peace of Jerusalem

PhilWhaley71

The Haram had to house 6-10 thousand soldiers and 6000 support staff. The tiny little square inside the haram that modern scholars portray it as could not possibly house that many people.

Exactly. Ergo, the Haram was NOT a Roman camp.

And again the Jewish Temple had to be located by a spring to wash away the animal sacrifices.

So then it had to be at the bottom of the Kidron valley, and not on any ridge or prominence at all? Water does not flow uphill.

It's the Christians and the Jews that propagate the false Temple location hoax, ask the Palestinians and they don't believe it.

Err here you do. You seem to make the mistake of thinking that I don't know any Muslims, including Palestinians. I do. All of the Muslims I've spoken to about it, which include Syrians, Afghans, Lebanese, Palestinians, Pakistanis, Iranians, and a few others, believe that the Jewish Temple was on the Temple mount.

Once upon a time, I WAS a Muslim. Not any more, but that's a different story for another thread. I am married to a Muslim, and she characterizes this theory as "bat-crap crazy".

I could go into more detail on why Muslims believe the Haram to have been the Temple Mount, and why they built their edifices upon it (there are, surprisingly enough, varying opinions among Muslims as to why that was, but they universally believe that it WAS) but it might derail the thread.

So, are you one of those people that says Josephus exaggerated or lied?

I'm not following you here - why would I say either, based upon what has been presented so far? His accounts are not inconsistent with the haram being the temple mount. The fact is, however, I believe Josephus was writing to please his Roman patrons and masters, and, while trying to be fairly accurate in the main, put some serious "spin" on parts of his accounts in order to polish Romans. That doesn't detract much from his testimony, but it DOES mean that it ought to be read with that in mind.

Edit To Add:

Critics of Josephus regard him as an untrustworthy propagandist for the Flavian dynasty, as evidenced by his treatment of Titus' actions at the siege of Jerusalem. His descriptions of Titus saving an entire legion by single-handedly fighting back crowds of armed Judeans are laughable. But modern readings of Josephus treat these embarrassing passages with more sympathy. Josephus did not have freedom of speech: he was living under a dictatorship, and over the past century we have had ample understanding of what that does to a writer.

Steve Mason summarized the rules of first-century literary Rome thus: "Flattery of the princeps is non-negotiable, and it is something of a game to see who can configure an argument most favourable to Caesar." ("Figured Speech and Irony in Josephus," in Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford, 2005), p. 259)

As an example, Josephus made use of the war commentaries ot Vespasian and Titus (Life 342, 358, Apion 1.56), and if those commentaries claimed incredible acts of bravery on the part of Titus how could Josephus possibly exclude them?

Source

allthings2allmen

Fort Antonia was a defensible position but Herod reinforced it by adding long slabs of stone that made approaching the wall difficult and by creating a moat on the north side which was flooded with water.

I have no doubt that Antonia Fortress was a defensible position. It was, after all, a fortress, the salient feature of which is defensibility. The haram is not defensible, from a military engineering standpoint. For example, a fortress minimizes it's points of entry in order to maximize defensibility. The haram is wide open to access, from all sides. There are gates everywhere.

The haram is not a fortress, and therefore NOT Antonia Fortress.

Now it makes sense that the tenth legion that destroyed Jerusalem still needed a place to sleep and eat after a long days destroying the city and the temple .

All soldiers do, and from time immemorial they have made do. Soldiers are masters of the art of resting up between long bouts of looting, sacking, pillaging, and destroying. That does nothing at all to support your argument.

When the rumor was spread that the tons of Gold in the temple had melted into the the mound which was quite porous the mound itself was raised down to bed rock by those looking for the gold. Sherlock asks Watson on a camping trip what do you see? Watson says I see millions of stars and waxing poetic says it makes me wonder about the universe and our place in it. No you idiot somebody stole our tent.

Indeed, and it appears that someone also stole your Antonia Fortress as well.

Perhaps a more fitting analogy would be to tell a story of how Watson could not see the sky, because all those millions of stars were in the way.

As far as the military organization of those days a Roman legion would always seek the high ground and only the governor of the province of Judea would live in a palace . All the soldiers lived in tents. So aside from the palace and two roman temples the place was a flat camp ground for the tenth Roman legion. iT was what you call an active defensive position with guards on patrol and watch towers. In their military campaigns to conquer new territories the tactics of the Roman army never changed. The Baris and the latter Fort Antonia were a defensive fortress suitable for the tactics of those times. I think you have been victim of an education in archeology that has left you no room for backing up from an indefensible position. Ten generations of mistaken archeologists does not reality make. Evidence and logic does. By the way gates can be guarded and shut. Gates always make the best traps.

allthings2allmen
As far as the military organization of those days a Roman legion would always seek the high ground and only the governor of the province of Judea would live in a palace . All the soldiers lived in tents. So aside from the palace and two roman temples the place was a flat camp ground for the tenth Roman legion. iT was what you call an active defensive position with guards on patrol and watch towers.

Then it was not a fortress.A fortress is a static defensive position. If it was not a fortress, then it cannot have been the Antonia Fortress.

If Roman legions sought high ground, why would they not occupy... the high ground? Why would they occupy the haram, when there are higher points all around it, to the north, west, and east (across Kidron on the Mount of Olives)? high points like, for instance, the high point to the north of it, where the actual Antonia Fortress was situated.

Who would have put enough labor into constructing the haram to simply make a "flat camp ground" for legionnaires?

None of this theory so far holds any water.

In their military campaigns to conquer new territories the tactics of the Roman army never changed. The Baris and the latter Fort Antonia were a defensive fortress suitable for the tactics of those times.

Make up your mind. Was it a fortress, or an "active defensive position"?

If it was a fortress, why does it not have any of the features requisite in a fortress, and many of the features detrimental to a fortress?

You are correct in saying that Antonia Fortress was a defensive fortress suitable for the tactics of those times. The haram has no such suitability. Therefore, it cannot have been Antonia Fortress. I just don't know how many times I'm going to have to repeat that phrase.

I think you have been victim of an education in archeology that has left you no room for backing up from an indefensible position.

Hahaha! I see what you did there! "indefensible position" - kinda like the haram. That's some funny stuff! Archaeology alone doesn't tell the tale. as a matter of fact, it doesn't tell much of it at all. A background in military and military engineering (and ways to defeat it), might benefit your error and correct it immensely. The haram would have been a sapper's paradise as a "fortress".

Ten generations of mistaken archeologists does not reality make. Evidence and logic does. By the way gates can be guarded and shut. Gates always make the best traps.

One speculative author does not a reality make, either. Evidence and logic point to the haram being a "not fortress", no matter how much you and your source might wish it was. Gates CAN be guarded and shut, but too many of them in a fortress, guarded and shut or not, and you might as well poke holes in your OWN defensive walls. It's like trying to hold back water with a piece of screen wire. they DO make fairly good traps - as long as their is only one of them to funnel the opposition through. Otherwise, not so much. They just coordinate, come through all of them at once on all sides (and don't forget those pesky sappers, sneaking in and coming up behind you), and then your "trap" just traps YOU.

I guess that's why the Jews who tried to fort up at the Haram back when it housed the temple got their asses handed to them.

Because it ain't no kind of "fortress".

I am looking at a four foot long panoramic view of it from the mount of olives and it looks exactly like a fortress. Two thousand years ago it must have looked even more like one. It is not like the Romans were worried about any body attacking them either. May I ask you a pertinent question? Have you been to Jerusalem? Or did you just attend seminary and believed the whole false story. As far as many being wrong and just one person being right it has happened before. Some teachings are not allowed in academic circles because it would mean that generations of authors would be debunked after those same learning institutions were built on their reputations. Have you heard about the geology teaching of inflation. It is taboo in most universities because it puts continental drift into question. Most of my teaching would mean the closing of many theology universities. Like I said before in a world built on lies the truth is hardly welcome. Einstein's theory of relativity was also rejected for a long time. Academic lies are just as vulnerable to truth as bold faced lies no matter how many believe it.

Please don't tell us our thread is drifting we started it.

From a Critique by Dr. Leen Ritmeyer/Rebuttal by Dr. Martin
"Josephus said the Temple of Herod was built high up on a platform that had four walls around it forming a precise square of 600 feet on each side. This description in no way fits the dimensions of the Haram. Josephus said the wall of its southeast corner had its foundations directly in the deepest part of the Kidron Valley (in the streambed itself) and that its height was 300 cubits (450 feet, or about the height of a modern 40 story building). Near the northwest corner Josephus said this external Temple wall was connected to Fort Antonia by two side-by-side colonnade roadways (each 600 feet long). Josephus then said that Fort Antonia itself was built around a notable "Rock" that was viewed as the centerpiece feature of the interior of the Fort (which was also known as the Praetorium). This well-recognized "Rock" in the Praetorium around which Fort Antonia was built was called the lithostrotos in the Gospel of John (19:13) and Christ stood on it when judged by Pilate. Josephus said that Antonia’s size was much larger than the Temple (he described Fort Antonia as the size of a city and it contained a full legion of Roman troops with many open spaces for military exercises and training). Fort Antonia was so large that Josephus said it obscured the whole of the Temple square from the north. These plain and simple descriptions made by Josephus are depicted in the drawing that Ritmeyer dislikes and they are in precise accord with what Josephus (as an eyewitness) states in the clearest of language."

"Another eyewitness account was given by Aristeas in 285 B.C. He said the Temple at Jerusalem had within its precincts a natural spring of water, and Tacitus the Roman historian in 100 A.D. also mentioned this inexhaustible spring that was located within the walls of the Temple just before its destruction by the Romans. In my replication in BAR, the professional artist was able to comfortably fit the 600 feet square Temple with its 40 stories high platform as being located over the Gihon Spring (the only spring of water in Jerusalem within a radius of five miles). It was also simple and very logical to show the two colonnade roadways near the northwest angle of the external Temple wall extending a further 600 feet northward to intersect with the southwest corner of Fort Antonia. All geographical features mentioned by Josephus, and incorporating the eyewitness account of Aristeas, and the statement of Tacitus (and by other eyewitness accounts that I have recorded in my book "The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot") fit precisely into place as shown by Josephus. To be sure of the truthfulness of the drawing, the artist reviewed the latest editions of Josephus’ literary works to scrutinize each geographical feature in a precise way. It took a month of fine detailed research to come up with the final drawing. This drawing is accurate. Since that time (four years ago), numerous scholars have painstakingly gone through those geographical details given by Josephus (which I would ask Ritmeyer to do) and they have come to the identical evaluation that is displayed in the drawing in BAR that Ritmeyer finds offensive. In the drawing we are only reproducing what Josephus stated with utmost precision. Ritmeyer knows of these profound differences in all points but dismisses them by stating that Josephus was wrong in what he stated. The truth is, Josephus was describing a different building not even associated in a geographical sense with the area of the Haram esh-Sharif."


What did Josephus testify in his book? That Antonia's size was much larger than the Temple, the size of a city, and that it was so large that it obscured the whole Temple square from the north.

--------------------------

"If Roman legions sought high ground, why would they not occupy... the high ground? Why would they occupy the haram, when there are higher points all around it, to the north, west, and east (across Kidron on the Mount of Olives)? high points like, for instance, the high point to the north of it, where the actual Antonia Fortress was situated.

Who would have put enough labor into constructing the haram to simply make a "flat camp ground" for legionnaires?

None of this theory so far holds any water."

The Haram al-Sharif / Fort Antonia is located on Mount Moriah.

"So then it had to be at the bottom of the Kidron valley, and not on any ridge or prominence at all? Water does not flow uphill."

Look at the picture. Only the southeast of the temple has it's roots in the Kidron valley above the Spring of Gihon, not Fort Antonia.

"Outside The Wall"

All alone, or in twos
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall
Some hand in hand
Some gathering together in bands
The bleeding hearts and the artists
Make their stand
And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall - after all it's not easy
banging your heart against some mad buggers
Wall

allthings2allmen
I am looking at a four foot long panoramic view of it from the mount of olives and it looks exactly like a fortress.

I once looked at a prostitute that looked exactly like a girl, too. Don't believe everything you think you see.

Two thousand years ago it must have looked even more like one.

Why "must"? because your theory depends on it?

It is not like the Romans were worried about any body attacking them either.

Then why bother with the fortress of Antonia at all?

May I ask you a pertinent question? Have you been to Jerusalem? Or did you just attend seminary and believed the whole false story.

I have not been to seminary at all.

As far as many being wrong and just one person being right it has happened before. Some teachings are not allowed in academic circles because it would mean that generations of authors would be debunked after those same learning institutions were built on their reputations.

I sort of expected that - after all, this IS a conspiracy website!

Have you heard about the geology teaching of inflation. It is taboo in most universities because it puts continental drift into question.

Do you mean the notion that the Earth is swelling up? Yup, I've heard of it - and there are very good scientific (physics rather than geology) reasons why it's a load of hooey.

Most of my teaching would mean the closing of many theology universities. Like I said before in a world built on lies the truth is hardly welcome.

Like I said before, don't quit your day job in favor of "teaching". Most of your "teaching" would involve more than closure of universities.

Einstein's theory of relativity was also rejected for a long time. Academic lies are just as vulnerable to truth as bold faced lies no matter how many believe it.

Well, I personally STILL reject it as taught, but that's just me. My grounds for rejecting it get into the whole "Twins Paradox" and "Thought Experiment" thing, but it's probably not germane to this thread, so I'll let it be.

reply to post by PhilWhaley71


Sorry to be short here, but I have somewhere to be shortly. I'll answer your posts when I get back, and the answer will involve mapping, since that is the general thrust of your posts. I'm still waiting on one of you to provide DEM data with higher resolution than a 90m post spacing, but I'm not holding my breath, I'll probably have to make it myself, from topographic map data. I'm currently working at collecting the topographic maps for it.

I wasn't accusing YOU of thread drift, I was saying that I don't want to take it too far afield. However, if you want the discussion on what Muslims believe about the haram and it's history included here, we can do that. Just give the word.

Here's a quick and dirty image of the area using the 90m data for you to ponder:



When I get all the data gathered, there will be MUCH more detail. - Oh... it will also involve precisely what Josephus said, rather than Mr. Martin's spin on what Josephus said... a spin designed to force Josephus to conform to Mr. Martin's own pet theory.

Carry on with your mission. I will tell you how a naturally flowing spring can flow upwards. But first I must find the article related to that . It is called Waren's shaft named after the man who discovered it.

reply to post by allthings2allmen


Warren's shaft is a 13 meter drop downward to a tunnel, also sloping downwards, to an access point where the dwellers in the city could get water flowing from the spring - water which was flowing, as water does, downhill. The spring was STILL outside the city - which is why they had to go to the trouble of cutting an access shaft. The route was covered, which is a consideration when going to get water when there are people about trying to kill you.

It's really not so different from the maze of shafts, tunnels, and cisterns under the temple mount, except that there were fewer under the Ophel (less chance of inviting sapper in, although David seemed to have managed sapping the city), and the spring itself was guarded with fortified towers outside the city. This would indicate that the Ophel was much more strongly fortified than the temple mount. Are you sure you don't want to reconsider and change the location of the Antonia Fortress again? From an engineering standpoint, the Ophel fills the bill much better. Not so much from a spatial relation standpoint, but that would be up to you to warp around.

Still working on the response to Phil's post. There is a lot of info out there to sift through, and some of it is so laughable that one must ask one's self "what on Earth are these people using to think with? Are they even thinking at all?" Still, I'm reading and evaluating both sides of the argument, to see which makes more logical sense. I've collected several topographic maps, but most don't have fine enough contours, and none are as yet georeferenced. They don't have to be, but it makes it a lot easier to apply map overlays on the finished product if they are, which makes explanations and visuals much better.

The landscape is much more stark, and far better represented to the turn of the millenia when you prune away 15m or so from the Tyropean Valley, which is what most statements of the infill amount to. It really makes things much more clear, though.

My main problems with the map Phil posted here:

are that the are no contours to show the relief, the spatial relations are distorted, and it's schematic, rather than to scale, assisting in distorting the spatial relationships. I prefer more precision when discussing weighty matters.

For those who care, here are the coordinates of the Gihon Spring: 31°46′23″N 35°14′11″E. When plotted against the actual topography of the Ophel, it should amply demonstrate the errors in this theory regarding it being "situated within the temple mount" (even if that HAD been at the Ophel)

reply to post by PhilWhaley71


Pink Floyd? Seriously?

Pink Floyd were guests at my father's hotel in Zermatt Switzerland every year and they all remember his children fondly. My twin brother was attending one of their concerts and they took time to publicly wish him a happy birthday Lloyd. I like Pink Floyd. Well being sixty years old this year might have something to do with it. Just another brick in the wall. People's opinions thirty years ago does not make them invalid. I am not drifting here and since I started this thread by saying that everything in this world is related to that damned wall that I call the abomination of abominations let me decide what is drifting please.Philip is an expert in prophetic music. What cannot be said in words can often be said in music.

After viewing the footings of the tower, I stood in the Kidron Valley, just 500 feet north of the tower, and looked at the area where the Spring of Siloam ran into Hezekiah's Tunnel, the 1750-foot aqueduct carved around 701 BC to bring water to Jerusalem. Suddenly, I remembered a passage in Ezekiel 47:1: "Look! The water was pouring out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east." That's when the insight came to me: Follow the water!
I realized that there was more to this story than I could see at once, but it meant that the temple could not have been on the dry hill about 1000 feet to the north that had been called the Temple Mount. the water that supplied that unit came only from the 37 cisterns in the ground under the buildings . That is when my research began. My next step was to search the scriptures for more references to the spring and the temple.

The temple was the place where "Yehovah sits over the flood," where he is "enthroned as king for the age" (Psalm 29:10). "The voice of Yehovah is over the water; the God of glory roars; Yehovah over much water" (Psalm 29:3).

The flood was the huge fountain of water poring tons of water through Hezekiah's tunnel every minute under the temple. Hezekiah's Tunnel is 1750 feet long, about three feet wide, and roughly six feet tall. (Fifty years ago the water in that tunnel was between waist and shoulder deep.) This prompted the Psalmist to write, "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling place of the Most High" (Psalm 46:4). The "dwelling place of the "Most High" was the temple positioned near the streams that "make glad the city of God." The city of God, of course. was the City of David, the little ridge alongside of the Kidron Valley, where water flows freely from the spring.

Ezekiel 47:1: "Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar."

One of the factors the prophet Zechariah anticipated in the future restoration, when Yehovah would become king over all the land, was having "the water of life flowing out of Jerusalem" (Zechariah 14:8-9). The Jerusalem he pictured was Zion, near the spring of Gihon (Siloam) -- not the hill to the north that later became Herod's city.


-- Dr. George Wesley Buchanan


We've established that the Temple was NOT in the Haram, that the Haram IS the remains of Fort Antonia and that the Jewish Temple was located on the Ophel. Next I will demonstrate how water could be brought to the temple.

At first sight, they usually doubt that there could ever be a spring with enough power to force water all the way up from the spring to the top of the tunnel. That is the normal first response. But the literature is consistent. There was water brought up to the floor of that city. That is because the huge spring that poured out tons of water every minute was a siphon spring. Of all the springs in the world there are only 30, about 2 per cent, that are siphon springs to varying degrees. In these cases, there is somewhere upstream a subterranean cavern, and it is connected downstream by a "pipe" or crack that is roughly an upside-down - U - . The water feeds into the cavern slowly. Once the water level reaches the top of the upside down U, the water is siphoned out of the cavern until it reaches the inlet that breaks the suction. This was a huge spring, strong enough to fill Warren's Shaft and bring water up to the top of the ridge.
Gushers, like Old Faithful in Wyoming and the Spring of Siloam (Gihon) at Zion, are related to siphon springs and are not restricted in the extent of their flow to the immediately surrounding sea level. Anyone who has seen Old Faithful knows that water can be forced to a great height, regardless of the local sea level -- not only by steam but also by siphon power.
To be able to force water to the top of the ridge, there would have to be an airtight, watertight system, as there obviously is for a siphon spring. And we know from Aristeas, the emissary of King Ptolemy to Palestine in the 3rd/2nd century BC, that there was an "inexhaustible" spring water system, gushing into the temple for sacrifices at the City of David

"The Letter of Aristeas" 1:88-89, Charles' ed. (1913)
"The Temple faces the east and it's back is towards the west. The whole of the floor is paved with stones and slopes down to the appointed places, that water may be conveyed to wash away the blood from the sacrifices, for many thousand beasts are sacrificed there on the feast days. And there is an inexhaustible supply of water, because an abundant natural spring gushes up from WITHIN the temple area."

"The Letter of Aristeas" 1:89-90:
"There are moreover wonderful and indescribable cisterns underground, as they pointed out to me, at a distance of five furlongs all round the site of the temple, and each of them has countless pipes so that the different streams converge together. And all of these were fastened with lead at the bottom and at the sidewalls, and over them a great quantity of plaster had been spread, and every part of the work had been most carefully carried out. There are many openings for water at the base [of the altar] which are invisible to all except to those who are engaged in the ministration, so that all the blood of the sacrifices which is collected in great quantities is washed away in the twinkling of an eye."

--
George Wesley Buchanan

PhilWhaley71

We've established that the Temple was NOT in the Haram, that the Haram IS the remains of Fort Antonia and that the Jewish Temple was located on the Ophel. Next I will demonstrate how water could be brought to the temple.

Sorry, Phil, but you have NOT demonstrated any such thing. So far you have consistently failed to answer my objections to the theory, instead preferring to throw out more bits of it, which my objections to in turn go unanswered.

This doesn't seem like a debate of facts or opinions.

It seems like one side declaring to be prophets know "the truth" completely ignoring any other viewpoints but theirs.

Good arguments against the OP and his disciple/scribe/mouthpiece go unheeded.

And "peace in Jerusalem"/ Where did that topic of the thread go anyway ( it's the title for cripes sake)? It disappeared after several anti-Zionist posts by OP and "scribe".

You will be proven wrong in your assessment that the Haram is the temple mound. You will not accept historical evidence nor will you accept archeological evidence so now I am going to introduce another argument which is hydrological. There is no other water source in a seventy kilometer radius around Jerusalem. This is why people settled around this spring located in Salem. The Gihon spring. Any body that has been to Jerusalem know it is an arid place and even when it was wilderness the water would be the magnet for all travelers and settlers. In Japan it is the rivers who used to be the centers of civilization. Now of course it is the railroad but back then the priest always had the best water which is located upstream. Then a little down stream you had the samourai class, then further down you had the merchant class and finally at the bottom you had the burakim. The lowest social class such as butchers and leather workers. To this day match makers can tell what class you belong to just by your home address.The highest class of the social strata in Jerusalem were also the priests and the temple needed a source of fresh water for ritual purification of the priests and for the cleansing of the blood from the sacrificed animals. Fort Antonia had no water source just cisterns to catch rain water. An artesian well is fed by pressure from underground and as such if a water tight channel is built above it the water will continue rising to the place where it is let out. I used to be an aqualist having many fish tanks and became familiar with the concepts of managing water. With a pressure fed spring there is no problem making water rise to any level you want then of course going down stream is a natural gravity fed process. Water being not compressible obeys the laws of hydrodynamics and fluid engineering. But I know you will not accept scientific proof either. So for you two rabid debaters I can say you have been exposed as misinformation agents or clever liars but since is the information age it is a shameful thing to be exposed as such. Your insistence is as dangerous to truth as hydrohobia is to a Dog. You want to wage a war of words you better be better trained than that. The dogs bark and the caravan passes.