Knowing that God was merciful, David asked God to choose. The result was three terrible days of pestilence from the Angel of the Lord. Jerusalem was spared at the last minute when David cried out for mercy--the sin was his and not that of the people--they were but sheep.



It was at this time, when the hand of the Angel of the Lord was stayed, that David was told by Gad to erect an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah (Ornan) the Jebusite. The location was on wind-swept Mount Moriah. The site is the place where one thousand years earlier God had stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac.





And Gad came that day to David and said to him, "Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite." . . . And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel. (2 Samuel 24: 15,1 6, 18, 25).



Plans and Preparations for the Temple

David's role, and careful attention to all the details, plans and preparation for the temple are recorded for us in First Chronicles Chapter 22:





David commanded to gather together the aliens who were in the land of Israel, and he set stonecutters to prepare dressed stones for building the house of God. David also provided great stores of iron for nails for the doors of the gates and for clamps, as well as bronze in quantities beyond weighing, and cedar timbers without number - for the Sidonians and Tyrians brought great quantities of cedar to David. For David said, "Solomon my son is young and inexperienced, and the house that is to be built for the LORD must be exceedingly magnificent, of fame and glory throughout all lands; I will therefore make preparation for it." So David provided materials in great quantity before his death.



Then he called for Solomon his son, and charged him to build a house for the LORD, the God of Israel. David said to Solomon,



"My son, I had it in my heart to build a house to the name of the LORD my God. But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me upon the earth. Behold, a son shall be born to you; he shall be a man of peace. I will give him peace f