PART III The Preparations for the Last Days Temple This is the statute of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel that they may bring you an unblemished red heifer in which is no defect, and on which a yoke has never been placed. Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity; it is purification from sin." —Numbers 19:2,9 "If the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your con- science from dead works to serve the living God?" —Hebrews 9:13-14 CHAPTER 15 Searching for the Sacred Site Preparing a Place for the Last Days Temple Once the site for the Miqdash [“Sanctuary”] was fixed in the days of Shemuel [“Samuel”] and King David,it is immutable.All that remains to do at a time such as the present is to rebuild the physical structure,and reinstitute the Temple Service.… (Mishneh Torah, Beth Ha’behira 1:3, 4) All these theories only do damage…because then the Arabs can say,“You your- selves are arguing about it.The Temple wasn’t even on the Temple Mount.” —Dan Bahat, Consulting Archaeologist, Western Wall Tunnel excavation 327 esus said,“Upon this rock I will build My church…”(Matthew 16:18).Ever since He stated those words,“the church” has been debating what “rock” Jesus Jwas referring to.In a similar way the Temple was once built on a rock,the top of Mount Moriah, but exactly what “rock” that was is being vigorously debated by Jewish researchers, rabbis, and archaeologists. As Rabbi Reznick puts it, “The Dome of the Rock is a shrine built to protect the treasure within—the rock.But what,exactly,is that rock?”1 Answering this,and a host of related questions,has made the search for the location of the ancient Temple the most controversial subject engaging students of the Temple today.It is considered a top priority,for if the prophecy concerning the rebuilding of the Temple is to be fulfilled by the efforts of Israeli Jews,then the exact spot of the sacred site must be determined. Rabbi Nahman Kahane of the Young Israel Synagogue and head of the Insti- tute for Talmudic Commentaries contends that the lack of certainty in identi- fying the proper location is one of the major obstacles to rebuilding today:“We have to know where the original place of the altar was. Since no one knows where the altar was,no one is going anywhere on the Temple now.…The Temple now…is off limits to everybody. All of the different opinions…all of the dis- crepancies…surround only one question: Where is the place of the altar? That’s the whole problem.” This problem, facing all who attempt to investigate the original location of the Temple,is caused by a lack of sufficient,objective,mate- rial evidence.However, if the Jews gained sovereignty over the Temple Mount in 1967, and consider this of utmost importance, then why are they unable to verify the exact location? To understand this, we need to consider the present- day situation concerning the Temple Mount. The Problems at Present When the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile they were able to rebuild the Temple not only because they had access to the site, but because significant ruins remained and there were many people still alive who remembered the locations of the buildings of the former Temple. More important, as the Talmud notes, they were able to excavate and expose the foundations of the previous structures so as to know exactly where to rebuild (see Mishne Torah, Beth Ha’behira 1:4). However, no archaeological remains of Solomon’s or Zerub- babel’s Temples are known to have survived Herod’s extensive rebuilding pro- gram,2 and all the actual structures connected with the Herodian Temple itself appear to have been completely erased by the Roman destruction of a.d. 70 and subsequent attempts to further desolate the area (see chapter 5). So apart from 328 Searching for the Sacred Site 329 deductions that can be made from the extant surface structures of the Second Temple period, such as walls, stairs, and underground structures such as tun- nels and cisterns,we are dependent upon biblical and extrabiblical descriptions of the building procedures (both Israeli and comparative regional temples),3 topographical details,and the ceremonial ritual.4 Even then,it has been difficult to pinpoint the location of this place. The Temple Mount platform, built to support the Temple and its courts, has been preserved down through the centuries. While this has helped to limit the area of the search, it is impossible to resolve the matter until there can be more definite archaeological confirmation. Hoever, access to the site for archaeolog- ical excavation or even the use of non-invasive high-tech devices that could reveal underground structures is firmly prohibited.The reasons for this restric- tion fall into two categories: political and religious. Political Problems The Islamic occupation of the entire 35-acre Temple Mount platform (called by Muslims Haram es-Sharif—“the Noble Enclosure”) for most of the past 1,360-plus years has forced Israel to make a political concession of this site for the prospect of peace. The Islamic Wakf,the governing authority of the Temple Mount since 1967, prevents any incursion whatsoever onto the premises regarded as strictly for Muslims. If prayer at this site by non-Muslims is fer- vently fought against, how much more would excavations in search of a rival holy site be prohibited! The Wakf has consistently stated that the only purpose for Israeli archaeological excavations is to destroy the sacred structures of Islam in order to rebuild the Jewish Temple. However, most Israeli archaeologists are secular and have no religious agenda for building a Temple.What’s more, Mus- lims have no interest in any archaeological discoveries related to the Temple Mount because they have continually denied that the site has any connection with the Jewish people or their ancient Temples. They find the archaeological evidence around the site unconvincing because they interpret the data in con- formity with their preconception that nothing Jewish is there. For example, in summarizing the Israeli excavations from 1968–1978 at the southwestern and southern walls of the Temple Mount and the excavation of the Western Wall Tunnel begun in the early 1980s, Adnan Husseini, Executive Director of the Islamic Wakf, stated: “They [Israeli archaeologists] have done 4 to 5 attacks on the mosque from their diggings under it. What they found under the Haram [Temple Mount] is 90% Islamic and 10% pre-Islamic. Now they are digging a 330 THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE LAST DAYS TEMPLE long tunnel [the Western Wall Tunnel] along the wall [of the Al-Aqsa com- pound] under the Moslem Quarter.Already seven buildings owned by Moslems have collapsed due to these diggings.”5 This same authority, along with Yasser Arafat, accused the Israeli govern- ment of actually attacking the mosques on the Temple Mount when it opened an exit to this Western Wall Tunnel in 1995. The investigations of former Jewish holy sites are interpreted by them as attempts to further a Zionist program to replace them on the Temple Mount.For this reason,the Israeli Protection of Holy Places Law supports their position,and makes it a crime to in any way desecrate or restrict access to the Muslim holy sites, which would certainly occur if archaeological excavation took place.For these reasons, no archaeological exca- vations have ever been, or are likely to be, conducted on the Temple Mount. At the same time, archaeological excavations are the only way anyone can deci- sively resolve the question of the Temple’s original location. Religious Problems As we have already seen in chapter 6, the Rabbinate has forbidden any Jew from setting foot on the ‘Azarah, the sacred precinct or enclosure of the ancient Temple. This was decided because it is held that the Ark of the Covenant, which is still believed to be attended by the divine presence, remains hidden some- where beneath the Holy of Holies. Since all Jews today are in a state of ritual defilement, to inadvertently tread on this area would violate the sanctity of the entire Temple Mount. Therefore, observant Jews refrain from even entering the Temple Mount for fear they might happen to tread upon the site of the Holy of Holies. Many of those who have done extensive research in connection with the Temple’s location would never transgress by actually going to the places they have proposed. For example, Orthodox Jew Tuvia Sagiv, though zealous for rightly identifying the site of the Temple, and even so bold as to say that the revered Western Wall was actually connected to Hadrian’s Temple of Jupiter, insists that Jews must remain below the Temple Mount until the Messiah comes. From this viewpoint, archaeologists, like tourists who daily defile the site, have no business on the Temple Mount, even if their efforts could unravel the mys- teries of the Temple’s location. Why Not Build Somewhere Else? Given these problems, many people often ask,“If the Jews want a Temple so badly,and the attempt to wrest the ancient site from the Arabs would provoke a Searching for the Sacred Site 331 war,why couldn’t they just build the Temple somewhere else in Jerusalem?”This may seem reasonable to those outside of Orthodox Judaism, but those within deem it absolutely necessary that the Third Temple be rebuilt exactly where the former two Temples stood.