Topography. 4. Topography. It is not disputed that the site of the temple lay within the great Haram platform (see Jerusalem), now a Moslem holy place, and it is generally agreed also that the south-west corner of that platform is the south-west corner of Herod's outer plateau, parts of the southern and western retaining walls being confidently ascribed by experts to his age. But if Herod's temple (excluding the Antonia) was only 600 feet square it can have occupied but a small part of the Haram area, which measures about 1500 feet from north to south and 922 feet along the south wall. Moreover, the highest part of the hill, where the Dome of the Rock now stands, must have been outside and north of the temple enclosure. But this affords no good reason to doubt the accuracy of Josephus's measurements in a matter in which his memory could hardly fail him, and where his tendency would be rather to exaggerate than to diminish. There is no evidence that the eastern wall of the Haram is as old as Herod, much less as old as Solomon for the supposed Phoenician letters found on stones belonging to it are not letters at all, and may be of any date.[1] Moreover, there are various evidences of later building about the east wall of the Haram; the so-called Golden Gate is certainly a later construction, and Justinian's church rested on new substructures to the south and east (Procopius, De ^Ed., v. 6), which implies an extension eastward of the old platform. And this is confirmed by the fact that in the neighbourhood of the south-east angle the platform does not rest on solid substructures such as Josephus speaks of, but on the vaults known as Solomon's stables. Again, though the temple of Solomon lay above the town, there is no evidence that it was on the very top of the hill; on the contrary, buildings of the dimensions given in 1 Kings might have been placed on the hill-top without the need for such great substructures as are spoken of in 1 Kings vii. 10; and we have seen in speaking of the courts of the first temple that the ground appears to have risen to the north, the upper court being on that side.[2]
If we accept the measurements of Josephus we have to break with mediaeval tradition, both Moslem and Christian, which associates the Sakhra or rock under the dome on the top of the hill with the sacred site of the Jews. So much weight has been laid on this circumstance by writers of eminence that it is necessary here to go into some particulars and show that earlier tradition goes quite the other way. It is a Talmudic legend that in the Holy of Holies the place of the lost ark was taken by a stone called the "foundation stone." Further this stone was identified with Jacob's stone at Bethel (comp. Rashi on Gen. xxviii. and Breithaupt's notes). Both Mohammedans and Christians transferred these legends to the Sakhra, which the former accordingly venerated as "a gate of heaven" (Ibn Abd Eabbih, Ikd, iii. 369). Mohammedan sources enable us to trace back this identification to the Moslem Jew Wahb ibn Monabbih, who enriched Islam with so many Jewish fables and died a century after Jerusalem was taken by the Arabs (Tabari, i. 571 sq.; Ibn al-Fakih, p. 97 sq.). Eutychius, on the other hand, who is the first Christian writer to apply the Jewish legend to the Moslem Sakhra, avers that the tradition was communicated to Omar by the Christian patriarch Sophronius on the taking of Jerusalem, and guided the caliph in the choice of a site for his mosque. Eutychius wrote nearly three hundred years after this event; and, though it is known from earlier authorities (Arculphus, Theophanes) that the first Moslem mosque was built on what was pointed out as the site of the temple, it is equally certain, and was known to Eutychius himself, that that mosque lay to the south of the Sakhra (Eutychius, ii. 289), which was not embraced in the precincts of the Moslem sanctuary till the reign of Abd al-Malik, who built the dome, as an inscription with the date 691 still testifies (Ibid., p. 365). This is confirmed by the excellent Arabian historian Ibu Wadih (ii. 311). Abd al-Malik's motive was political, as both historians attest; Mecca being in the hands of a rival, he resolved to set up another place of pilgrimage to supplant the Kaaba, and recommended it to the faithful as the point from which the Prophet made his miraculous ascent from Jerusalem to heaven (Ibn Wadih, ut supra). There is nothing of the Jewish legend here; that, as we have seen, was supplied by Wahb in the next generation, and on his foundation there grew up a mass of other fables for which it is enough to refer to Ibn al-Fakih, p. 93 sq. From all this it may be taken as certain that at the time of Omar it was towards the south-west angle of the Haram, on the site of the original mosque, that tradition supposed the temple to have stood; indeed Eutychius is guilty of self-contradiction when he first says that Sophronius indicated the Sakhra to Omar as the site on which to build his mosque, and then adds that it was not part of the Moslem sanctuary till a generation later. Finally, the extension of the Haram to the north so as to bring the Dome of the Rock into the centre of the sacred area was the work of Abd al-Malik's son Walid (Eutychius, ii. 373).
Thus far we have met with nothing but confirmation of Josephus's measurements and the site they imply; but there are other topographical indications which supply confirmation more decisive. And first let us compare what is related of the outer gates of Herod's temple with existing remains. On the north was the gate Tadi of the Mishnah, which Josephus mentions only incidentally. This, like the gate Shushan on the east, which he does not mention at all, must have been of minor importance; the chief accesses were necessarily from the lower city to the south and the upper city to the west beyond the Tyropœon valley. The south wall, says Josephus, had gates in the middle (Ant., xv. 11, 5). The Mishnah names them the two gates of Huldah, which may mean "tunnel (weasel-hole) gates." There is a double gate in the substructure of the south wall, 350 feet from the south-west angle, and from it a double tunnel leads up to the platform. This double gate exactly fits Josephus's description. There is also a triple gate, 600 feet from the south-west angle, which those who suppose the wall to have been more than 600 feet long regard as the second Huldah gate. But this view does not give us two gates in the middle of the wall, especially as the old wall cannot have enclosed Solomon's stables. In the west side the Mishnah places one gate (Kiponus), while Josephus recognizes four. But these accounts are at once reconciled if we accept Josephus's measurements. For of his four gates the most southerly is necessarily the one which opened on a flight of steps descending and then reascending across the Tyropœon to the upper city opposite. Now at the south-west corner of the platform there are still remains of a great arch (Robinson's arch), which must have belonged to a bridge connecting the upper city with the south portico of the temple. Thus one of the four gates is fixed. The second gate led to Herod's palace (at the extreme north of the upper city) by means of an embankment crossing the Tyropœon (Ant., xv. 11, 5). Comparing B. /., ii. 16, 3, vi. 6, 2, and v. 4, 2, we see that the embankment also carried the city wall (the so-called first wall). Of this approach there are remains at Wilson's arch, 600 feet north of Robinson's arch[3]; thus, if Josephus's measurements are correct, the two western accesses were at the extreme ends of the western portico. Josephus's other two gates led to the suburbs outside the first wall, and therefore lay north of Wilson's arch, and were not gates of the temple enclosure proper but of the Antonia, which Josephus habitually reckons as part of the outer temple.[4] Of them the Mishnah would naturally take no account, and as naturally it would neglect the gate that led to the palace as being not a public entrance. But further,
- ↑ They are represented in the Recovery of Jerusalem (p. 143) and in the Atlas of plates of Jerusalem published by the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- ↑ That the temple was built on the threshing-floor of Oman is naturally assumed by the Chronicler, who likes to minimize the number of old Hebrew sanctuaries; but the old history knows nothing of a consecration of the site before the ark was placed there.
- ↑ The adjoining remains of ancient buildings unquestionably mark the site of the council hall where the Sanhedrim met, and which was close to the first wall and the temple but outside the latter (B. J., v. 4, § 2; vi. 6, § 3).
- ↑ One of the suburban gates may be Warren's gate, in the substructures of the Antonia wall, about 170 feet north of Wilson's arch. The other is sometimes identified with Barclay's gate between Wilson's arch and Robinson's arch. But this would not lead into the suburb.
