NEW TESTAMENT TIMES
the whole Royal Portico free for these purposes. A glance at the floor plan of the Library of Hadrian at Athens shows just what a chamber of hewn stones between the libraries in the temple might have looked like. Since the popular teaching was in Solomon's porch, it is not perhaps far-fetched to say that if there were two libraries, one Greek and one Hebrew and New Hebrew, that the latter was at the southeast corner, the former at the southwest, with the chamber of hewn stones, or, if not that, some other room which served as reading room, place of sitting, teaching or assembly hall, between. According to Middoth (v. 4 qt. HastDB) the Hall was in fact in the south porch and according to other passages was in the form of a great basilica, which would correspond well also with the standard Roman reading room. And then, if the library was not here where was it? And what was this portico used
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