...But not necessarly. If there was a mud-brick temple, could we tell the difference from regular houses? And then what if the temple had been made of wood? Nothing would have remained.
As for the viability of mud-brick buildings in the archaeogical
record, that is primarily what there is, and they are continually found
in excavations throughout Israel. Often there are also stone foundations.
I would suggest that bayit and hekal denote structures that wereNo one has ever suggested that it was. It was of course sheltered in a structure called bayit and heykal. But that in itself does not imply that the structure was permanent. Nor does the presence of doorposts (mezuzot, 1 Sam 1:9); the tabernacle described in Exodus 26 was constructed with posts and an entrance covered by a curtain, and the posts either side of the entrance could easily be described as doorposts. Nothing permanent implied.
intended to be permanent and to house the deity (=the ark). The
ark would not have been kept out-of-doors.
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