Archæology and the Bible

by George A. Barton

There is no doubt that the second temple was built on the lines of the first, which were probably still traceable in the débris. It was also constructed of stone which still lay about the top of the hill—stone that had been used in the work of Solomon. It was not because it was smaller than the first temple that old men who had seen that wept as they looked on the new one (Ezra 3:12), but because it was less ornate. It was probably without ornament. Josephus (Contra Apion, i, 22) says that the temple court was enclosed by a wall a plethra in length and 100 Greek cubits in breadth, i. e., 485½ by 145½ feet. It was not, then, very large. It is uncertain whether there was at this time more than one court; 1 Macc. 4:48 speaks of “courts,” but Josephus tells[253] how the people pelted Alexander Jannæus with citrons while he was officiating at the altar during the Feast of Tabernacles, so that it is probable that the courts were not separated by a wall, but by a difference of elevation. The inner court was probably higher than the other, as it is around the Mosque of Omar today.

Within this court was an altar of unhewn stones. The temple itself consisted as before of the holy place and the holy of holies. Before the holy place was a porch, and around the building there were many small chambers as formerly. The holy of holies was separated from the holy place by a veil (1 Macc. 1:22), but now it contained no ark of the covenant, as that had been lost in 586 B. C. The holy of holies in the second temple was empty except for the “stone of foundation” on which the high priest placed his censer on the day of atonement.[254] In the holy place the table of show-bread stood in front of the veil. Instead of the ten golden lamp-stands of Solomon’s temple there now stood there the lamp with seven branches (see Zech. 4). A golden altar of incense replaced it (1 Macc. 1:21) in the time of the Maccabees, though it may not have been placed there before the time of Ezra.

Such was the temple as reconstructed after the Exile. In one important respect its perspective was changed. The royal palace and the administrative buildings, which before the Exile had shared the crest of the northern spur of Zion with the temple, were not rebuilt. The temple stood there alone. Little by little the part of the hill to the south of the temple was cleared of the débris and the ground became a temple court. This was significant of the religious condition of the post-exilic time. Kings had vanished; the worship of Jehovah held the supreme place in the thought of the people.

13. Nehemiah and the Walls.—For seventy-two years after the temple was rebuilt, the walls of the city still lay in ruins. That they were at last restored was due to the patriotism and energy of a noble young Jew, Nehemiah, who had been a cup-bearer to Artaxerxes I of Persia. The story of how he obtained the royal permission to return to Jerusalem as governor, with authority to rebuild the walls, how upon his arrival he traced by their ruins the lines of the old walls, with what energy and amid what difficulties he pushed their rebuilding to completion in the course of three months in the year 444 B. C., is told in detail in Nehemiah 1-7 and need not be repeated here.

At the northwest corner of the western hill there was placed in the wall at this time a gate called the Valley Gate (Neh. 3:13). This was the gate discovered by Bliss[255] a little to the east of the old fortress on Maudsley’s scarp. When the wall was completed, a ceremony of dedication was held. At this festival two processions started from this Valley Gate; one of these went around the south side of the city, the other around the north side (Neh. 12:31-40). They met at the temple. The procession that went around the south side of the city passed by the Dung Gate, which was situated in the southern wall well down the hill, then by the Fountain Gate, near the Pool of Siloam, then up the “ascent of the wall” by the stairs of the “City of David,” and passed the Water Gate somewhere above the spring of Gihon. Still above this, probably just to the east of the temple area, was the Horse Gate (Neh. 3:28). The other company, starting from the Valley Gate at the southwest corner of the city, passed northward by the “Tower of the Furnaces” unto the broad wall, above the Gate of Ephraim, by the Old Gate, and by the Fish Gate, past the Tower of Hananel and the Tower of Hammeah, unto the Sheep Gate. This description, together with the line of the previous wall, enables us approximately to determine the outline of post-exilic Jerusalem; (see Fig. 305). The one point of doubt has to do with the line of the second wall on the north of the city, laid out probably by Uzziah. As that line is directly under the present city it has never been possible to follow it by excavations. We can only conjecture what its course may have been. The towers of Hananel and Hammeah were clearly north of the temple area. They probably fortified the wall along the edge of a shallow valley which separated Moriah from the hill north of it. This hill was later called Bezetha.

14. Late Persian and Early Greek Periods.—After the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, we have no clear topographical references to Jerusalem until the second century B. C. It seems probable that Jerusalem and Judah rebelled against one of the later Persian kings and that the city suffered.[256] We hear that Ptolemy I of Egypt also captured Jerusalem,[257] but whether these experiences led to any modification in the form of the city, we do not know. The Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, often called Ecclesiasticus, which was written about 180 B. C., indicates that Jerusalem was a carefully organized city. Many professions and much commerce were represented in it, as well as many human sins and foibles.[258] The author declares[259] that a high priest, Simon, the son of Onias (probably Simon II, 218-198 B. C.), repaired the temple and fortified the city. What the nature of either work was, we do not know. So far as can be ascertained, he confined himself to the strengthening of old defenses, and did not change the topography.

In the early part of the reign of Antiochus IV, while many Jews were kindly inclined to Greek culture and to Greek ways, an outdoor gymnasium was established in Jerusalem.[260] This was in a hollow just above the Tyropœon valley to the west of the south end of the temple enclosure.[261] Josephus calls it the Xystus, a Greek name that reveals its character. Some reminder that it was once a gymnasium perhaps lingers in Maidan, the modern Arabic name for the locality, which means hippodrome, or place of combat.

15. In the Time of the Maccabees.—In the Maccabæan period the city was divided into three parts—the city proper, the temple, and the Akra or citadel. As to the situation of the Akra, there is a wide difference of opinion. Into the different theories it is impossible to go.[262] The writer agrees with George Adam Smith, that in all probability the Akra was the “City of David” of the earlier time, as 1 Maccabees states (1:33; 7:32, 33; 14:36). We first hear of this Akra in 198 B. C., when an Egyptian garrison held out in it against Antiochus III.[263] It was so shut off from the rest of Jerusalem that, though, after the onslaught of Antiochus IV on the Jews in 168 B. C., Judas Maccabæus recovered the city and temple as early as 165 B. C., the Syrians kept possession of the Akra for twenty-three years more, until they were finally dislodged by Simon the Maccabee in 142 B. C.[264]

16. Asmonæan Jerusalem.—During the Asmonæan dynasty which grew out of the Maccabæan struggle,[265] three new features were added to Jerusalem. One was a castle, to the northward of the temple area built by John Hyrcanus I, 135-105 B. C.[266] This was known to Greek-speaking Jews as Baris, which is a corruption of the Hebrew Birah, a fortress. Its walls are massive and high. It commanded the approach to the temple area from the north, and greatly strengthened the effectiveness of the temple fortification.

One of the Asmonæans, probably John Hyrcanus I, built a palace in Jerusalem.[267] This palace apparently stood on the site now occupied by the Synagogue of the German Jews in Jerusalem.[268] It was connected with the temple area by a bridge,[269] of which a remnant of the easternmost span, now called “Robinson’s Arch,”[270] is still visible on the western wall of the temple enclosure. This bridge was destroyed by Pompey when he captured Jerusalem in 63 B. C.,[271] and its remains were found by Warren in the bottom of the Tyropœon valley, 80 feet below the present surface of the ground.[272] As the Asmonæans were high priests as well as kings, this bridge gave them easy access to the temple from their palace. The palace itself, situated on a part of the western hill that overtopped the temple hill, was so placed that the royal priest could sit in his palace and watch what was transpiring in the temple courts and in the valley below.