Showing posts with label Jerusalem Temple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jerusalem Temple. Show all posts

Tuesday 8 January 2013

2,750-year-old temple near Jerusalem uncovered

During excavations at the Tel Motza archaeological site, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) west of Jerusalem, during preparations for work on a new section of Israeli's Highway 1, Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,750-year-old temple near Jerusalem, along with pottery and clay figurines that suggest the site was the home base for a ritual cult.

The excavation's directors say the Tel Motza temple must have been active in an era "prior to the religious reforms throughout the kingdom at the end of the monarchic period (at the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah), which abolished all ritual sites, concentrating ritual practices solely at the Temple in Jerusalem."

Tel Motza was thought to be associated with the ancient settlement called "Mozah" in the Book of Joshua. During previous work, archaeologists uncovered a large structure with storehouses and a number of silos. They said that structure might have served as a storage facility for Jerusalem's grain supplies.

The items discovered, near an altar of a temple, include ritual pottery vessels, fragments of chalices and figurines of animals.



Skyview / IAA
An overhead view shows the Tel Motza archaeological site.

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Monday 10 December 2012

Muslim world denies the very existence of the two Jewish Temples

On the 25th day of the lunar month of Kislev (Dec. 8), Jews around the world will celebrate the eight-day holiday of Hanukah. Hanukah commemorates the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple in the second century BCE by Jewish freedom fighters (the Maccabees) who resisted the Macedonian regime in Damascus. The regime had violently attempted to enforce its polytheistic Hellenistic religion on the inhabitants of Judea — a people who held the then extraordinary belief in the one invisible God of all humankind and whose temple was in Jerusalem.
The story is told in great detail in the Book of Maccabees I and II, which, originally written in Hebrew, now survives in Greek and Latin versions in the Christian Bible. The Jews have kept the story alive through the Hanukah festival itself and the retention of the scroll of Hanukah (the Megillat Antiochus).

Wikimedia Commons

For over a decade the Muslim authorities (the Waqf) who now control the Temple Mount have been despoiling its archaeology through illegal excavations and site destruction according to Israel Matzav. Nevertheless, the physical evidence that they have discarded, and which Israeli archaeologists pore over like forensic scientists at a crime scene, shows signs of the temple’s existence, the most recent being coins minted by the Hasmonean rulers of Judea who were the royal and priestly heirs of the Maccabees, as well as coins minted during the first Jewish revolt against the Romans in 70 AD. It was these pagan conquerors who burnt the temple and brought its sacred treasure back to Rome, and whose golden menorah was beautifully reproduced on the Arch of Titus. A three-dimensional copy of this menorah now stands in front of the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, walking distance from where the original once stood, 2,000 years earlier.

Continue reading:
 Muslim Temple denial continues

Geoffrey Clarfield: Muslims in denial about the existence of the Jewish temple

 

Tuesday 27 October 2009

Uncovering the Foundations of Faith

The Jewish people have been returning to their ancient homeland for over a century now and their modern nation of Israel came into being in 1948. Jewish control of Jerusalem came as a result of the 1967 Six-Days war - as it happens, just 2,300 years after the goat power of Daniel 8:5-7 overpowered the Persian ram.

Now when
a new area will be added underneath at the famous Western Wall, at the level at which worshippers at the ancient Temple stood in the past, you can wonder how exposing the foundations of the temple, even just the retaining wall of the temple platform, can connect us to the prophecy of Daniel (chapter 8:11-14) which foretold of the Roman power taking away the daily sacrifice, and "casting down" the place of the sanctuary, holy place, or temple.

Do we
we see the evidence of the destruction wrought by the Roman power laid out for the world to view? And are we reminded of the fact that the Bible has decreed that this destroyed place of worship shall be both avenged and restored?

Both Daniel and Jesus say that this destruction would be a temporary matter. Daniel indicates that the scattering power would eventually be broken, and the evening-morning sacrifice restored. Jesus says "until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."


13  Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion; For it is time to have pity upon her, Yea, the set time is come. 14  For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, And have pity upon her dust. 15  So the nations shall fear the name of Jehovah, And all the kings of the earth thy glory. 16  For Jehovah hath built up Zion; He hath appeared in his glory. 17  He hath regarded the prayer of the destitute, And hath not despised their prayer. 18  This shall be written for the generation to come; And a people which shall be created shall praise {1} Jehovah. {1) Heb Jah}” (Psalms 102:13-18 ASV)

Read more about it in:

Uncovering the Foundations of Faith!