Home Church Community

Statement of Beliefs

Contact Us

Search Our Site

Bible Study Resource



Printer Friendly Version

Basic Worldview:
314 End Times Prophecy (Eschatology)


Premillennial Temple Study

Premillennial Temple Study Part 1
Premillennial Temple Study Part 2
Premillennial Temple Study Part 3
Premillennial Temple Study Part 4
Premillennial Temple Study Part 5
Premillennial Temple Study Part 6
Premillennial Temple Study Part 7
Premillennial Temple Study Part 8
Premillennial Temple Study Part 9
Premillennial Temple Study Part 10
Premillennial Temple Study Part 11
Premillennial Temple Study Part 12
Premillennial Temple Study Part 13
Premillennial Temple Study Part 14
Premillennial Temple Study Part 15


 

The Geniza Documents: the Temple was South of the Moriah Platform

 

Jewish records, called the Geniza documents, found at a synagogue in Egypt record that Umar the Second Caliph allowed some Jewish families to resettle in Jerusalem.

 

The Cairo Geniza – The Cairo Geniza is an accumulation of almost 200,000 Jewish manuscripts that were found in the genizah or store room of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, presently Old Cairo, Egypt, – wikipedia.org

 

GenizaA genizah (or geniza; plural: genizot or genizoth or genizahs)[1] is the store-room or depository in a synagogue (or cemetery), usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings containing the name of God (even personal letters and legal contracts could open with an invocation of God). In practice, genizot also contained writings of a secular nature, with or without the customary opening invocation, and also contained writings in other languages that use the Hebrew alphabet (Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish)….By far, the best-known genizah, which is famous for both its size and spectacular contents, is the Cairo Geniza, discovered in 1864 by Jacob Saphir, and chiefly studied by Solomon Schechter. – wikipedia.org

 

Among the works found in the Cairo Geniza is a document referred to as Sefer HaYishuv. Sefer HaYishuv (which in Hebrew means, “Book of Settlement”) records the account of Jewish families who wished to live in Jerusalem during the time of Omar (Umar), the second caliph. Umar lived between 586 and 644 AD.

 

Umar – Umar (c. 586-590 CE – 7 November 644), also known as Umar the Great or Farooq the Great was the most powerful of the four Rashidun Caliphs and one of the most powerful and influential Muslim rulers.[1] He was a sahaba (companion) of the Islamic prophetMuhammad. He succeeded Caliph Abu Bakr (632–634) as the second Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate on 23 August634. – wikipedia.org

 

The following quotes indicate that these Jewish families wished to live near the site of their former Temple. They designate the Temple’s location specifically as the southern part near the waters of Siloam (Shiloah).

 

When the Caliph Omar visited Jerusalem shortly after the conquest, he asked the Jews: ‘Where would you wish to live in the city? And they answered, in the southern part; and that is the marketplace of the Jews.’ Their intention was to be close to the temple and its gates, as well as the waters of Siloam for ritual bathing. The Emir of the Believers granted this to them. – Sepher HaYishuv, quoted from Getting Jerusalem Together, Archeological Seminar Ltd., by Fran Alpert, p. 32

 

Omar decreed that seventy households should come. They agreed to that. After that he asked: “Where do you wish to live within the city?’ They replied, ‘In the southern section of the city, which is the market of the Jews.’ Their request was to enable them to be near the site of the Temple and its gates, as well as to the water of Shiloah, which could be used for immersion. The Emir of Believers granted them this. So seventy households including women and children moved from Tiberias and established settlements in buildings whose foundations had stood many generations. – quoted from Reuven Hammer, The Jerusalem Anthology, p.148.

 

Note how Moshe Gil records this. “A section of the Jewish chronicle mentioned above [from the Geniza documents], which was copied (or written) sometime during the eleventh century, notes that, when they [the Tiberias Jewish authorities] spoke with Umar [or, Omar] about the possibility of a renewed Jewish community in Jerusalem, the Jews asked for permission to settle in the southern part [my emphasis] of the city, near the gates of the ‘Holy Site’ (that is, the Temple) and near the pool of Siloam. 320 On receiving Umar’s consent, the Jews proceeded to build there, using construction materials that were readily available and that had previously been used in the old, now ruined structures. According to this source, the area in which the Jews took up residence is the site of the Jewish marketplace ‘to this very day’.” – “The Jewish Community” in The History of Jerusalem, p.171. Words in parentheses are Gil’s, quoted from Ernest L. Martin, The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot, p. 244

 

According to these Jewish records of the seventh century, the Jews at that time believed that their Temple was on the southern portion of Jerusalem in the area of Davidic Jerusalem south of the Moriah Platform.

 

The fact that the Jews believed their Temple was south of the Moria Platform is confirmed by several facts from the Geniza documents. First, the Muslims were already building shrines on the Moriah Platform site at this period. Muslim constructions included a small prayer house at the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the very southern end of the platform.

 

Al-Aqsa MosqueThe al-Aqsa Mosque was originally a small prayer house built by the Rashidun caliph Umar, - wikipedia.org

 

Likewise, during this period Muslims were also building houses just south of the Moriah Platform. Buildings in this location are from the Umayyad Period in the seventh century AD. Also notice from the quote below that the Dome of the Rock, which is even farther north than the al-Aqsa Mosque, was completed in 692. Coupled with construction of the al-Aqsa Mosque, this means that the entire Moriah Platform underwent Muslim construction projects during earlier in the seventh century.

 

Umayyad Caliphate - Banu Umayyah, Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750...The Umayyad Caliphate the second of the four Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph....Abd al-Malik (685-705), who reconsolidated Umayyad control of the caliphate....The second major event of the early reign of Abd al-Malik was the construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Although the chronology remains somewhat uncertain, the building seems to have been completed in 692. – wikipedia.org

 

Several of the quotes below were taken from the website of the Jerusalem Archeological Park. This is the archeological organization that oversees the area from the Moriah Platform to the Hinnom Valley. (Photos of archeological remains from these houses are available online at the web addresses listed with the quotes.)

 

Jerusalem Archeological Park – About Us – The Jerusalem Archaeological Park, Israel’s most important antiquity site, reaches the Temple Mount on the north, the slope of the Mount of Olives and the Kidron Valley on the east, and the Valley of Hinnom on the west and the south.http://www.archpark.org.il/...

 

As the photos at the websites show these Umayyah houses were being built during the seventh century at around the same time that the Jewish families from Cairo requested to live in the southern part of of Jerusalem near the Pool of Siloam near the former Temple.

 

AA2432  The remains of the Umayyad palaces from the early Islamic period temple mount in the back groundhttp://www.photozion.com/...

 

d) Byzantine residential house: A Byzantine residential house (6th-7th C AD) was uncovered under the Umayyad palace on the south side of the temple mount. The plastered walls and mosaic floor of one of the rooms are seen in the following photo.  The mosaic stones are white, and the decorations are red and black. There are other rooms, rock-cut cavities and courtyards. –  http://www.biblewalks.com/...

 

Kathleen M. Kenyon (1961-1967) – In 1965 Kenyon cut a section (j) in order to investigate the western face of the Ottoman wall, at the point that it turns northward to the Temple Mount, opposite the Double (Hulda) Gate. She cut another section (SI) on the eastern side of the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount. Here she uncovered Byzantine dwellings built atop a rock cutting (5 m high) that continued the line of the eastern wall; these she dated to the late Roman period. At a distance of 10 m to the south of the Al-Aqsa mosque Kenyon unearthed wall tops of a massive building dating to the Byzantine period. Three years later Mazar identified these remains as Building II of the Umayyad period.http://www.archpark.org.il/...

 

The excavation revealed important data on the history of Early Islamic Jerusalem. Four edifices, about 90 x 90 m each, were unearthed and dated to the Umayyad period (7th-8th centuries CE). These buildings are probably part of an official facility erected by the caliph Al-Walid, and shedding new light on the status of Jerusalem during the Islamic period. – http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations2.shtml

 

Site 19: An Umayyad Building South of the Huldah Gates – An imposing public building from the Umayyad period stands south of the staircase leading up to the Huldah gates. Like the building to the west (see Tour 1, Site 13), this structure has rectangular rooms, arranged around a central courtyard surrounded by porticoes. – http://www.archpark.org.il/...

 

Site 13: The Umayyad Palace South of the South Wall – A large building occupies the space between the south wall of the Temple Mount and the present Old City wall. It was built by the Umayyad rulers in the early years of Muslim rule in Jerusalem (second half of the seventh and first half of the eighth centuries CE). Judging from the sheer size of the building, its location (adjacent to the Temple Mount) and the details of its plan, it was probably a palace. Restoration and reconstruction work has been carried out at the site. The palace extends from the Temple Mount in the north beneath the Old City wall in the south, and from the main entrance in the west to the Ottoman city wall in the east (the Umayyad wall is narrower than the Ottoman wall above it and is built of lighter-colored stones).http://www.archpark.org.il/...

 

The construction of Muslim shrines and houses at the southern end of the Moriah Platform coupled with the Jewish desire to live in the south near the Pool of Siloam makes it clear that the Jews did not identify the Moriah Platform as the location of their Temple. Instead, they wished to live south of these Muslim areas. And it was this area south of the Moriah Platform that Jews of the seventh century identified as the location of their Temple.

 

We should also take note of that Geniza documents record that the Jews also mentioned the gates of their former Temple. It is true that all ancient structures had gates or entrances. The identification of various gates on the Moriah Platform with names used in the Mishnah or the Bible for the gates of the Temple in itself does nothing to prove that the platform’s gates actually belonged to the Temple. On the contrary, the Geniza documents indicate that Jews at the time of the seventh century AD believed that the gates of their Temple were not on the Moriah Platform as is held today. Instead, they believed the Temple’s gates were south of the platform near the waters of Shiloah. This is a reference to the Gihon Spring and the Pool of Siloam.

 

SiloamSiloam is an ancient Greek name derived from the more ancient Hebrew Shiloah. the Arabic: Silwan, was derived form the Greek, Siloam. It is an ancient site in Jerusalem, south of the Old City….Siloam is the site of the >Pool of Siloam, the outlet of the waters of the Gihon Spring. – wikipedia.org

 

Pool of Siloam – Pool of Siloam is a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David (believed to be the original site of Jerusalem) now outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Springwikipedia.org

 

These seventh century facts can be illustrated in a diagram showing the location of the seventh century Muslim buildings in relation to the area where the Jewish families requested to live. (See Umayyad Diagram.)

 

Notice that the Temple was near the Pool of Siloam which is nearby the Valley of Hinnom. Umar’s own work to identify the site of the Temple resulted in a location somewhere near the Valley of Hinnom. (We must remember that the account of Eutychius indicates that the site of the Temple had not been built upon by Romans or Byzantines. And yet both groups had built on the Moriah Platform.) Here is Eutychius’ account of Umar being shown the site of the Temple by Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem.

 

Then Omar said to him: ‘You owe me a rightful debt. Give me a place in which I might build a sanctuary.’ The patriarch said to him: ‘I will give to the Commander of the Faithful a place to build a sanctuary where the kings of Rum were unable to build. It is the rock where God spoke to Jacob and which Jacob called the Gate of Heaven and the Israelites the Holy of Holies. It is in the center of the world and was a Temple for the Israelites, who held it in great veneration and wherever they were they turned their faces toward it during prayer. But on this condition, that you promise in a written document that no other sanctuary wil be built inside of Jerusalem. Therefore, Omar ibn al-Khattab wrote him the document on this matter and handed it over to him. [Sophronius then remarked that this area was in ruins when] [t]hey were Romans when they embrace the Christian religion, and Helena, the mother of Constantine built the churches of Jerusalem. The place of the rock and the area around it were deserted ruins and they poured dirt over the rock so that great was the filth above it. The Byzantines, however, neglected it and did not hold it in veneration, nor did they build a church over it because Christ our Lord said in his Holy Gospel ‘Not a stone will be left upon a stone which will not be ruined and devasted.’ For this reason, the Christian left it as a ruin and did not build a church over it. So Sophronius took Omar ibn al-Khattab by the hand and stood him over the filth. Omar, taking hold of his cloak filled it with dirt and threw it into the Valley of Gehenna. – Eutychius, translated by F.E. Peters, Jerusalem, pp.189-190, citing frm D. Baldi, Enchiridion Locoum Sanctorum, pp.447-8, quoted by Earnest L. Martin, The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot, p. 123, Footnote, 160

 

Sophronius – Sophronius (560 in DamascusMarch 11, 638 in Jerusalem) was the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem from 634 until his death,… died soon after the fall of Jerusalem to the caliphUmar I in 637, but not before he had negotiated the recognition of civil and religious liberty for Christians in exchange for tribute - an agreement known as Umari Treaty. The caliph himself came to Jerusalem, and met with the patriarch at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Sophronius invited Umar to pray there, but Umar declined, fearing to endanger the Church's status as a Christian temple. – wikipedia.org

 

The Valley of Gehenna (Hinnom) is located to the south of Davidic Jerusalem. Clearly, the site that was shown to Umar was in a location nearby the Hinnom Valley. The nearest location is the area of Davidic Jerusalem. By contrast the Dome of the Rock is about .6 miles (1 km) north of the Hinnom Valley. At this location in the area of Davidic Jerusalem, Umar and his Muslim associates removed the garbage that had accumulated over the Temple since the early Byzantine Period. Clearly, these seventh century accounts involving the Muslim Caliph and Jewish families relocating to Jerusalem indicate that the Temple was south of the Moriah Platform.

 

 

 

Umar, the Temple, and the Dome of the Rock

 

At this point, we should also mention the modern convention that Umar built the Dome of the Rock upon the site of the former Jewish Temples. First let us note that this convention is based on an assumption that the Dome of the Rock is the site of the Temple. Therefore, it is also assumed that the site Sophronius showed Umar was the future site of the current Dome of the Rock. In the previous section we examined historical documents that contradict this notion.

 

Common modern descriptions of these events usually credit Ka’ab, a Jewish rabbi who had converted to Islam, with showing Umar the site of the Temple.

 

Ka‘ab al-AhbarKa‘b al-Ahbār (full name Abū Ishaq Ka‘b ibn Mati‘ al-Humyari al-Ahbār) was a prominent rabbi (turned Muslim) from Yemen of the clan of Dhu Ra'in or Dhu al-Kila.[2]…Kaab accompanied Khalif Umar in his voyage to Jerusalem (Al-Quds) He helped locate the foundations of the ancient Jewish temple where Umar built the Aqsa Mosque. He also helped later find the place of the Rock while he was looking for the Holy of Holies. Umar cleaned it from rubble and fenced it and an Umayyad Khalif later built the Dome of the Rock over it as an integral part of the Aqsa Mosque. – wikipedia.org

 

Two points must be made concerning the involvement of Ka’ab. While it is hard to deny accounts of Ka’ab’s involvement, we must ask the question whether it is advisable to trust the estimations of a Jewish rabbi converted to Islam. Whether Ka’ab’s conversion was sincere or insincere doesn’t matter. Either way, his desire to please the Caliph brings either his commitment to the truth or his ability to evaluate the truth into question. In any case, Ka’ab seems not to have had a high regard for earlier traditions and found it acceptable to discard them for new trends. Additionally, we are talking about the views of a man who lived over 500 years after the Temple was destroyed and after several centuries when Jews were not even allowed to enter the city of Jerusalem. As such, whatever evidence Ka’ab’s account provides should be weighed accordingly against earlier and more credible sources.

 

In accordance with this, we must also note that these conventional explanations involving Ka’ab do no account for the information that is provided by the historical documents themselves. As we have seen, the accounts of Umar and Sophronius are provided by the Arab-Christain historian Eutychius. This account clearly indicates that the site of the Temple had not been built upon by the Romans or Byzantines. In fact, the site was an area for dumping garbage. By contrast, Eutychius reports that both the Romans and the Byzantines had built on the Moriah Platform at the future site of the Dome of the Rock.

 

Helena, the mother of Constantine built the churches of Jerusalem. The place of the rock and the area around it were deserted ruins and they poured dirt over the rock so that great was the filth above it. The Byzantines, however, neglected it and did not hold it in veneration, nor did they build a church over it because Christ our Lord said in his Holy Gospel ‘Not a stone will be left upon a stone which will not be ruined and devasted.’ For this reason, the Christian left it as a ruin and did not build a church over it. – Eutychius, translated by F.E. Peters, Jerusalem, pp.189-190, citing frm D. Baldi, Enchiridion Locoum Sanctorum, pp.447-8, quoted by Earnest L. Martin, The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot, p. 123, Footnote, 16

 

Temple Mount About 325 it is believed that Constantine's mother, St. Helena, built a small church on the Mount in the 4th century, calling it the Church of St. Cyrus and St. John, later on enlarged and called the Church of the Holy Wisdom. The church was later destroyed and on its ruins the Dome of the Rock was built.[9] Since it is known that Helena ordered the Temple of Venus to the west of the Temple Mount to be torn down to construct the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, presumably she also ordered the Temple of Jupiter on the Temple Mount to be torn down to construct the Church of St. Cyrus and St. John. – wikipedia.org

 

Contrary to modern conventions which identify the Dome of the Rock with the site of the Temple, the historical record of Umar and the Temple identifies a location for the Temple that was not on the Moriah Platform. Instead, the site of the Temple was near the Gihon Spring, the Pool of Siloam, and the Valley of Hinnom. These areas are all south of the Moriah Platform and the Umayyah buildings and Muslim shrines that were being built in the seventh century. And again, the site of the Temple was a garbage dump that had not been built on by the Romans or Byzantines. In contrast, the Romans and Byzantines built upon the Moriah Platform at the site of the Dome of the Rock.

 

Other reports from a later date provide alternate versions of the discovery of the Temple site by Umar. The account below is the record given by the thirteenth century rabbi, Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil.

 

Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil – Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil (13th century) was a French rabbi and Tosefist who flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century. – wikipedia.org

 

According to Isaac ben Joseph, Umar learned of the site of the Temple from an old man. Like Eutychius, Isaac ben Joseph notes that the site of the Temple was used by the uncircumcised Byzantines as a place to dump gargage. He also reports that Umar and his associates cleansed the site of the garbage.

 

In the words of a Jewish visitor in 1334 C.E., Isaac ben Joseph: The king, who had made a vow to build up again the ruins of the sacred edifice, if God put the Holy City in his power, demanded of the Jews that they should make known the ruins to him. For the uncircumcised in their hate against the people of God, had heaped rubbish and filth over the spot, so that no one knew exactly where the ruins stood. Now there was an old man then living who said: “If the king will take an oath to preserve the wall, I will discover unto him the place where the ruins of the Temple were.” So the king straightway placed his hand on the thigh of the old man and swore an oath to do what he demanded. When he had shown him the ruins of the Temple under a mound of defilements, the king had the ruins cleared and cleansed, taking part in the cleansing himself, until they were all fair and clean. After that he had them all set up again, with the exception of the wall, and made them a very beautiful Temple, which he consecrated to his God. (Elkin N. Adler, Jewish Travelers: A Treasury of Travelogues from Nine Centuries, 2nd ed. [New York: Hermon Books, 1966], pp.130-1. - quoted by Earnest L. Martin, The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot, p. 243

 

It is important to note that Isaac ben Joseph and Eutychius agree with one another on the site of the Temple, its condition, and Umar’s cleansing it of debris. But we can also notice that Isaac ben Joseph reports that Umar promised to preserve a certain wall. The account concludes by explaining that Umar took the ruins of the Temple and set them up again as a Temple to his God. By this we know that Isaac ben Joseph is referring to a Muslim shrine that Umar built. But we must note that Isaac ben Joseph states that “the wall” was not used in Umar’s new building.

 

According to Isaac ben Joseph, there was a wall of the Jewish Temple that existed in the seventh century that Umar promised to preserve. Umar then took the ruins of the Temple and built a Muslim shrine. As we continue, we must first realize that Umar did not build the Dome of the Rock. He did, however, construct the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the southern end of the Moriah Platform.


Al-Aqsa Mosque – The al-Aqsa Mosque was originally a small prayer house built by the Rashidun caliph Umar, but was rebuilt and expanded by the Ummayad caliph Abd al-Malik and finished by his son al-Walid in 705 CE. – wikipedia.org

 

Umar – Umar, c. 586-590 CE – 7 November, 644, also known as Umar the Great or Farooq the Great was the most powerful of the four Rashidun Caliphs and one of the most powerful and influential Muslim rulers. – wikipedia.org

 

The Dome of the Rock was built by one of Umar’s successors over 40 years after Umar’s death. So, the site where Umar built a shrine is not the Dome of the Rock.

 

The Dome of the Rock – The Dome of the Rock was erected between 685 and 691 CE. The names of the two engineers in charge of the project are given as: Yazid Ibn Salam from Jerusalem and Raja Ibn Haywah from Baysan. Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan who initiated construction of the Dome, - wikipedia.org

 

Abd al-Malik – Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (646-705) was the 5th Umayyad Caliph. – wikipedia.org

 

Second, we must note that according to Isaac ben Joseph “the wall” at the Temple site was not a part of Umar’s new building. This clearly means that the location of Umar’s new building was not the same site as the Temple. Instead, Umar took stones from the Temple site and used them to build his mosque. However, as he had promised, Umar did not take stones from “the wall” at the Temple site. Instead, since he had promised to preserve the wall, he left it standing at the site of the Temple. From this we know that the stones of the Temple that were used in Umar’s building were moved to another location. They were not erected at the Temple site where this particular wall was left intact.

 

A similar account comes from a rabbinical authority of the tenth century, three centuries after the Geniza documents and the construction of the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. This document reports that the Arabs allowed the Jews to pray at the Temple’s gates in exchange for keeping the site clear of refuse.

 

A letter written at the end of the tenth century from Jerusalem by a Rabbinic Jewish authority asking for donations of money to help Jewish people in Jerusalem has survived….”…It was God’s will that we found favor with the Ishmaelite rulers. At the time of their invasion and conquest of Palestine from the Edomites, the Arabs came to Jerusalem and some Jews showed them the location of the Temple. This group of Jews has lived among them ever since. The Jews agree to keep the site clear of refuse, in return for which they were granted the privilege of praying at its gates….” – A. Holtz, The Holy City: Jews on Jerusalem (New York: W.W. Norton, 1971), pp.122-3, quoted by Earnest L. Martin, The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot, p. 241

 

Notice again that the site of the Temple cannot be the site of the Dome of the Rock or any building the Umar constructed. Neither the Dome of the Rock nor the Al-Aqsa Mosque needed to be cleansed of refuse. Both sites were in use as Muslim holy places.

 

These Jewish and Christian accounts require that we discard the idea that the Temple was located near the Dome of the Rock or Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Moriah Platform. The Temple site that was shown to Umar was not located on the Moriah Platform at all. It was further south, near the Hinnom Valley and the Pool of Siloam. It was an area that had never been built upon but had been used as a place to dump garbage. Clearly the site of the Temple was south of the platform in proximity to these sites around Davidic Jerusalem.

 


Related Images



Aerial Photo Overlays



Overhead Schematics



Elevation
Cross-sections




Temple Model Photos



Photos from the
Mount of Olives




The Rock Under
the Dome Photo