The Jewish Temple

[Lord Baal]

Why wasn't it rebuilt?

I'm currently nearing the end of Rome and Jerusalem by Martin Goodman. In it he describes how and why the Jewish Temple was destroyed. I understand fully why the Flavians, Trajan and Hadrian all refused to rebuild the temple. Vespasian and Titus needed to portray the destruction of the Temple as a great military triumph for political reasons; they'd just seized power in a brutal civil war, and needed to portray themselves as military successes away from that war. Domitian, as Vespasian's son and Titus's brother, also found it in his political best interest to discriminate against the Jews, as did Trajan, whose father had been a general in the Jewish War.

Where the logic of the situation begins to break down for me is the reign of Hadrian. Hadrian, living through the abortive Jewish uprising of 115-16 AD, chose not just to deny the Jews the right to rebuild their Temple - something which was very peculiar in the ancient world, when temples burnt down or were otherwise accidentally destroyed quite often - but to punish them further by turning the site of Jerusalem into a Roman cololy and building a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus on the site. This seems to me an outrageous provocation of the Judaean Jews, who had not participated in the 115 revolt and had already been 60 years without their temple. There seems to be no need for it and it was eminently stupid besides, as it directly led to the Jewish Revolt under Shimon Bar Kosiba. It gave the Jews, who already had reason to hate Rome, every reason to attempt to throw off the Roman yoke by any means possible.

Now, with the defeat of this Revolt, I can once again understand the behaviour of successive Emperors in not rebuilding the Temple as punishment for this latest rebellion, but that excuse only holds up for so long. What objection could an Emperor ruling 100 years after Hadrian have for continuing to deny the Jews to worship their god in the manner required by their religion? Later, one Emperor - his name escapes me - actually ordered the rebuilding of the Temple - ironically, not to please the Jews but to antagonise the Christians - but the building was never carried out.

I don't understand why the Temple was never rebuilt after this, and why the Dome of the Rock was eventually constructed in its place. What problem would the Byzantines or the Arabs have with rebuilding the Jewish Temple? Why the Dome of the Rock instead? Surely the Muslims would want to keep their Jewish subjects happy, especially since the Quran expressly states that Jews are to be treated favourably, though subject to certain taxes for not converting to Islam. Also, why didn't Israel tear down the Dome when they initially took Jerusalem, considering the mood at the time? Why is there no Jewish Temple today?

 

[Verbose]

Why wasn't it rebuilt?

I'm currently nearing the end of Rome and Jerusalem by Martin Goodman. In it he describes how and why the Jewish Temple was destroyed. I understand fully why the Flavians, Trajan and Hadrian all refused to rebuild the temple. Vespasian and Titus needed to portray the destruction of the Temple as a great military triumph for political reasons; they'd just seized power in a brutal civil war, and needed to portray themselves as military successes away from that war. Domitian, as Vespasian's son and Titus's brother, also found it in his political best interest to discriminate against the Jews, as did Trajan, whose father had been a general in the Jewish War.

Where the logic of the situation begins to break down for me is the reign of Hadrian. Hadrian, living through the abortive Jewish uprising of 115-16 AD, chose not just to deny the Jews the right to rebuild their Temple - something which was very peculiar in the ancient world, when temples burnt down or were otherwise accidentally destroyed quite often - but to punish them further by turning the site of Jerusalem into a Roman cololy and building a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus on the site. This seems to me an outrageous provocation of the Judaean Jews, who had not participated in the 115 revolt and had already been 60 years without their temple. There seems to be no need for it and it was eminently stupid besides, as it directly led to the Jewish Revolt under Shimon Bar Kosiba. It gave the Jews, who already had reason to hate Rome, every reason to attempt to throw off the Roman yoke by any means possible.

Now, with the defeat of this Revolt, I can once again understand the behaviour of successive Emperors in not rebuilding the Temple as punishment for this latest rebellion, but that excuse only holds up for so long. What objection could an Emperor ruling 100 years after Hadrian have for continuing to deny the Jews to worship their god in the manner required by their religion? Later, one Emperor - his name escapes me - actually ordered the rebuilding of the Temple - ironically, not to please the Jews but to antagonise the Christians - but the building was never carried out.

I don't understand why the Temple was never rebuilt after this, and why the Dome of the Rock was eventually constructed in its place. What problem would the Byzantines or the Arabs have with rebuilding the Jewish Temple? Why the Dome of the Rock instead? Surely the Muslims would want to keep their Jewish subjects happy, especially since the Quran expressly states that Jews are to be treated favourably, though subject to certain taxes for not converting to Islam. Also, why didn't Israel tear down the Dome when they initially took Jerusalem, considering the mood at the time? Why is there no Jewish Temple today?

Well, on the top of my head, and mostly typing a bit of speculation out loud:

Christian rule from about 330 would probably preclude restoring a privilege like this. The symbolic geography of the Holy Land to Christians does not automatically confirm anything for the Jewish community, probably quite the reverse. The Muslim attachment to Jerusalem through Muhammed's nightly ascent into heaven, which took place from precisely the site of the old temple, also precludes giving the Jews this.

Remains the 200 years of pagan Roman emperors to account for I guess. I would assume it was practical politics. The temple had been The Centre of the various Jewish rebellions. Since this was a rebellious segment of subjects of the empire, handing it back to them would seem a really bad idea. Not least since the Jews were apparently quite numerous in the Roman empire just generally, amounting to perhaps as much as 10% of the total population.

So, they are numerous, dangerous, contentious, have this attachment to this temple, so just maybe not giving in to them is precisely what an emperor should do? Considering the pagan Romans really didn't do anything to anyone out of compassion (being a sentiment regarded as a despicable weakness), that won't be a reason either. Just keep the under the boot-heel, Roman-style.

 

[Lord Baal]

Well, on the top of my head, and mostly typing a bit of speculation out loud:

Christian rule from about 330 would probably preclude restoring a privilege like this. The symbolic geography of the Holy Land to Christians does not automatically confirm anything for the Jewish community, probably quite the reverse. The Muslim attachment to Jerusalem through Muhammed's nightly ascent into heaven, which took place from precisely the site of the old temple, also precludes giving the Jews this.

Remains the 200 years of pagan Roman emperors to account for I guess. I would assume it was practical politics. The temple had been The Centre of the various Jewish rebellions. Since this was a rebellious segment of subjects of the empire, handing it back to them would seem a really bad idea. Not least since the Jews were apparently quite numerous in the Roman empire just generally, amounting to perhaps as much as 10% of the total population.

So, they are numerous, dangerous, contentious, have this attachment to this temple, so just maybe not giving in to them is precisely what an emperor should do? Considering the pagan Romans really didn't do anything to anyone out of compassion (being a sentiment regarded as a despicable weakness), that won't be a reason either. Just keep the under the boot-heel, Roman-style.

I can see Constantine and his successors not restoring the Temple, but there is a near 200 year gap there, during which there were actually plans, by an Emperor - damn I wish I could remember his name! - to rebuild the Temple. I'm not sure why it was not carried out in his lifetime - maybe he died shortly afterwards, if I could remember who the hell I'm talking about I could work it out - but it still doesn't explain why none of the other Emperors did so. There were even pagan Emperors, both of Rome and Byzantium, after Constantine, so they could have rebuilt the Temple, or even just left the Jews alone to build it themselves.

The Flavian treatment of the Jews was definitely practical politics. Originally Vespasian was sent to Judaea by Nero, in 66 AD, to put down a rebellion. The rebellion wsa actually begun by the High Priest of the Temple refusing to offer sacrifices to Yahweh on behalf of Nero. Basically, the priesthood, being sick of the corruption of Roman governors, wanted to call Nero's attention to this. Nero, not being the sort to care about corruption, decided to make an example of them with troops left over from the recent campaign against Parthia. As such, Vespasian had three legions under his command, which was massive overkill for the task at hand.

Vespasian was handling the war quite nicely when Nero was overthrown by Galba, committing suicide in the process. Galba was then overthrown by his top lieutenant, Otho. This was the start of what was known as the Year of the Four Emperors, encompassing 68-69 AD.

Galba had succeeded in overthrowing Nero largely because Nero was distracted by three other simultaneous rebellions; one by the Governor of Gallia Lugdunum - Central Gaul - who was killed in an engagement with the loyal Governor of Northern Gaul; the rebellion of Judaea, and; far more important than even Galba's rebellion, the rebellion of the Governor of Africa. Since Africa was a major source of Roman grain and had the potential to cut the city's naval supply routes, and Nero apparently believed the uprisings were related - since Galba had the Governor of Africa executed, this seems unlikely - he chose to capitulate to the first man to demand his job, which happened to be Galba.

Galba, being an old man, had to choose a successor. Otho expected the job, but Galba feared his ambition and adopted an unknown. Otho bribed the Praetorian Guard to help him kill Galba, then took Galba's place as Emperor.

Meanwhile, having heard of Galba's coup, a general in Germania, Vitellius, hastened south to press his own claim, backed by the legions of Germania and Gaul. Some of these were loyal to Vitellius, others to Nero, and some just wanted spoils for themselves. The fact that Otho had succeeded Galba in the ensuing period of time did nothing to slow down Vitellius, who defeated Otho in battle and took Rome for himself.

While this was going on, Vespasian stopped what he was doing in Judaea, and hastened to Alexandria. He seems originally to have been sitting on the fence about which side to support in the coming civil war, before being convinced by his legions and his former-rival-turned-ally the Governor of Syria to throw his own hat into the race for the Imperial title.

With the three legions at his disposal he was able to easily dominate Egypt, which at any rate seems to have declared for him willingly, thus giving him control of the Empire's breadbasket. He had even more capacity to starve Rome than had the African rebels. He sent the Syrian legions to Italy to press his claim, but on the way they were intercepted by the as-yet neutral Balkan and Danubian legions. These legions joined with Vespasian's, and Vitellius was defeated and executed, with Vespasian proclaimed Emperor in his stead by the Senate, with Domitian, Vespasian's youngest son, exercising power until his father arrived.

Vespasian was now in command of Rome, but he'd won the city through a bloody civil war. His last great military victory had been under Claudius two decades earlier, and he needed a positive military triumph to present to the people of Rome. As such, he sent his son Titus to do the job they'd originally been sent East to perform; subdue Judaea.

Titus was very effective in his task, and crushed the resistance. He was perhaps too effective; according to one account, he intended to destory the Temple from the beginning, but the more likely account is that of Josephus, which states that the burning of the Temple was an accident caused by the inability of Titus to control the bloodlust of his troops in the midst of battle.

Since his father's power was still tenuous, Titus couldn't admit that the destruction of the Temple was through incompetence, so he and his father claimed that the Jews deserved such destruction, that their God had abandoned them and otherwise went out of their way to present this as a great triumph. The final insult was that they refused to allow the Jews to rebuild the Temple, which was unheard of in this time. Temples burnt down or were destroyed by earrthquakes all the time in the Empire, and none had ever been refused permission to rebuild before.

After this, it became policy to disallow the Jews to rebuild the Temple. Nerva temporarily abandoned this policy but was dead within a few years, and both Trajan and Hadrian had similar links to the war in Judaea that the Flavians had. But after that, disallowing the Jews to rebuild the Temple just seems wasteful. Their numbers were not nearly as great as you think, and the rebellion of Shimon bar Kosiba was living proof that the lack of the Temple was a more likely spur to rebellion than rebuilding it. There's a reason the Rabbinic texts consider Nerva a good Emperor and pretty much no-one else. It just seems extremely odd that the Jews were singled out for this treatment.

I hadn't actually known that Mohammed's ascent into heaven occurred from the exact place of the old Temple; that explains that. Still, I would have expected Muslims to not want to piss off the Jews the same way Hadrian had, by building a holy site of their own on the site of the Temple.

 

[G-Man]

Why wasn't it rebuilt?

I'm currently nearing the end of Rome and Jerusalem by Martin Goodman. In it he describes how and why the Jewish Temple was destroyed. I understand fully why the Flavians, Trajan and Hadrian all refused to rebuild the temple. Vespasian and Titus needed to portray the destruction of the Temple as a great military triumph for political reasons; they'd just seized power in a brutal civil war, and needed to portray themselves as military successes away from that war. Domitian, as Vespasian's son and Titus's brother, also found it in his political best interest to discriminate against the Jews, as did Trajan, whose father had been a general in the Jewish War.

Where the logic of the situation begins to break down for me is the reign of Hadrian. Hadrian, living through the abortive Jewish uprising of 115-16 AD, chose not just to deny the Jews the right to rebuild their Temple - something which was very peculiar in the ancient world, when temples burnt down or were otherwise accidentally destroyed quite often - but to punish them further by turning the site of Jerusalem into a Roman cololy and building a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus on the site. This seems to me an outrageous provocation of the Judaean Jews, who had not participated in the 115 revolt and had already been 60 years without their temple. There seems to be no need for it and it was eminently stupid besides, as it directly led to the Jewish Revolt under Shimon Bar Kosiba. It gave the Jews, who already had reason to hate Rome, every reason to attempt to throw off the Roman yoke by any means possible.

Now, with the defeat of this Revolt, I can once again understand the behaviour of successive Emperors in not rebuilding the Temple as punishment for this latest rebellion, but that excuse only holds up for so long. What objection could an Emperor ruling 100 years after Hadrian have for continuing to deny the Jews to worship their god in the manner required by their religion? Later, one Emperor - his name escapes me - actually ordered the rebuilding of the Temple - ironically, not to please the Jews but to antagonise the Christians - but the building was never carried out.

I think that as far as the Romans were concerned, the question was the other way around - why should they spend money and resources on building a temple for a people who are at the edge of their empire, refuse to accept Roman religion and customs, attack Rome's supporters in their province and have rebeled against it twice?
Also, don't forget that after the two uprisings Jews weren't concentrated in Judea/Palestine as much as they were before them, and infact the main center of Judaism at that time was in Babylon.

I don't understand why the Temple was never rebuilt after this, and why the Dome of the Rock was eventually constructed in its place. What problem would the Byzantines or the Arabs have with rebuilding the Jewish Temple? Why the Dome of the Rock instead? Surely the Muslims would want to keep their Jewish subjects happy, especially since the Quran expressly states that Jews are to be treated favourably, though subject to certain taxes for not converting to Islam. Also, why didn't Israel tear down the Dome when they initially took Jerusalem, considering the mood at the time? Why is there no Jewish Temple today?

Muslim rule of Jerusalem was, in general, relatively good for Jews. Had history gone otherwise, it could've very well resulted in a new Jewish temple.
However, Muslims regard this site as "al-aqsa" - the edge/the furthest point, a term refered to in the Quran. There's great controversy about this issue and if it really is what the Quran refers to, but the important issue for this debate is that Muslims have considered this site to be the 3rd holliest site in Islam since very early on, and as such built the dome of the rock on the top of the mountain, and the al-aqsa mosque nearby.
This is also why the Muslim structures remained in place untill today - Destroying them in order to replace them with a Jewish temple would cause a very strong reaction from most Muslims. Just a few months ago unbased rumors that Israel was conducting archeological excavations nearby was enough for thousands of Muslims to riot and attack the police.

Finally, the zionist movement was a secular movement from its start, and so are most Jews in Israel today. Most religious Jews don't put any pressure to rebuild the temple, and some of them even oppose such a thing. Rebuilding the great temple is seen not as a national goal, but as the desire of small radical groups.

 

[Plotinus]

I believe the emperor you're thinking of, who wished to rebuild the Temple, was Julian - which should tell you why he wanted to do it, why it didn't happen, and why the attempt was not repeated.

 

[Agent327]

Christian rule from about 330 would probably preclude restoring a privilege like this. The symbolic geography of the Holy Land to Christians does not automatically confirm anything for the Jewish community, probably quite the reverse. The Muslim attachment to Jerusalem through Muhammed's nightly ascent into heaven, which took place from precisely the site of the old temple, also precludes giving the Jews this.

A bit of an odd argument, seeing as Muhammad during his lifetime never left Arabia proper. Also, I believe, it is reported as one of Muhammad's sayings that Jews are one of the two "people of the book". As there are different Christian churches in Jerusalem, I can't think of this as a strong argument against rebuilding. After the defeat of the last rebellion Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem, although visits could be allowed. I assume that over time Jews have grown accustomed to the site of the wall as it is/was (to which additions were made in the 7th century and in 1866 and 1967).

Remains the 200 years of pagan Roman emperors to account for I guess. I would assume it was practical politics. The temple had been The Centre of the various Jewish rebellions. Since this was a rebellious segment of subjects of the empire, handing it back to them would seem a really bad idea. Not least since the Jews were apparently quite numerous in the Roman empire just generally, amounting to perhaps as much as 10% of the total population.

Given that the population of the Roman Empire at its height has been estimated at some 50 million (ofcourse no exact dates exist), this seems an exceptionally high figure for this time period; Jewish reproduction and conversion rates cannot really account for that. (They were ofcourse dispersed all across the empire and beyond and under special protection by imperial edict - because of their special religious position.)

 

[Verbose]

A bit of an odd argument, seeing as Muhammad during his lifetime never left Arabia proper. Also, I believe, it is reported as one of Muhammad's sayings that Jews are one of the two "people of the book". As there are different Christian churches in Jerusalem, I can't think of this as a strong argument against rebuilding. After the defeat of the last rebellion Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem, although visits could be allowed. I assume that over time Jews have grown accustomed to the site of the wall as it is/was (to which additions were made in the 7th century and in 1866 and 1967)

That's why it had to be a nightly visit, as it happened in a dream. Still counts though, and is why the Dome of the Rock is located where it is.

 

[Agent327]

I'm not saying that from a religious point of view it is an invalid argument, merely that the occasion itself is a bit odd. (Why should Muhammad ascend to Heaven so far away from his place of death? And who reported this nightly ascent? Ascension to Heaven is usually assumed, not witnessed in person.)

 

[Dachs]

The ascension to Heaven wasn't done at his death. It was done in the normal course of his life, before the Hijra, when Jibrail came to Muhammad and brought him on a horse to the "Furthest Mosque" (possibly taking place in a dream; the "Furthest Mosque" may or may not have been at Quds/Jerusalem). There he ascended to Heaven, talked with Ibrahim, Musa, Isa, and Allah, the last of whom gave him some more instructions about how and when to pray. Then he went back to Makkah by morning and told everybody what happened, and he was not believed by most of them.

 

[Agent327]

I can imagine. "The furthest mosque?" That's even more puzzling. But very enlightening, thanks. (I assumed ascension to Heaven occurred after death, as usual. But then, Muhammad wasn't a usual person...)

 

[Dachs]

No prob. The description of the Night Journey in the Qur'an uses the words "Furthest Mosque" (Masjid al-Aqsa); the thought that it refers to a Jerusalem location is due to some of the hadith.

 

[Lord Baal]

I believe the emperor you're thinking of, who wished to rebuild the Temple, was Julian - which should tell you why he wanted to do it, why it didn't happen, and why the attempt was not repeated.

A quick check reveals that you're right. Crazy apostates.

 

[Tee Kay]

that Muslims have considered this site to be the 3rd holliest site in Islam since very early on

IIRC early Muslims actually prayed towards Jerusalem, rather than Makkah.

 

[G-Man]

IIRC early Muslims actually prayed towards Jerusalem, rather than Makkah.

They had a short period of praying towards Jerusalem (It was the first "Qibla"), but I'm not sure if that's because of the night journey or because it was a holy site for Judaism - Islam shares many figures and events with Judaism, so a holy Jewish site could very well have been seen as holy by Muslims as well.

 

[Lord Baal]

They had a short period of praying towards Jerusalem (It was the first "Qibla"), but I'm not sure if that's because of the night journey or because it was a holy site for Judaism - Islam shares many figures and events with Judaism, so a holy Jewish site could very well have been seen as holy by Muslims as well.

Especially before Mohammed's death, I would imagine.