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Tabernacle and temple
Herod’s temple
Begun about 20 BC · platform about 14 hectares · burned by Rome in AD 70
Herod the Great began rebuilding the temple in about 20 BC. A thousand priests were trained as masons, and the sanctuary was finished quickly, but work on the complex went on for decades: in John’s Gospel people say it “took forty-six years to build” (John 2:20), and it was completed only in the AD 60s. Herod enlarged the hilltop into a vast platform, about 480 by 300 meters, held up by massive retaining walls; the Western Wall in Jerusalem is part of one of them. The sanctuary, of white stone and gold, kept the old plan.
Around it lay courts at rising levels. The wide outer court, open to all, was lined with colonnades — on the east “Solomon’s Colonnade” (Acts 3:11), on the south the Royal Stoa — and there money changers and dove sellers had their tables. A low barrier with notices warned non-Jews not to go further, on pain of death; a complete Greek notice was found in 1871. Inside lay the courts of the Women, of Israel and of the Priests. In AD 70 the Roman army under Titus burned the temple, and the Arch of Titus in Rome shows its lampstand carried in triumph.
Key verses
“This temple took forty-six years to build,” the Jews replied, “and You are going to raise it up in three days?”As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Teacher, look at the magnificent stones and buildings!”When they arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves.As Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury, He watched the crowd putting money into it. And many rich people put in large amounts.While the man clung to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and ran to them in the walkway called Solomon’s Colonnade.crying out, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches everywhere against our people and against our law and against this place. Furthermore, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.” For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Temple: Herod’s Temple; Priests and Levites: The Priesthood in New Testament Times
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
