Herod's temple in Jerusalem. These 3d videos of Herod's temple and Fort Antonia
were created to show the layout of the temple according to the old maps,
Jewish sources, Josephus and the ruins beneath and around the temple mount.
The temple was not located in the city of David nor where the Dome of the rock is now,
it was located on the threshing floor of king David on Ophel hill,
This hill is not at the peak of the mount where the Dome is, nor is it on in the city of David
where no threshing floor would be located because of the chaff blowing in the wind.
It was located on a hill halfway up the mountain called Ophel.
In this painting of Solomon's temple viewed from the Mount of Olives it has a lower
southern court on the Ophel outside the south wall of the temple mount of today.
The next is Herod's temple with its large lower court, containing the royal stoa,
also on the Ophel outside the south wall. Herod also built Fort Antonia north of the temple.
The fort overlooked the temple and the temple overlooked the city, according to Josephus.
Herod's temple complex was a furlong by a furlong which is 600 by 600 feet.
Solomon's porch was built on the east side of it and it is still on the maps
today from the 1800s, known as triple gate. In minecraft i have tried to build everything
as close as i could to the actual dimensions given in the old sources concerning the temple and the
fort, which isn't easy to do with blocks and not being able to round anything off.
This is a view looking north from the city of David at the southern
gate. Remains of this gate and walls can still be seen in the Ophel ruins today.
We can see fort Antonia north of the temple. The temple only took up 600 feet west to east the
temple mount we see today is almost double that size and the temple complex including fort Antonia
was a furlong by two furlong 600 by 1200 feet. not near the size of the temple mount today.
As we swing around to view the temple from the mount of olives
we see the red heifer bridge and Solomon's porch and a very low east wall in the forefront.
This low wall was once a part of the city wall that Nehemiah rebuilt. Nehemiah did not rebuild
any of the temple walls! Over time this east wall was built higher, first by the Byzantines
and later by the Muslims, but this lower area during the temple times was used to corral
the thousands and thousands of sheep and cattle brought in for sacrifice on holy days. At the
northeast end of it there are three buildings which are still underground on the temple mount.
I'm going to hone in on these three buildings in this area
Those that claim Solomon's temple was built on the dome of the rock platform
also show on their maps that the women's court was built at ground level of the temple mount,
right over the top of these three buildings.
You can see Fort Antonia looming background. The first building is 44 feet high.
This is not possible
because Solomon's temple was built in 950 BC before Hezekiah built the city wall and
gate and the three buildings seen on Warren's map. How could these three buildings be built
under the woman's court after the women's court had already been built at least 250 years before
these buildings were built! Makes no sense at all and totally undoes the Dome of the Rock theory.
At the northeast corner are the old gates, An old east gate and sheep gate described by
Nehemiah. The ruins of the old gate are still below the so-called golden gate of today ,and
that's called the mikvid gate where the red heifer was brought in, and also
the cattle. Next on the north wall is the sheep gate. North of fort Antonia was a steep ravine
on the east and a man-made moat cut into the bedrock on the west. it was 200 feet by 50
feet deep. It cut the natural land bridge between the fort and the hill to the north of it in half.
The ravine and the ruins of the moat were excavated by sir Charles Warren
in the 1800s and are located on his maps. Josephus also refers to the moat in the
historical writings giving us further details. An attacking army would have to fill in the moat
to create flat land to attack from. Titus cut every tree around to fill in the moat and set up
his catapults. Once he was able to take the fort he could then take the temple and then the city.
The wall in the forefront was the starting place of the second city wall which
continued around the new section of the city.
next we'll see the 1st century street and at the end of it
are these two pillars. They mark the place where the 1st century street ends.
One would enter the street from the marketplace, which was lined on either side with pillars.
At this point the original western wall also ends. This is straight across
from the north end of the dome of the rock platform, as you can see in this diagram
The whole west side for the length of the temple mount didn't exist before Herod the Great.
it was a steep valley. Herod built the new west wall from the bottom of the valley up this added
around 130 feet to the width of the temple mount from east to west, but the southern part of the
west wall was built by his son and grandsons. The gates in the western wall were named after
the explorers in the 1800s the first one is Warren's the next Wilson's arch which continued
as a wall all the way around to Jerusalem next is Barclays gate and the last one is Robinson's arch,
with its stepped bridge. Josephus called them lower and upper gates
The lower court was the last court to be enlarged. It was built by Herod's grandson and finished
around 66 AD This contained the royal stoa, which was like a covered mall. It was 600 feet in length
and 105 feet wide gentiles were allowed in the stoa, also called the court of the gentiles.
The temple was laid even to the ground in 70 AD. All that remained
was the retaining walls which couldn't be pushed over because they were below
ground level we can determine the ground level of the mount as it was in 70 AD
by the huge Herodian stones in the western wall and the lowest stones in the southern wall
please continue to the five part 3d series of Herod's temple as it would have been in 70 AD.
For more information, sources and maps, explaining this location
visit templemountlocation.com where you will find the links
to the videos for the location and also the 3d videos and gallery Thank you for listening