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The Temple of Solomon in Iron Age Context

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The Temple of Solomon in Iron Age Context religions Article The Temple of Solomon in Iron Age Context Yosef Garfinkel * and Madeleine Mumcuoglu Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 9190501 Jerusalem, Israel; [email protected] * Correspondence: garfi[email protected] Received: 24 February 2019; Accepted: 13 March 2019; Published: 15 March 2019 Abstract: 1 Kings preserves a long and detailed description of the construction of a temple and palace in Jerusalem by King Solomon in the 10th century BCE. Previous generations of scholars accepted this description as an authentic account. Accordingly, much literature on this text and the relevant archeological discoveries has accumulated. Since the 1980s, skeptical approaches to the early part of the Kingdom of Judah, the biblical text, and the archaeological record have been expressed. Some scholars doubt whether any temple at all was constructed in Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE. In the last few years, the picture has been changed by new discoveries from two Judean sites: a building model of the early 10th century BCE from Khirbet Qeiyafa and an actual temple building of the 9th century BCE from Motza. In this article, we present the history of research, some aspects of the biblical text and the contribution of the new discoveries. These enable us to place in context both the biblical text and the building it describes. Keywords: Solomon’s Temple; Khirbet Qeiyafa; Motza 1. Introduction 1 Kings preserves a long and detailed description of the construction of a temple and palace in Jerusalem by King Solomon in the 10th century BCE. The description of the palace is rather short, while the description of the temple is much longer. The palace, however, was much bigger and its construction required nearly twice the time needed to build the temple (13 years vs. 7). This indicates that, for the writer of the biblical text, the smaller temple was far more important than the bigger palace. In this way, three long chapters provide the reader with varied information about the form of the temple, the size of the different rooms, its construction materials, its decoration, its major cultic paraphernalia, and its dedication ceremony. As no archaeological excavations have been conducted on the site of the temple, there are no direct data relating to this building. All the research carried out on this topic is based on the analysis of the biblical text and on relevant archaeological discoveries. Solomon’s Temple attracts much attention and the relevant literature on the subject is vast. We will relate here only to the major contributions made by the modern research. Earlier attempts include mainly artistic representations, from the Dura Europos synagogue of the third century CE to later artists, such as Raphael Sanzio, Heinrich Bünting, Charles Chipiez, and Georges Perrot (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2016, pp. 132–45). Biblical scholars have analyzed the text from the aspects of philology (see, for example, Stade 1887; Benzinger 1899; Möhlenbrink 1932; Busink 1970; Cogan 2001; Lemaire 2011; Galil 2012) and literary criticism (Hurowitz 1992, 2010). Archaeologists have contributed to the subject by adding data derived from various temples unearthed in the Levant (Watzinger 1933; Parrot 1954; Vincent 1956; Yadin 1956; Yeivin 1968; Aharoni 1973; Davey 1980; Margueron 1981; Fritz 1987; Meyers 1992; Zwickel 1999; Herzog 2000; Monson 2006; King and Stager 2001; Keel et al. 2004; Smith 2006; Ussishkin 2009). What is the origin of the biblical text describing the construction of the temple? Opinions on the subject are varied. Until the rise of the “minimalist” theories, scholars accepted that the description Religions 2019, 10, 198; doi:10.3390/rel10030198 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Religions 2019, 10, 198 2 of 17 dated from the period of the temple’s construction, that is, from the time of Solomon, and that it had been kept in an archive in Jerusalem and at some point inserted into the biblical text (Montgomery 1934). Some scholars still hold this opinion today (Galil 2012). A literary analysis of the biblical description by Hurowitz(1992, 2010) led to a different dating of the text. He posited that this genre of writing, which describes in great detail and in a specific order the construction of a public building, originates in a literary style known from texts written in the Assyrian Empire in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. Five main elements are found in both the Assyrian and the biblical descriptions: 1. The decision to build a temple (1 Kings 5:17–19). 2. The organization of the construction materials (1 Kings 5:20–26). Here we should include the rest of 1 Kings 5 (up to verse 32), which describes the levy of laborers who quarried the stones and prepared the timber used in the construction. 3. Description of the temple and the various cult objects it contained (1 Kings 6–7). 4. The dedication of the house to the god (1 Kings 8:1–11, 62–66). 5. The king’s prayer (1 Kings 8:12–61). Even if the literary design of these biblical passages was created under the influence of Assyrian literary traditions, however, this does not allow us to determine when the temple was constructed. It rather points to the possible period in which the current description was written or edited. Liverani, who accepts the tradition that the temple in Jerusalem was built at the time of King Solomon, believes that no historical description of this building was preserved. Rather, the description that appears in the Bible is imaginary and was composed in the Persian period (Liverani 2003, p. 329). According to Edelman(2012), there was no temple in Jerusalem at the time of King Solomon, and the biblical description is in fact an account of the temple built by the returnees to Zion at the end of the 6th century BCE. An even more extreme approach claims that neither a palace nor a temple was built in Jerusalem during the Iron Age, and therefore that there was no real building at all and we have here merely a “verbal icon” (McCormick 2002). It is interesting to follow the development of the research in the 20th century. On the one hand, modern scholarship has opened up a variety of new possibilities for understanding the descriptions of the temple. From the philological point of view, the text has been made clearer through the study of ancient Semitic languages such as Akkadian and Egyptian. Comparative research on manuscripts made it possible to identify scribal errors and distortions that have become embedded in the text. Archaeological excavations have uncovered similar temples that illuminate the cultural background shared with the temple in Jerusalem, such as the temples at Tell Tayinat in southern Turkey and at Ain Dara in northwestern Syria. Iconographic analysis of various artistic elements uncovered throughout the ancient Near East has clarified the form of various cult objects, such as mekhonot (stands) or cherubim (winged creatures). Scholars who believe that the tradition of the temple reflects historical reality have made great strides in understanding the biblical description. But on the other hand, the development of minimalist approaches in biblical research has undermined the realist understanding. Scholars of the minimalist school have argued that no temple at all was built in Jerusalem at the time of Solomon. According to the most extreme of these scholars, the description of the temple is entirely imaginary. Thus, an attempt has been made to remove the basis for legitimate study of the temple from an architectural or historical perspective and move all the attention to the literary and ideological levels (see discussions: Van Seters 1997; Smith 2006). Two recent discoveries in the Kingdom of Judah have changed the picture (Figure1). First, a building model dated to the 10th century BCE unearthed at Khirbet Qeiyafa in 2011 sheds light on some technical terms mentioned in the biblical text and enables us to overcome some of the difficulties (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013, 2016, 2018). Second, a temple dated to the 9th century BCE was uncovered in 2012 at Motza, 5 km west of Jerusalem (Kisilevitz 2015). These new finds clearly show that the architecture described in the biblical text existed in the same era and region. The new data bear out the historicity of the biblical text, even if it was rewritten and edited centuries after the actual construction of the building. Religions 2019, 10, 198 3 of 17 Religions 2019, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 3 of 17 Figure 1. The Kingdom of Judah and the location of sites mentioned in the text. 2. The Temple Structure 2. The Temple Structure The biblical text relates to three main aspects of the structure: its plan, its interior decoration and The biblical text relates to three main aspects of the structure: its plan, its interior decoration and its courtyard. Here, we relate only to the first aspect: the plan. Architecturally speaking, the structure its courtyard. Here, we relate only to the first aspect: the plan. Architecturally speaking, the structure included five different components: the pair of columns at the entrance (Jachin and Boaz), the Forecourt included five different components: the pair of columns at the entrance (Jachin and Boaz), the (Ulam), the Outer Sanctum (Hechal), the Holy of Holies (Devir), and the side chamber (yatsia sovev) Forecourt (Ulam), the Outer Sanctum (Hechal), the Holy of Holies (Devir), and the side chamber (yatsia (Figure2). The first modern scholar to deal with Solomon’s Temple was Bernhard Stade(1887). On sovev) (Figure 2). The first modern scholar to deal with Solomon’s Temple was Bernhard Stade (1887). the one hand, he delved deeply into the linguistics of the biblical text and the differences that appear On the one hand, he delved deeply into the linguistics of the biblical text and the differences that in the Septuagint.
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