Surely the gods must be crazy in Jerusalem's misplaced temples

Now, more and more of the folks that do serious religious studies know what a classical Roman Fort looks like and this knowledge for Roman Fort designs is intentionally looked over in Jerusalem.

This web page below gives excellent clues into what is expected for every Roman Fortress of the time, and it smacks down all that claim the temple mount is where the tourists are told that it exists today. Why? The real temple area is gone, nothing more exists there than a road and a parking lot over the temple area that was.

What sells, is a tourist trap that doesn't tell the actual archiological history for the area, and what exists now is more about myth and legends than truthful presentations of the area.

The highly convincing web page with citations by religion experts that see the merits and the truth:

www.whomovedthetemple.com...

British historian and archaeologist Joseph Trupp, writing in 1855, noted that ancient Jerusalem's topography "is enveloped in grievous uncertainties" and observed "it can be of no surprise if all traditional knowledge respecting the spots important in the study of Jewish archaeology should prove to have been completely corrupted or lost ... the utter demolition of the city by Titus renders it probable that the accurate topography of the ancient city was forgotton at a very early period."

Still, over one hundred and fifty intervening years of research and archaeology have hardly unscrambled this puzzle of the lay of the land and the positioning of buildings in first century Jerusalem, and there is still hardly one point in the whole topography of the Holy City to which scholars are entirely agreed. Hershel Shanks, Editor-in-Chief of Biblical Archaeology Review summed up the matter succinctly in this bold 1999 statement: "Everything you know about Jerusalem is wrong."

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A Roman Fortress housed a standard Roman Legion of 5,200 soldiers. A typical fort would also accommodate additional specialized buildings for blacksmiths, carpenters, butchers, shoemakers, storage for grain and stables for horses. Other specialized buildings were the Praetorium for the commander, the principia for the administration and hospital. Outside of each Fort, a Roman style bath was built. A broad avenue for parades and drills, the Via Principalis, would generally bisect the encampment. The walls were massive, and generally made of stone.

The design, pattern and size was standard throughout the Empire, and the encampment that a complete roman legion would need to keep Israel under Roman control would have been no different. Thus, it is little wonder that eyewitness Josephus referred to Fort Antonia as a “city within a city.”

To imagine this vast enterprise fitting into the postage-stamp size (by comparison) Fortress Antonia of popular imagination simply taxes both the historical record and common sense. For Rome to maintain a fortress on such a small scale in Jerusalem, the most volatile and potentially explosive of all the locations throughout its vast empire, simply presents just one more difficulty to the commonly accepted view of placing the Jewish Temples over the Dome of the Rock.

The best depiction for what was the area of the temple is best presented by this drawing:





One can easily see that a huge mistake is being made via anyone telling what they call the Temple Mount, these days, was the site for the real temple of Solomon and Herod.

Such a much more true geographical arrangement is well put forth by those that wrote of seeing this area in the old times.

It would appear that Jerusalem has a problem, because the claim of the temple mount's Islam is party true in that the Jewish don't have much involvement there.

Because, the lands were part of Fort Antonia and that is technically Rome's territory, and it even appears the Romans put up a Temple to Jupter there first.

So, the Romans and the Catholics have more claim to the Temple Mount than the Jewish and the Islam. The Romans put the first real temple on that area of Fort Antonia.


But, the real area of the old temples has nothing to do with Fort Antonia and the land that was temple involved is part public lands as a road, and some private land, and a parking lot. Now, there is nothing standing in the way for the 3rd temple all the Jewish keep wanting. They can even put up a tent tabernackle on the parking lot and have their temple back into existance.


It appears that in Jerusalem that the tourists trade is more important than their old temple site, because it sure doesn't have a thing to do with "temple mount's" Islamic posession stopping them. Only pure and extreme ignorance appears to be the issue and teaching the tourists a big fairy tale on the old temples being on Ft. Antonia's grounds.

One finds the gods are more than a bit crazy in Jerusalem, as they lost god's house and address.

Please don't delude yourself and start posturing. Accumulating facts is brain gluttony. It debases the spirit when you use it for such negative purposes as beating people over the heads and using verbal tactics as one would use a sword on the battlefield. This is your battlefield. Whether you're Amalek or just a clueless Eisav is yet to be determined. Whichever, your hatred of Jacob/Israel and all that represents is like a churning of your guts. I can feel the seething all the way from over here. One ponders how it got to such a point or are you merely using Israel as your own personal scapegoat because at the moment you have no one else to blame for your miserable life?

Got any facts, stats or data on that subject you'd care to share? Will not be holding my breath though, as it is known that to feel anything is akin to death, and we wouldn't want to share our emotions now, and risk vulnerability, eh?

Here are some more facts you'd probably just froth at the mouth at - enjoy - www.upi.com...

Originally posted by MagnumOpus

Originally posted by rootbranch2012
One thing you learn after reading all the posts from armchair self-proclaimed know--it-alls, is that they are actually very dim when it comes to Knowledge. Oh sure, they have facts galore. They recite fact sheets in their sleep. But actual Knowledge - zippo. Nada. Nothing. The Big Zero. Why? Because they possess no ability to comprehend beyond their little sphere of *reality*. It's all one big game of *accumulate more information and beat the other guy about the head with it*. A form of warfare to be certain.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Proverbs 1:7.

I see you are having a great deal of problems, since you have admitted clearly that I use "facts". Which tells me about the rest of your diatribe level game is attack the person, and not the substance of the quoted "facts."

It is no war that most seek, only the facts of the sordid stories of religion. Most don't want the misguided stories of old that would appear to tell the old Temples sat on top of the Rock of Abraham. There is nothing in the temple histories that tell it was sitting on top of that rock and no ritual tied to any rock. That is a simple fact that you have no worthy response.

The real story that explains the history says that David parked the tabernackle over the top of Gihon spring and the natural trend is for Solomon to put the temple that David wanted on the same spot. That spot was nothing to do with the rock of Abraham, as the temple's story was one only of the Ark's new house, and they likely didn't want to mess with the Rock of Abraham. Only Herod decided to mess with the rock of Abraham with building the Roman Fort around the rock.

There is also nothing to tie the Mosque area to the temple of Solomon or Herods. If one looks under that Mosque one finds big cisterns that they built to support Ft. Antonia, all Roman type design. These days they call these cisterns as Soloman's stables only because the Templars decided that was a cool place to keep their horses, when they came in search of the truth on the temples also. The templars would not turn the grounds of the temple into a stable, if they decided it was a temple area. The Templars knew the signs of a Roman Fort when they saw one. Again, nothing of any real substance supports that you know the history for the temple being anywhere on this Ft. Antonia system of ground that contains the Dome of the Rock or the Mosque.


And one does not fear truth and the real lord of any religion should be about truth. Apparently your lord is one that values fear and not truth. And you and your lord appears to declair war upon truth. Plus, diatribe tossing when you can not deal with the simple facts.

You would have that the temple was built upon horse manure and horse urine, such is the power of your deductive reason. That most would have little trouble not calling truth or knowledge.

No doubt you will have more and more trouble with the history there, because even the wailing wall was picked by another misguided person telling the temple was inside the Roman Fort Antonia.

edit on 31-7-2012 by MagnumOpus because: Your diatribe tossing attempt doesn't deal with the issues and the real history for this area.

Originally posted by rootbranch2012
Please don't delude yourself and start posturing. Accumulating facts is brain gluttony. It debases the spirit when you use it for such negative purposes as beating people over the heads and using verbal tactics as one would use a sword on the battlefield. This is your battlefield. Whether you're Amalek or just a clueless Eisav is yet to be determined. Whichever, your hatred of Jacob/Israel and all that represents is like a churning of your guts. I can feel the seething all the way from over here. One ponders how it got to such a point or are you merely using Israel as your own personal scapegoat because at the moment you have no one else to blame for your miserable life?

Got any facts, stats or data on that subject you'd care to share? Will not be holding my breath though, as it is known that to feel anything is akin to death, and we wouldn't want to share our emotions now, and risk vulnerability, eh?

Here are some more facts you'd probably just froth at the mouth at - enjoy - www.upi.com...

I think everyone might well notice you have this dislike of the Muslims from this UPI article and you are more interested in spreading anti-Muslum anything.

I do think everyone reading your comments notice that you literally hate facts and call accumulation of truth on issues a brain gluttony.

Now it appears you are into speaking Hebrew name calling, as your latest attempts of diatribes.


The simple fact is your special rock sat right in the middle of Fort Antonia in the times of Jesus, so the Herod gang didn't consider it part of the temple ground. The glaring fact is you can't show that this standard size Roman Fort there in Jerusalem was the temple area, and it just smokes your lame ideas this was the temple foundation for the Arc.

Roman Forts all looked the same, all across Europe and even in Syria, and the one in Jerusalem looked just like all the others in size and the shape of the compound. Even the use of sisterns for water, and sistern water is not pure or Holy and huge sisterns sit under the South side of the Ft. Antonia walled compound.


The Holy water had to come from the Gihon Spring and the temple had to be over that area.

I think we are seeing you have a lot of Jersusaem excuses for trying to make Ft. Antonia into the temple mount, that your claims don't hold water, don't represent the truth, and you literally resist the truth calling it gluttony of the mind.

Such isn't pure of thoughts, purpose, or highest truth.

The puzzle of the temples is an interesting thing to consider, but one item folks don't include is that the temple had more of an Egyptian flavor architecture than the Phonecia stypes. Most the theme of the thin vs the broad entrance faces for the temples set that standard.

Once one can tie into the Egyptian theme for god, then another thing comes into view. The main Egyptian pyramid was a huge temple of sorts and it sat right in the middle of a large moat and inside the pyramid was all the components for what is called a Water Ram pumping system. Canals and rivers were used to bring the large stones for the pyramids to the moat around the pyramid, and the pyramid stones so well fit that would appear to hold water. Such a pump inside the pyramid could be used to elevate the stones to raise the pyramid using a lock system within the structure.

Water Ram Pumps make a heart beat type sound, which would be considered similar to the pulsed gushing sound from the Gihon Spring under the Solomon Temple. This is one more reason to suspect the link between the Spring and the temple would be a strong one because that is one more association with the Egyptian special building methods linked to their gods.

community.elevatorup.com...

This part of the ceremony involved a procession of priests, accompanied by flutes, marching from the temple to the Pool of Siloam, which was fed by the Spring of Gihon. One of the priests filled a golden pitcher (more than a quart) with water, and the procession returned to the temple. They arrived just after the sacrifices were laid on the altar. The priest carrying the pitcher entered the priests' court through the Water Gate and, to the blast of the shofar, approached the altar. He made one circle around the altar as the crowd sang the Hallel. Then the priest climbed the ramp and stood near the top of the altar. Here there were two silver funnels leading into the stone altar for the daily drink offerings. As the crowd grew silent, the priest solemnly poured the water into one of the funnels. Again the people, accompanied by the Levitical choir, began to chant the Hallel. The sound was deafening because of the thousands of pilgrims jammed into the Temple courts. In this way, they asked God for life-giving rain. The living water they used apparently acknowledged it was God who brought rain and life. The chant of the Hosanna?"0 Lord, save us!"?now meant "Save us by sending rain as well."

So, I think folks will see these associations are not being pulled out of thin air for the connections of the temple to the pulse gushing spring called Gihon. The gods that taught Egypt's sciences were the ancient sumerian creator gods, and some of these same water appreciation rituals appear in the temple of Solomon.

Even when one begins to compare the no metal tool methods for the altar stones of the temple, one finds a similar technique was perhaps used to finish the smooth stones on the outside of the pyramids. For the temple the technique was called Solomon Shamir, aka Shamir worm, which ate away the stone and dressed it to smooth surfaces. The same tehcnique appears to have been known in Egypt and was used to finish dress huge area stones to near flat and smooth.

In the building of Herod's wall some huge stones were set on the scale of those weights seen in the pyramid, so even the building of Herod's wall and the Pyramids share more building sciences in common.

The early stories for the look of the city of Jerusalem is that the view from Mount of Olives was one of where the temple stood in the middle of a crescent shape of the city as seen from Mt Olives.

The only way to have that appears is the temple had to be located very close to the palace of David and half the crescent was the old Jebusit area to the South and the other half of the city in the Nothern rim.


In looking for a photo that shows the crescent shape of the early Jerusalem area, this one shows the Crescent shape of the area above the Kidron valley:





The only way to have the first temple be at the center of a crescent shape is to have the temple being very close to David's Palace and the Water Gate of the old days.

Herod's big compound area wipped out all the city area above the temple area that was the upper part of the crescent shape for the city on the rim over the Kidron Valley.

Thus, to have the Crescent Shape work, this has to be the original topography:





Thus, the following becomes significant to consider:

askelm.com...

There is another simple way of showing the location of the original Temples. Josephus said that the "Lower City" which was once the site of the elevated Citadel (called the Akra or the City of David) was on a ridge shaped like a crescent moon. 17 That is, when one observed this ridge from the Mount of Olives, it appeared "crescent-shaped" in a north to south view and its "horns" pointed toward the Kidron Valley. The northern "horn" would have been near the present southern wall of the Haram esh-Sharif and the southern "horn" just north of the confluence of the Valley of Hinnom. The exact center of this "crescent-shaped" ridge would have been at the Ophel Mound directly over the Gihon Spring. Remarkably, we have an eyewitness account by Hecateus of Abdera written near the time of Alexander the Great that informs us that the Temple was located "nearly in the center of the city." 18 Coupled with this observation, we have other eyewitnesses in the Holy Scriptures telling us the same thing. Note, for example, Psalm 116:18,19 where it plainly states the Temple was located in the center of Jerusalem (NOT in the extreme north part of early Jerusalem where the Haram esh-Sharif is located).

And another puts the similar story well and tells of the history of Crescent Jerusalem, which appears to be a knock off of the Fertile Crescent theme where the Creator gods began in the area of Ur and Eridu, and there water was the life blood also.

www.biblediscoveries.com...'s-temple-in-jerusalem.html

"http://www.biblediscoveries.com/holy-places/herod's-temple-in-jerusalem.html"


The True Site
The true site of the Temple site is shown in the map above in a square. The southeastern ridge had two summits, one on the south, and the other on the north. The Temple was located on the northern summit, the Ophel, and David's City was on the southern summit called Mt. Zion.. The lower land in between, called Millo, was raised up by Solomon who built his palace there. Hence Solomon's palace was very close to the Temple..

According to Josephus, Herod's Temple platform was a square of one stadia on each side (approx. 600 ft), the size of a city block. This was protected by high walls on all the four sides, but since the southeastern corner had to be raised much higher to bring it to the same level as the other sides, this corner was about 450 ft high (40 to 45 stories high!). This was the area where Jesus was brought by Satan and tempted to jump down (Luke 4:9). The northern wall about 160 ft high. It was an incredibly fortified Temple. In Solomon's time the Temple mount was a rectangle 150 ft x 500 ft (the 150 ft being north-south distance). The eastern wall was the one that Nehemiah repaired. During the Maccabean times, the temple mount was expanded to the north another 100 ft and the Temple was also moved north. Herod moved the temple still further north after expanding the temple mount to a 600 ft x 600 ft platform. The temple was located at the center line. There were boundary areas beyond the walls, which made the whole temple mount 750 ft x 750 ft (500 cubits square), this outer square being at an angle with respect to the inner square. It should be clear now that Herod's Temple was not the Second Temple as popularly believed.

Thus, this significant information leaves many thinking this bogus effort to place the Solomon temple site near the Mosque area is intentionally misleading and serves no real purpose other than to distort history and the geographical location of Solomon's temple, and that special Crescent Shape to go back to the Creator gods issues of the Fertile Crescent and their emphasis on water.

The Roman Fort Antonia, Antonia Tower and King Herods Temple were on what we know as the Temple mount today. The Roman soldiers of Fort Antonia where guarding King Herods Temple

Antiquities of the Jews - Book XV "There was also an occult passage built for the king; it led from Antonia to the inner temple, at its eastern gate; over which he also erected for himself a tower, that he might have the opportunity of a subterraneous ascent to the temple"

Originally posted by Ove38
The Roman Fort Antonia, Antonia Tower and King Herods Temple were on what we know as the Temple mount today. The Roman soldiers of Fort Antonia where guarding King Herods Temple

Antiquities of the Jews - Book XV "There was also an occult passage built for the king; it led from Antonia to the inner temple, at its eastern gate; over which he also erected for himself a tower, that he might have the opportunity of a subterraneous ascent to the temple"

edit on 20-9-2012 by Ove38 because: text fix

Nope---Solomon's temple was built on the Ophir area and not what is called Temple Mount today.

Solomon's temple was above the Gihon Sping.

King Herods building complex consisted of Roman fort (Fort Antonia) and a Jewish (Roman style) Temple, that's the second Jewish temple and not the Solomon temple (which was the first Jewish temple)

Originally posted by Ove38
King Herods building complex consisted of Roman fort (Fort Antonia) and a Jewish (Roman style) Temple, that's the second Jewish temple and not the Solomon temple (which was the first Jewish temple)

You have a really big problem to overcome, as the history tells there was no stone left of the temple.

There are lots of stones left for Ft. Antonia, which was not the temple area for either Solomon or Herod.

Temple Mount sits on Ft. Antonia's area, which was very large compared to the Herod temple area.

Why do you keep talking about Solomon temple ? Forget Solomon temple !

King Herods temple together with Fort Antonia was inside the walls.The walls are not the temple, the stones of the Jewish temple where within the walls of King Herods building complex in Jerusalem.



And yes, Fort Antonia (quadratic square) was larger than the temple court

Originally posted by Ove38
Why do you keep talking about Solomon temple ? Forget Solomon temple !

King Herods temple together with Fort Antonia was inside the walls.The walls are not the temple, the stones of the Jewish temple where within the walls of King Herods building complex in Jerusalem.


And yes, Fort Antonia (quadratic square) was larger than the temple court

Don't think that is correct. You have tons of problems.

Show where the large ramps from Ft. Antonia to the Herod's Temple were placed, or their ruins.

All this area you show is Ft. Antonia.

Herod's temple area is no more.

Originally posted by MagnumOpus

Originally posted by Ove38
Why do you keep talking about Solomon temple ? Forget Solomon temple !

King Herods temple together with Fort Antonia was inside the walls.The walls are not the temple, the stones of the Jewish temple where within the walls of King Herods building complex in Jerusalem.


And yes, Fort Antonia (quadratic square) was larger than the temple court

Don't think that is correct. You have tons of problems.

Show where the large ramps from Ft. Antonia to the Herod's Temple were placed, or their ruins.

All this area you show is Ft. Antonia.

Herod's temple area is no more.

What do you meen "Herod's temple area is no more" ?

King Herods temple was only 46 meters long
King Herods Southern Wall is 281 meters long

Flavius Josephus: "Herod took away the old foundations, and laid others, and erected the temple upon them, being in length a hundred cubits"

Wikpedia: "The Southern Wall is 922 feet in length"

THIS IS THE TEMPLE AREA

Cut out the silly hand waving.

Neither Temple was sitting in the areas you keep trying to misdirect people to think.

Find the 600 foot long roadways from Ft. Antonia and the 40 story high wall of the temple.


This site you keep flagging is bogus non-sense and the historical record supports that it is nonsense.


Read the real story:

www.biblicaltheology.com...

Evidence for the Real Site of the Temple in Jerusalem

And then something happened that was quite remarkable and ritualistically devastating. In that period, the waters of the Gihon Spring turned bitter and even septic (between 1033 C.E. and 1077 C.E.). The interpretation placed upon this event was as if God himself had turned the former "waters of salvation" into a corrupt liquid inside the precincts of God’s own House. The Jewish authorities were well aware of the account in Numbers 5:11-31 that showed bitter waters were associated with the adulterous woman in Temple symbolism.

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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.

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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.

Originally posted by MagnumOpus
Cut out the silly hand waving.

Neither Temple was sitting in the areas you keep trying to misdirect people to think.

Find the 600 foot long roadways from Ft. Antonia and the 40 story high wall of the temple.


This site you keep flagging is bogus non-sense and the historical record supports that it is nonsense.

600 feet = 183 meters !

The Eastern Wall of King Herods building complex is today 800-meter long, the Southern Wall of King Herods building complex is today 281 meters long !

The Temple square was only 183 meters x 183 meters, the Temple it self was only 46 meters long

183 meters (temple square) + 183 meters (colonnade roadway) = only 366 meters !

800 meters - 366 meters = 434 meters !

So Fort Antonia was about 430 meters long and about 280 meters wide

Originally posted by Ove38

Originally posted by MagnumOpus
Cut out the silly hand waving.

Neither Temple was sitting in the areas you keep trying to misdirect people to think.

Find the 600 foot long roadways from Ft. Antonia and the 40 story high wall of the temple.


This site you keep flagging is bogus non-sense and the historical record supports that it is nonsense.

600 feet = 183 meters !

The Eastern Wall of King Herods building complex is today 800-meter long, the Southern Wall of King Herods building complex is today 281 meters long !

The Temple square was only 183 meters x 183 meters, the Temple it self was only 46 meters long

183 meters (temple square) + 183 meters (colonnade roadway) = only 366 meters !

800 meters - 366 meters = 434 meters !

So Fort Antonia was about 430 meters long and about 280 meters wide

edit on 22-9-2012 by Ove38 because: text fix

Guess you have some additional problems, like where is the 40 story wall. Which you ignore, again and again. Do you have problems reading?

And show the elevated colonnade roadway----not some wall. It isn't on the temple Mount of today, which was Ft. Antonia's compound.

The temple's areas were well South of the Southern Wall of Ft. Antonia of today. It tells the complex sat over the Gihon Spring. It is all literally distoryed and the stones hauled off long ago.


You are like a broken record that thinks replaying the same borining false statements over and over are going to make them come true, while trying to play over the serious issues like a 40 story wall.

Your are just making conjectures that don't fit the whole for what was written of the history of the temples.

Which means, until you find those colonade roads and that 40 story wall area, your views are bogus.

King Herod's Jewish temple didn't have a 40 story high wall !

The Temple, the colonnade roadway and Fort Antonia is gone, it's not possible to find them today. What's left are the encompassing walls of the area where The Temple, the colonnade roadway and Fort Antonia once were.

Fort Antonia occupied the northern half of the temple mount and the Temple courts occupied the southern half.


Roman colonnade roadway

Utter non-sense.

I trust the eye witness to the temple and such a witness pins it down that nothing to do with the current mount area has anything to do with either temple's location.

I toss out your opinion entirely and count Jesephus as the witness.

There is no way any of your hand waving and faked up conjectures are going to overcome the Jesephus witness report.

www.biblicaltheology.com...

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.

You are plain wrong-----but you believe your non-sense and I'll value the eyewitness and the recounds of the temple being on the Ophir and above the Gihon Spring.

That makes sense. Yours doesn't.

Originally posted by MagnumOpus
Utter non-sense.

I trust the eye witness to the temple and such a witness pins it down that nothing to do with the current mount area has anything to do with either temple's location.

I toss out your opinion entirely and count Jesephus as the witness.

There is no way any of your hand waving and faked up conjectures are going to overcome the Jesephus witness report.

www.biblicaltheology.com...

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.

You are plain wrong-----but you believe your non-sense and I'll value the eyewitness and the recounds of the temple being on the Ophir and above the Gihon Spring.

That makes sense. Yours doesn't.

This is Josephus Antiquities of the Jews - Book VIII
There is not one word about the Temple walls in Book VIII

But Josephus does say, in Book XV

"the temple which had a strong fortress by it, called Antonia"

and Book XVIII

"There was one of the priests, named Hyrcanus; and as there were many of that name, he was the first of them; this man built a tower near the temple, and when he had so done, he generally dwelt in it, and had these vestments with him, because it was lawful for him alone to put them on, and he had them there reposited when he went down into the city, and took his ordinary garments; the same things were continued to be done by his sons, and by their sons after them. But when Herod came to be king, he rebuilt this tower, which was very conveniently situated, in a magnificent manner; and because he was a friend to Antonius, he called it by the name of Antonia."

So, Herods (Jewish) Temple had Roman fortress by it, Fort Antonia !
And there was a tower near the temple, Antonia tower !

Originally posted by Ove38

This is Josephus Antiquities of the Jews - Book VIII
There is not one word about the Temple walls in Book VIII

But Josephus does say, in Book XV

"the temple which had a strong fortress by it, called Antonia"

and Book XVIII

"There was one of the priests, named Hyrcanus; and as there were many of that name, he was the first of them; this man built a tower near the temple, and when he had so done, he generally dwelt in it, and had these vestments with him, because it was lawful for him alone to put them on, and he had them there reposited when he went down into the city, and took his ordinary garments; the same things were continued to be done by his sons, and by their sons after them. But when Herod came to be king, he rebuilt this tower, which was very conveniently situated, in a magnificent manner; and because he was a friend to Antonius, he called it by the name of Antonia."

So, Herods (Jewish) Temple had Roman fortress by it, Fort Antonia !
And there was a tower near the temple, Antonia tower !

edit on 23-9-2012 by Ove38 because: Link fix

So that your own reference will make you look ill informed. One has to know how to read, with comprehension. So, the ground can't get elevated without a retaining wall, and much speaks to quarry walls linked with iron and lead links in the walls to make the strong.

www.ccel.org...

But he made that temple which was beyond this a wonderful one indeed, and such as exceeds all description in words; nay, if I may so say, is hardly believed upon sight; for when he had filled up great valleys with earth, which, on account of their immense depth, could not be looked on, when you bended down to see them, without pain, and had elevated the ground four hundred cubits, he made it to be on a level with the top of the mountain, on which the temple was built, and by this means the outmost temple, which was exposed to the air, was even with the temple itself.

In order to get a build up for the temple of 400 cubits, a wall is required.

Fort Antonia was huge and had much of the designs of Rome, meaning nice stone works and even underground water sources and the various Southen entrances, double and triple gate, which led to part of the grounds between the Fort and the Temple area.

It appears there was a tower connected to the Temple they called Antonia Tower, but separate of the Fort Proper, that provided a good oversight for the temple area and the storage for the various priests outfits and jewels. Lots of writings have to be taken into account to get a true picture of the real temple's area over the Spring of Gihon.

A realistic rendering for what the proper geographical assignment for Ft. Antonia and Herod's Temple being distinct and separate. Except for the efforts of the Romans prying eyes overlooking the temple area.

www.biblemysteries.com...

and some more:

becomingone.org...

The colonades between the fort and temple are gone. The steps on the South Wall of Antonia are still there.

And anything to do with the temple, walls and everything were torn down and taken away by later time builders.