Today’s Scripture Reading (April 30, 2018): Revelation 11
One of the national byproducts of war is the
loss of cultural artifacts. Any place that has experienced conflict for any
length of time understands that. Areas with great history lose their
archeological connection with the past. Important religious buildings and idols
are destroyed. And personally, I weep
every time it happens. There is a connection with history that is simply lost
forever, a connection that cannot be recovered,
and we are made less by the loss. War is the enemy of history; it removes from
us what is important about our past.
When the Romans defeated Jerusalem in 70
C.E., they did such a great job of obliterating the Temple that we still do not
know where the foundations of the Temple might lie. We do know more about the
area that surrounded the Temple. For instance, we have uncovered the Western
Wall, or the wailing wall, an area that has become sacred to the Jews because
of its connection with the Temple. But the Western Wall was not part of the
Temple proper; it is a relatively small
section of the retaining wall that was most likely built around the time of
Herod the Great’s expansion of the Temple. The Western Wall was part of a
larger structure that likely surrounded the Temple courtyard, but it is not
part of the Temple.
Of course, right now an examination of Temple
Mount is impossible because the Mount is in the
possession of Islamic believers. Traditionally, it is believed that the “Dome on the Rock,” an
Islamic shrine that was completed in 691 C.E. and is the oldest extant Islamic
building in the world, stands on the foundation of the Jewish Temple. The destruction
of one important religious shrine has led to the construction of another shrine
from a different religion that is built
on the same spot.
But recent research indicates that we might
be wrong about this placement of the Jewish Temple. (Stress the “might be,” we don’t
know anything about Temple Mount for sure.) But the research indicates that the
Jewish Temple might actually have stood just north of the “Dome on the Rock.” If that
is true, then the “Dome on the Rock” stands in the outer court of the Temple.
Cue John’s Revelation. He says that he was told that the “outer court” had been “given
to the Gentiles.” Gentiles is simply a word used to describe people who are not
of Jewish descent. The presence of the “Dome on the Rock” on what might be the
area of the outer court of the Temple would seem to be a fulfillment of this
prophecy. But we need to be careful
because we know so little about the positioning of the buildings on Temple
Mount during the Herod reconstruction of the Temple.
It should also be noted that, by the time John records his Revelation, Temple
Mount has already been razed by the
Romans. Nothing is left. John is being told in his vision to go and measure a
building that is no longer standing. It might have been John’s belief that the Temple Mount had already been trampled by the
Gentiles in the form of Romans. Which brings us to the “42 months.” Most
scholars seem to agree that this indicates the last half of the Great Tribulation, which means that even if the “Dome on the
Rock” is built on the outer court fulfilling part of John’s prophecy, the real
trampling of Temple Mount has likely not even begun. The real trampling
waits for some of the rest of the end times prophecy to be fulfilled.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 12
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