Read about it here (the details of secret, off-limits digging are real; the motivation or object is the question). My guess is “no.” It wouldn’t matter with respect to attempts to erase the Jewish altar remnants if Leen Ritmeyer is right (see the link at the bottom of the linked post) — and especially if Ernest Martin was right, that the temple mount isn’t the correct location at all.(See here as well).
Almost no one thinks Martin was right about the alternative location for the temple. I think his view deserves a serious hearing. (James Tabor agrees — hey, we actually do agree on some things!) The traditional, accepted view, really cannot account for two things: Josephus’ record of a long colonnade connecting the Fortress Antonia to the temple site (“he’s just wrong”) and the need for living (i.e., running) water in the temple (see here and here). Leen Ritmeyer has weighed in on Martin’s work — you can read that here (contains rebuttal by Martin).
Noteworthy theory when you also consider the Temple vision of Ezekiel in which he describes water flowing from the altar (Ezekiel 47:1).
Martin’s rebuttal of Ritmeyer seems complete from where I’m sitting. That was a great read, and I’m surprised I didn’t know more (or, well…anything) about it.
Does modern man have the location of the former Temple Mount in Jerusalem accurately pegged? Jesus said EVERY stone from the Temple would be thrown down, and that Jerusalem itself would be completely destroyed (“lay thee even with the ground”). Please read this informative and provocative article which reveals the alternative (seeming accurate) location of the former Temple. The webpage offers a drawing of the original Temple complex, and it also has two other views/angles of the complex at the two links at the bottom of the webpage. This is simply awesome information! Thanks, Brenda
“The traditional, accepted view, really cannot account for two things: Josephus’ record of a long colonnade connecting the Fortress Antonia to the temple site (“he’s just wrong”) and the need for living (i.e., running) water in the temple.” -Michael Heiser
THE TEMPLE MOUNT AND FORT ANTONIA by Ernest L. Martin
http://www.askelm.com/temple/t980504.htm
I agree that Martin’s work deserves more serious consideration than it has gotten. I have actually been at an academic conference where it was presented and saw firsthand how scholars did not actually address the problems he points out with the traditional view, choosing instead to just chuckle. My thought is that if it’s so easy to overturn, then do it. If you don’t, all I take away is your attitude.
Thank you, Michael, for your affirmative response. I can only hope that one day you may be able to bring us the works of some credentialed authority/expert who backs-up, vouches for, or maybe even ‘proves’ Martin’s assertions. I stand on the thesis that the New Testament and Jesus’ words prove them already.
Brenda
Sure, Martin’s theory should get a fair hearing instead of being too quickly dismissed. Such dismissal only strengthens the oh-so-popular perception of an “unheeded genius”. However, not everyone whose theories go unheeded is the genius he thinks he is.
I have browsed through the material present on Martin’s homepage. Sure he raises some interesting points and arguments in favour of a different location for the temple (Josephus’ account, a spring in the Temple, the – albeit late – tradition about the Dome of the Rock having been the site of the Praetorium). He also makes interesting cases disputing currently held views, e.g. I am pretty much convinced of his locating the Nea church in the spot of the Al-Aksa mosq – but what follows from this for the location of the Temple. Nothing, IMHO.
However, he also picks pseudo-arguments that don’t prove anything, especially Jesus’ prophecy. Sorry, Brenda, but this argument goes nowhere because Martin mis- and overinterprets Jesus’ words to the extreme. That no stone should remain on the other is quite common figurative language that is even used today for devestated cities. Still, in almost any case some stones remain unmoved. One also cannot use Jesus’ prophecy to explain away that apparently no remnants of any Jewish temple can be shown at his favoured location. No destruction – be it ever so careful – leaves no traces at all…
…And even if Martin’s reading of Jesus were accurate, he cannot use it as additional evidence for his destruction without traces: just because Jesus predicted something does not neccessarily mean that it came to pass exactly the way He predicted it. Martin believes in Jesus’ prophecy and so do I! Fine! But believing Jesus is not a substitute for evidence!
The problem is not that Martin takes eye-witness accounts like that of Josephus serious* – it is that he disregards anything else. If there is no trace of a temple at Ghion, if there is archeological evidence of a temple at the Haram, if there is evidence for the Romans having stationed less than an entire legion at Jerusalem before 70 – Martin sticks to his “one true” reading of the “one true eyewitness” Josephus.
*And even in that regard he is sloppy at times. In his response to Ritmeyer’s critique he simply repeated his claim that according to Josephus the Temple complex was a square (and hence not he Haram), totally glossing over Ritmeyer’s point that Josephus was speaking of the temple of Zerubbabel, whereas Herod’s temple was enlarged into a rectengular shape. Martin does not rebut this (and he knows very well that Herod enlarged the complex, stating this in an interview) but simply ignores the argument.
Though not directly affecting Martin’s case, his rhetoric does not make him very welcome. He apparently thinks that the conflict in the Middle East revolves around the Temple Mount/Haram and that telling everybody (but especially Jews and Christians) how stupid and ignorant they are not to follow his lead holds the key to bring peace to the region. How preposterous!
yes, there is more to the problem than the temple mount!