www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...

The City of David was built on a hill of hard limestone, in which underground water created karstic caves. The Gihon Spring, the only source of water of the city, emerges in the Kidron Valley, east of the City of David. It is mentioned many times in the Bible, e.g., its location in the valley east of the city (II Chronicles 33:14); the anointing of Solomon as King of Israel (I Kings 1:35, 45). It made the founding of the City of David possible, and sustained its existence for thousands of years. The Hebrew name of the spring is derived from the verb meaning "to gush forth," reflecting the flow of the spring, which is not steady, but intermittent, its frequency varying with the seasons of the year and annual precipitation. It is a siphon-type karst spring fed by groundwater that accumulates in a subterranean cave. Each time that space fills to the brim, it empties at once through cracks in the rock and is siphoned to the surface. This natural feature made it necessary to accumulate water in a pool, to be available at times when the spring was not "gushing forth."

The spring emerged in a cave on the eastern slope of the City of David above the Kidron Valley, and from there water flowed into the valley, watering the terraced, agricultural plots on the slope of the City of David. This area is called in the Bible the "King's Garden" (II Kings 25:4; Jeremiah 52:7; Nehemiah 3:15). Today, the bed of the Kidron Valley is filled with 15 m. of erosion and debris, which have accumulated over the millennia. During the Second Temple period, a vault was built over the spring, to which one could descend via a long staircase. Water flowed from the spring along Hezekiah's Tunnel to the Siloam Pool, (John 9:7) which is located in the low, southern part of the Tyropoeon Valley, west of the City of David.

Originally posted by andy06shake
reply to post by MagnumOpus

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So essentially all the races/religions in the area are fighting over the water of life? Reminds me of Frank Herbert's Dune. LoL

askelm.com...

Yes, even the very foundation stones that comprised the Temple complex (including its walls) had been uprooted and demolished. They were then "dug up" and not even the lower courses of base stones were left in place. According to Eleazar, the only thing left in the Jerusalem area was a single Roman Camp that still hovered triumphantly over the ruins of the City and the Temple. He said that Jewish Jerusalem "hath nothing left." The only thing continuing to exist was the "monument" (a single monument) preserved by Titus. And what was that "monument"? Eleazar said it was "the camp of those that destroyed it [Jerusalem], which still dwells upon its ruins."

What could this Camp of the Romans have been? This is quite easy to discover when one reads the accounts of the war as recorded by Josephus. The main military establishment in Jerusalem prior to the war was Fort Antonia located to the north of the Temple (which is now the Haram esh-Sharif). In my new book "The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot," I will give an abundance of information to show that the Haram was considered Roman property even before the war. Because Antonia was the property of Rome, they had no reason to destroy those buildings that already belonged to the Romans. That is why Titus left Fort Antonia (the Haram esh-Sharif) and its walls in tact (as we see them today).

www.biblesearchers.com...

One of the most radical but well documented and supported thesis of the site of Solomon’s temple is proposed by Archeologist Ernest Martin. According to him, the Temple of Herod was truly razed to the bedrock ground as predicted by Yahshua (Matthew 24:2) and that the Temple Mount (Harem al’Sharif) was not the site for the temple. The temple was actually built south of the Temple Mount on a temple platform that no longer exists today. Consider this information from what we have learned about the location of the Gihon Springs, the newly found mikvah baths for the high priest of the Temple of Herod and the above topographical map that somewhere east of the Dung Gate and the present Islamic walls on the south side of the Temple Mount in Old Jerusalem a platform once upon a time existed that held the temple of Solomon, Zerubabbel and Herod.

Originally posted by rootbranch2012
The Temple Mount in Judaism

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. According to the Bible, the Talmud, and other sources of Jewish tradition, several important events in the history of Judaism took place on the Temple Mount:

Here God gathered the earth from which he formed Adam.
Here Adam, Cain, Abel and Noah offered sacrifices to God.
Here Abraham passed God's test by showing his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac (the Bible says this is on Mount Moriah, which the Talmud says is another name for the Temple Mount).
Here Jacob dreamt about angels ascending and descending a ladder while sleeping on a stone (the stone in the Dome of the Rock is believed to be the very stone).
The Temple Mount is believed to be the site of the threshing floor overlooking Jerusalem that King David purchased from Aravnah the Jebusite (2 Samuel, 24:18-25).
Here King Solomon built the Temple in 950 BC, which stood for 410 years until it was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.
Here the Second Temple was built after the Babylonian Exile, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
During Maimonides' residence in Jerusalem, a synagogue stood on the Temple Mount alongside other structures and Maimonides prayed there.

www.sacred-destinations.com...

reply to post by MagnumOpus

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Originally posted by rootbranch2012
Isiaiah 2:2

In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

Live Web Cam to the Kotel (Western Wall) - english.thekotel.org...


reply to post by rootbranch2012

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edit on 30-7-2012 by rootbranch2012 because: (no reason given)

cbcg.org...

The Temple Mount at Jerusalem
A Summary of Ernest L. Martin’s Book
“The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot”

Josephus Understood the Symbolism of the Gihon Spring
Gihon Spring was the only natural spring of pure water within five miles of Jerusalem in any direction. Pure water was an indispensable requirement for the essential rituals of the Temple. Because of this spring of pure water, the Temple was a microcosm of the Garden of Eden. (One of the rivers that flowed through the Garden of Eden was the river Gihon.) The water of Gihon was symbolic of the Water of Life. Ophel and the Gihon Spring are synonymous.

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No Rock Outcropping Associated with the Temple
There is no reference in Scripture or any secular historical source that describes a natural outcropping of rock located at the highest point of the ridge or hill that was associated with the Temple Mount. This includes the sites of the Temple floor, the Holy of Holies and the Altar of Burnt Offering.

The Altar of Burnt Offering was formally used as a threshing floor. It is clear that the threshing floor was a level area on top of Mount Ophel, not an irregular formation of rock on top of a ridge.

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Destruction of the Temple Foretold
Micah prophesied the destruction of the Temple (Mic.3:10-12): “Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor justice, and pervert all iniquity. They build up Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for a bribe, and the priests thereof teach for pay, and the prophets thereof divine for money. Yet will they lean upon the Lord, saying is not the Lord among us? No harm can come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, and the mountain of the Temple as the bare hills.”

Jesus confirmed this prophecy as the writers of the gospels agree: Matthew 24:1-2 and Mark 13:1-2: “And Jesus went out, and departed from the Temple; and His disciples came to Him for to show Him the buildings of the Temple. And Jesus said unto them. ‘See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

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Josephus wrote that all of Fort Antonia was built over and around a rock outcrop at the summit of the ridge. Today, a mosque stands over this rock formation known as the Dome of the Rock. Completed by Abdul el-Malik in 691 AD, the mosque covers the remainder of this protruding rock but occupies only a very small fraction of the entire surface area of the 36-acre artificial platform that the Romans built.

www.templemount.org...

Because of our sins we were exiled from our country and banished from our land. We cannot go up as pilgrims to worship Thee, to perform our duties in Thy chosen house, the great and Holy Temple which was called by Thy name, on account of the hand that was let loose on Thy sanctuary. May it be Thy will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, merciful King, in Thy abundant love again to have mercy on us and on Thy sanctuary; rebuild it speedily and magnify its glory. (The Jewish Prayer Book)

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A similar temple, built by the same builder at about the same time, has been discovered at Baalbek, Lebanon.

The Roman architectural practices of the time featured a rectangular basilica, and a polygon structure opposite a courtyard. When this architecture is overlaid on the Temple Mount, it matches the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock exactly.

This unique architectural similarity suggests that the Roman Temple to Jupiter may have been on this very site, converted for Christian purposes in the 4th Century, and then served as the foundation for the present Moslem structures, the Al Aqsa Mosque an the Dome of the Rock, which were built in the 7th Century.

Originally posted by MagnumOpus
Now, one can examine even further and finds others have found these slip ups on where the temple was claimed to have been.

www.biblicaltheology.com...

There is another important observation that needs to be made. Josephus described the Temple as being a square (a precise square of one stadium length on each side — about 600 feet, see War V.5,2 with War VI.5,4 and Antiquities XV.9,3). It had two colonnade roadways from the northwest corner of the Temple to the southwestern corner of Fort Antonia (War II.15,6). These roadways were also a stadium in length. Combining the square lengths of the Temple square with the two roadways that led to Fort Antonia, the length was six stades of 600 feet each. The walls around the Temple were prodigious in height according to Josephus. The southeastern corner of the outer Temple walls was located directly over the very bottom of the Kidron Valley (the bedrock center) and extended upwards 300 cubits or 450 feet (Antiquities VIII,3,9) where it reached the four-square platform on which the actual Temple with its various courts was located. The northeastern corner was also located within the depths of the Kidron though not quite as high as the southeastern corner.

This made the four Temple walls to be a 600 square feet (on each side) TOWER like a 40 story skyscraper in Chicago that extended upward with its southeast section of the wall within the river bottom (its deepest part) of the Kidron. Barnabas described the Temple (15 years after its destruction) as a TOWER (16:4-8), and the Book of Enoch and the Shepherd of Hermas give numerous references that the Temple was indeed shaped as a TOWER (see my Web Page references). The above description is that of Josephus, an eyewitness to the Temple and its actual dimensions.

Originally posted by MagnumOpus
One thing you learn after reading all the documents for the accounts of the Temple area, is never to believe a Muslum tour guide selling the Western Wall Tunnel as part of the Temple compound. Your little YouTube tourist demo is nonsense, and a production to sell western wall tickets.

Real reseachers know that the Ft. Antonia was as large as the city in the times of Jesus, and the area that the Dome and the Mosque sits upon would never be considered the center of the city, but the more Northern part of the city. The temple grounds were small compared to Ft. Antonia, even after the expansion. And two large viaducts connected Ft. Antonia to the Temple elevations for Solomon's temple. The viaducts left the Antonia Compound down near the Muslum Mosque area and bridged over to the Temple's elevation.

www.biblicaltheology.com...

There is another important observation that needs to be made. Josephus described the Temple as being a square (a precise square of one stadium length on each side — about 600 feet, see War V.5,2 with War VI.5,4 and Antiquities XV.9,3). It had two colonnade roadways from the northwest corner of the Temple to the southwestern corner of Fort Antonia (War II.15,6). These roadways were also a stadium in length. Combining the square lengths of the Temple square with the two roadways that led to Fort Antonia, the length was six stades of 600 feet each. The walls around the Temple were prodigious in height according to Josephus. The southeastern corner of the outer Temple walls was located directly over the very bottom of the Kidron Valley (the bedrock center) and extended upwards 300 cubits or 450 feet (Antiquities VIII,3,9) where it reached the four-square platform on which the actual Temple with its various courts was located. The northeastern corner was also located within the depths of the Kidron though not quite as high as the southeastern corner.

This made the four Temple walls to be a 600 square feet (on each side) TOWER like a 40 story skyscraper in Chicago that extended upward with its southeast section of the wall within the river bottom (its deepest part) of the Kidron. Barnabas described the Temple (15 years after its destruction) as a TOWER (16:4-8), and the Book of Enoch and the Shepherd of Hermas give numerous references that the Temple was indeed shaped as a TOWER (see my Web Page references). The above description is that of Josephus, an eyewitness to the Temple and its actual dimensions.

So, while that long wall was built by Herod, it was the west side for the fortress of Antonia of the Romans and even has roman streets in the area. It eventually became the Muslum area that the tunnel runs under and alongside the wall underground.

Nothing along that entire underground wall can be associated with being anywhere close to the Holy Ground for the Temple of Solomon. It is all bogus nonsense legend because they don't know their history, or tell it correctly due to the money it gets from tourism. Lies make money in Jerusalem.

Ft. Antonia was around 4.5 times as large an area as the temple, and it garrisoned around 5,000 Roman Soldiers plus their support groups and could not be a small area, The model for Ft. Antonia is even wrong in the Jerusalem Museum and also the scale model at the Hotel that is so popular. Ft. Antonia was no small Roman outposet.

edit on 30-7-2012 by MagnumOpus because: Jerusalem Saving Face, The tourist trade in Jerusalem, and the departure from truth for a little money