Chapter one

The Temple in Text, Imagery and Memory

Solomon’s Temple, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 bce, is described in the as having a rectilinear plan. When rebuilt by Zerubbabel in the sixth century bce, the Temple likewise had a rectilinear plan, as did its renewal, undertaken by Herod in the last decades of the first century bce. As early as the eighth century of the Common Era, however, a different shape for the Temple began to enter the visual repertoire: it appears in a number of illuminated manuscripts as a circular domed building. This shape is strikingly similar to that of the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim shrine on the Sacred Esplanade, an area that has been called the Temple Mount (Har haBayith) by Jews and the Noble Sanctuary (Haram al-Sharif ) by Muslims. One or more of the elements of this octagonal structure— with its exterior walls defined by arches, its parapet encompassing an ambulatory roof, and its lofty dome supported by a drum pierced with windows—can be found in various iconographic settings in Byzantine as well as in Western art, settings where it is supposed to “stand for” the Temple of conflated with the Temple of Herod. The depiction of this shrine as the ancient Temple continued into the early modern period. Starting in the sixteenth century, the image of the Dome of the Rock appears in Jewish illustrated scrolls and manuscripts and is labeled “Beit ha-Miqdash,” the Holy House, the common Hebrew name for the Temple. In Jewish arts and crafts the profile of the Dome of the Rock mor- phed into the Jewish Messianic Temple of the End of Days as well as the symbol of , and it became an apotropaic image protecting the Jewish home from evil. This heretofore unexplored iconography suggests a new reading of the imagery, one that points to an attitude of respect between Muslims and Jews in the Holy Land, an attitude all but forgotten in our day. The placing of the Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem is tradition- ally connected to ’s act of contrition after he displeased the Lord by taking a census (2 24). In a display of sinful pride, David had set about counting how many people “belonged” to his kingdom. When the numbers were in, David realized his iniquity in counting God’s people as his own, but the Lord had determined to punish the inhabitants of the 2 chapter one kingdom for David’s sin, and He sent a plague that destroyed many thou- sands. In an attempt to avert further deaths and suffering, David heeded the words of , one of his seers, and undertook a sacrifice of contrition. He bought a threshing floor from a Canaanite, set up an altar at that spot, and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. The Lord accepted the sacrifice: He stayed the sword of the angel who was threatening to inflict the people of Jerusalem itself with plague (2 Samuel 24:20–25). David’s vision of the Lord’s angel at that spot was apparently what sacralized it. The site of David’s altar became Jerusalem’s chief holy place and, ­according to the biblical tradition, the Temple was built upon it (2 Chronicles 3:1). That Temple, in three incarnations, would become the site for Jewish worship and sacrifice. When the Temple was destroyed a final time in 70 ce, Jews mourned there, even though the Roman and then the Christian rulers forbade their gathering at that place. A few decades after the Mus- lims gained control of Jerusalem, the site of the Temple was re-­sacralized, this time by the construction of a holy Muslim shrine. David was not destined to build the Temple there himself. The task was reserved for his son Solomon, though David set the foundations and prepared for the construction. The account in Chronicles tells us that David had received the plan of the Temple from the Lord “by the spirit” (1 Chronicles 28:12). So the plan of the Temple, its porch, its courtyards, its outer chambers and inner chambers and even the place for the —all that David had received from the Lord—the king gave to his son Solomon. According to the Bible, Solomon called upon King Hiram of Tyre to pro- vide materials and workmen for the building project (1 Kings 5:17; see also 1 Kings 7; 2 Chronicles 3). Those who wrote down the accounts tell us that Hiram sent cedars and cypress and those skilled at hewing wood. Eventu- ally stonemasons began cutting stone for the foundation. Solomon’s build- ers and Hiram’s builders, as well as artists skilled in casting and beating precious metals, worked on the Temple and its accoutrements for seven years. This Temple was to become the center of liturgical activity and sacrificial worship for the children of Israel. All the measurements of the Temple are given in 1 Kings 6. It is clear that it was rectilinear in plan. As mentioned, Solomon’s was the first of three Jewish sanctuaries on the site. In 587 bce the troops of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar besieged the city and carried off the treasures from the Temple, including, it seems, the Ark of the Covenant. Then, in about 586, Nebuchadnezzar’s armies brought the Temple to the ground and exiled a good part of the population to Babylonia. Only the poorest people on the land were left