Tell us a little about the history of the wall David,’ O’Connelly asked.
‘It depends whose version of history you want to hear!’ he replied laughing.
‘Well I don’t know very much about it so I can’t say.’
‘Well, let me see, if I start with the popular Jewish vision of the Wall’s history. The Jews and most Israeli’s believe this wall is a remnant of the wall of the second Temple built by King Herod the Great, called in Hebrew Ha'Mikdosh.
We don’t in fact call it the Wailing Wall, for us it is the Western Wall or in Hebrew Kotel ha-Ma'aravi. The only visible stones still left from those days are the bottom seven layers, but another seventeen layers are buried under the ground. You can see some of these huge stones where excavations have been made the Kotel Tunnels, and can be recognized them by the indented borders. The layers of stone above them are not from the original wall but were added many years later.’
‘Can we visit the tunnel?’
‘Only by prior appointment. A shul has been set up at the exact spot where it is believed the Kodesh Kodoshim or the Holy of Holies once stood.
‘A shul?’
‘That’s Yiddish for synagogue,’ explained Shlomo.
‘Oh.’
‘In the period between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan controlled the old city, Jews were not allowed to come and pray here. It was only when this part of the city was recaptured in 1967 during the Six Day War we were able to return here again. The old buildings facing the Wall were demolished for the plaza you can see today. So everyday there are thousands of visitors who come to pray at the wall, some complaining that this is nearest they can get to the site of the Temple, as the extreme conservatives dream of rebuilding of the third and Bet Ha'mikdosh, that’s the Temple.’
‘I thought there were three Temples?’
‘According to the Bible, the first Temple was built by King Solomon, the son of David in the 10th century BC. It was composed of successive courtyards, each one more holy than the next, with the innermost the Holy of Holies containing the Ark of the Covenant. It was destroyed by the Babylonians and the second Temple was built then Herod the Great rebuilt it, so you see there was in fact only two.’
‘Do you believe Solomon existed?’
‘The fact is that very little is known about Solomon, even his very existence is questioned by serious scholars,’ said Shlomo.
‘So the others are not serious.’
‘I didn’t mean that. There are Bible scholars who believe only the Bible holds the truth and there are those who seek other forms of evidence in archaeology.’
‘And you?’
‘I have an open mind. Besides the Bible, there is practically no evidence of either Solomon’s or David’s existence. A couple of inscriptions have been found referring to a ‘House of David,’ from a later period, which doesn’t really mean anything, how many people were called David?’
‘And the Kingdom of Israel?’
‘If you are speaking of Unified Kingdom not many archaeologists believe it was anything like as is described in the Book of Kings, stretching from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt. Biblical minimalists suggest that the Book of Kings is a myth invented hundreds of years after the time it was written, designed to reinforce the territorial claims the ruling power who fabricated the story. If the legend of David and Solomon has any truth they were probably nothing more than local tribal leaders and in 1000BC Jerusalem was a small unimportant town.’
‘Isn’t that a little blasphemous,’ said Laura smiling.
‘I’m a historian, not a rabbi. But that’s not the entire story! The Temple of Solomon, that is to say the first Temple is without doubt another legend, though most scholars don’t doubt the existence of the second Temple. Archaeological and recorded evidence points to the fact that by 715BC Jerusalem had become a prosperous capital ruling over a modest kingdom.’
‘So the Bible is just a myth?’
‘I’m sorry to say that concerning the first Temple it looks that way. Of course it’s always possible that new evidence may eventually be dug up.’
‘What about excavations today?’
‘From 1948 to 1967, during the Arab occupation of the Old City, access to the city by Jews was forbidden. Then after the 1967 Six Day War the first archaeological work started with diggings in the area south of the Temple Mount, which is now the archaeological park under the southern ramparts,’ he said pointing the way.
‘If we recall a little biblical history, the Temple Mount, called Mount Moriah by the Jews, is the spot, where according to the Bible, Abraham, obeying God's orders was to sacrifice his son Isaac, who following his father to the Mount asked, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham replied, God will provide for the sacrifice, as he built an altar on the rock and prepared to attach his son. At the last moment, the voice of God ordered Abraham to lower his knife. It’s also where Jacob dreamt of the ladder reaching to heaven. Therefore we can see why it was sacred to the Jews for about one thousand years.’
‘Until it was destroyed.’
‘Yes, in 70AD Titus, the son of Roman Emperor Vespasian, plundered and destroyed first the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, and then the Holy City. According to the written evidence of Josephus Flavius hundreds of thousands of Jews were slaughtered. The vast treasures of the Temple, accumulated over hundreds of years, including gold vessels and ritual objects, even the gold that covered the walls and doors of the Temple were looted.
To celebrate his victory over the Jews, the great Triumphal Arch of Titus was built in the Forum of Rome, where it still stands today. The carvings show Titus’s army carrying the treasures of Jerusalem into Rome, leading the procession are bearers carrying the huge solid gold Menorah as a symbol of the total subjugation of the Jews. Not only was the Temple plundered and the population slaughtered but tens of thousands of Jews were carried off as slaves by Titus. The value of these treasures was so great that they provided Vespasian and Titus with the means and the slaves to build the Colosseum in Rome.’
‘Do you think a new Temple will be built?”
‘There are a number of people who would like to rebuild the Temple, but the problem is where? They can’t build it on the Temple Mount. That would be certainly the cause of WWIII. But architectural plans are being prepared by the Sanhedrin.’
‘I though that no longer existed.’
‘You’re right, but the Israeli rabbinical council involved with re-establishing the Sanhedrin, is calling on all groups involved in Temple Mount research to prepare detailed architectural plans for the reconstruction of the Jewish Holy Temple.’
‘What is the Sanhedrin?’
‘It last met in Tiberias 1,600 years ago and has now been reformed, meeting in Jerusalem monthly. It is appealing to the Jewish people to contribute toward the acquisition of materials for the purpose of rebuilding the Temple.’
‘So it’s some kind of council then?’
‘It was an assembly of rabbis that convened adjacent to the Holy Temple before its destruction in 70AD and then outside Jerusalem until about 400AD.
17
Archaeology in the Bedrock of the Haram