New York Times Angers Historians, Archaeologists Over Article Questioning Jewish

The Times later amended its piece – “Historical Certainty Proves Elusive at Jerusalem’s Holiest Place” – to focus on the issue of where precisely on the Temple Mount the Jewish temple once stood, which is a point of debate even among biblical scholars and archaeologists.

Members of the Cry for Zion, a movement of Christian Zionists from all over the world, recently gathered during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot (Tabernacles) at the United Nations headquarters in Jerusalem overlooking Mount Zion to call for freedom of religion amid global pressure to maintain the status quo on the holy site, Breaking Israel News reported. Many Israelis regard such a challenge as false and inflammatory denialism.

Gabriel Barkay, codirector of the Temple Mount Sifting Project, told TheBlaze by phone Sunday.

Finally, it should be noted that Muslim attachment to the Temple Mount site is due to the presence there of the al-Aqsa – or “furthest” – Mosque, reputed to be the site of Prophet Mohammed’s night journey to heaven.

The Obama administration condemned escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians and called for a full return to the status quo at the Temple Mount. The Israelis did this despite the fact that during the Jordanian occupation of East Jerusalem Jews were barred from visiting their holy places including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, a clear violation of paragraph 8 of the 1949 Armistice Agreement. The question is where precisely on the 37-acre Temple Mount site the temples had once stood, not whether the temples had ever existed there. “There are so many lies taking over the world that we need to guard the truth”, said John Enarson, co-founder of the movement, of the deteriorating situation surrounding the Temple Mount.

“We just don’t have enough primary source data, textual or archaeological, to say where it was with any confidence”, he added.

Historical texts Many historical texts say that Cyrus the Great of Persia, who conquered the Babylonians, let Jews rebuild the temple about 516 BC, that King Herod added retaining walls about 37 BC, and that Romans destroyed the rebuilt temple about 100 years later.

Dr. Michael Satlow, a professor of religious studies and Judaic studies at Brown University, wrote today that the existence of a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount is “as historically certain a fact as one can get”.

Beyond Pullan’s utter unreliability as a commentator on Israel, there is no doubt the ancient Jews knew very well the location of the First Temple, and chose that spot for the building of the Second Temple. “I know of no credible scholars who question the existence of the two temples or who deny that they stood somewhere on the Temple Mount”. That incident led to the formation of the apolitical Israeli Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, which aims to prevent further destruction of ancient artifacts by ongoing renovations.

“Because there have been no organised excavations there, and not likely to be, circumstantial evidence is probably all we’re going to have”, she said.

An important piece of physical evidence supporting Josephus’ descriptions is a warning stone, written in Greek, admonishing visitors not to trespass into the partitioned area reserved for Jews.

“I don’t have any doubt about the existence of the temple”, Barkay explained. But a few scholars are still unsure whether this constitutes proof of their existence.