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Happy holidays to
everyone!
Loren Crow
The unexamined
life is not worth living.
-
Socrates
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2000 11:33
PM
Subject: Temple and Palace
The recent discussion about the possibility of a palace near
the temple in
Jerusalem is very interesting. I am of the persuasion that it
is quite
plausible that temple and palace were near each other, on the
citadel.
Excavations at ancient Samal and Tell Halaf of the 9th to 8th
centuries BCE
support this view:
"The most important Iron I palace
in early Israel would have been, of
course, the royal palace in Jerusalem.
This is described in 1 Kings 7:1-12
(cf. also 2 Sam. 5:11-15 for David's
palace), but no trace of this structure
has been (or ever likely will be)
discovered. Similar structures, however,
which fit even the details of the
biblical structure, have been found in
9th-8th century Syria at such sites
as Zinjirli (ancient Sam`al) and Tell
Halaf. Here one finds, as with the
Jerusalem temple, a location on the
citadel near the main temple, ashlar
(dressed) masonry construction, etc."
(p.57, Vol. 5, "Palace," Wm. Dever,
Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1992)
Ezekiel complains of Israel setting
their thresholds and doorposts adjacent
to those of the temple:
"And
the house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name, neither they,
nor
their kings...by setting their threshold by my threshold and
their
doorposts besides my doorposts, with only a wall between me and
them...This
is the law of the temple: the whole territory round about the
top of the
mountain shall be most holy." (Ez. 43:7-8, 12)
1 Kings
7:1-12, suggests to me that Solomon's palace was near the temple:
"His
own house where he was to dwell, in the court back of the hall, was of
like
workmanship...All these were made of costly stones, hewn according
to
measure, sawed with saws, back and front, even from the foundation to
the
coping, and from the court of the house of the Lord to the great
court...The
great court had three courses of hewn stone round about and a
course of
cedar beams; so had the inner court of the house of the Lord, and
the
vestibule of the house." ( 1 Ki. 7:8-12)
Jeremiah suggests that
the palace will be restored on its original
foundations after the
exile:
"...the city shall be rebuilt upon its mound, and the palace
shall stand
where it used to be..." (Jer.30:18)
All the
best,
Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by
Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany
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