Today’s press conference at the Western Wall promised to “challenge the conventional viewpoint” of the dating of the construction of the Temple Mount. The new evidence does that only if imagines that the conventional viewpoint was something other than it is. Someone in the Israel Antiquities
Authority obviously felt that this minor story needed to be a major story and this justified creating a new conventional viewpoint that could be contradicted.

All quotations are from the official press release (also here) of the Israel Antiquities Authority, not from some journalist untrained in the field.

The release begins:

Who built the Temple Mount walls? Every tour guide and every student grounded in the history of Jerusalem will immediately reply that it was Herod.

This might be true. When asked a simple question, a tour guide may respond with a simple answer.

However, in the archaeological excavations alongside the ancient drainage channel of Jerusalem a very old ritual bath (miqwe) was recently discovered that challenges the conventional archaeological perception which regards Herod as being solely responsible for its construction.

Ah, but now they’ve twisted the question so as to create a dramatic discovery. The question asked every tour guide above was not who was solely responsible for its construction. Actually, every tour guide and student knows that Josephus reported that in AD 64 work was halted on the Temple Mount and 18,000 workers were laid off (Ant. 20:219-23).

In fact, the press release acknowledges as much, in the concluding (and bolded) paragraph:

This dramatic find confirms Josephus’ descriptions which state that it was only during the reign of King Agrippa II (Herod’s great-grandson) that the work was finished, and upon its completion there were eight to ten thousand unemployed in Jerusalem.

So if this find confirms Josephus’ descriptions, how does it “challenge the conventional viewpoint”?

The fact is that it doesn’t.

Furthermore, the press release fails to note that the New Testament makes it clear that the Temple Mount construction was on-going during the time of Jesus’ ministry (ca. AD 30).

John 2:20 (NET) “Then the Jewish leaders said to him, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and are you going to raise it up in three days?’”

The conventional viewpoint is that construction on the Temple Mount began in 20 BC and continued, likely with some stops and starts, until AD 64.

There is valuable information gained from the recent excavation that is nearly obscured by the pathetic attempt to garner headlines with inaccurate reporting. The excavations of Shukron and Reich demonstrate that construction of Robinson’s Arch and the area in the southwestern corner of the Temple did not begin until AD 17/18. This spectacular staircase may have been freshly completed when Jesus arrived with his disciples. So if the story corrects an interpretation for guides and students of the Temple Mount, it is that King Herod, who died in 4 BC, never entered the complex by means of the southwestern gate.

The press release, with inline photos, can be read at the Israel MFA site. Two high-resolution photos may be downloaded at the IAA site (temporary link) or with this direct link to the zip file.

The story is reported in the media by the Associated Press, the Jerusalem Post, Arutz-7, and Haaretz.

All of these publications report that the excavations “challenge” what we knew and “confirm” what Josephus says. None of them mention John 2:20.

Leen Ritmeyer provides photos including a portion of a well-known unfinished section and notes that “this late date is not surprising” because of the reference in John 2.

First-century street below Robinson's Arch, tb051805944

Southwestern corner of the Temple Mount and Robinson’s Arch
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Joseph Lauer passes along a press conference invitation sent by the Israel Antiquities Authority, the City of David, and other related parties.

Invitation: Tomorrow (Wednesday, November 23, 2011) at 11:15 AM–a Press Conference in the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden A find will be presented that challenges the conventional viewpoint in archaeology regarding the construction of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The press conference will be held in the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden, next to the Western Wall. For further information, kindly contact: Yoli Shwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority spokesperson, 052-5991888 [email protected]

Leen Ritmeyer has posted a note suggesting that the new information has to do with the date of the construction of Robinson’s Arch.

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Ancient Israel: Highlights from the Collections of the Oriental Institute University of Chicago is a new 127-page publication written by Gabrielle Vera Novacek and illustrated with 66 beautiful photographs and diagrams. The book is available for pre-order from Amazon or as a free download (pdf).

Six lectures in Hebrew are now online from the 12th Studies of Ancient Jerusalem conference held in September in the City of David. The speakers included Israel Finkelstein, Ronny Reich, Gabriel Barkay, Asher Grossberg, Eli Shukron, and Yosef Garfinkel.

“Libya’s famed ancient Roman sites, including the sprawling seaside ruins of Leptis Magna, were spared damage by NATO during the recent airstrikes, says a London-based Libyan archaeologist.”

Muslims continue to bury their dead next to the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, according to the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities.

The head of the Supreme Committee of the Grand Egyptian Museum was fired this week.

“Ultra-Orthodox young men curse and spit at Christian clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City as a matter of routine.” Last week a judge ruled in favor of an Armenian seminary student who fought back.

HT: Daniel Wright, Jack Sasson, ANE-2, AWOL

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Joseph Patrich provides a great survey of what we know about Caesarea Maritima from archaeological excavations.

Ferrell Jenkins has written a couple of illustrated posts on Saint Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula.

The IAA has more information about the Byzantine prayer box discovered in the City of David (aka
“Walls around Jerusalem” National Park).

The West Semitic Research Project has made three RTI images available to BAR readers to view without requiring registration. (Background here.)

Wayne Stiles transports his readers to the Mount of Beatitudes in the spring.

You can now register for the 2012 season at Gath. This is one of the most popular excavations in the world.

The ancient mikveh discovered near Zorah is the subject of a 1.5 minute video at the Jerusalem Post.

A bill submitted to Israel’s parliament “aims to preserve the Dead Sea and its internationally treasured natural resources, maintain the salty waters for the benefit of the next generation, curb the plunging water levels of the northern basin and determine new terms of management for the region, which will provide for continued reasonable extraction of minerals while protecting the ecosystems and biodiversity.”

Israel’s Knesset has refused to declassify the Temple Mount Report. “Shin Bet officials argued the report should remain confidential on the grounds its contents were sensitive and its publication could result in confrontations and geopolitical changes at the site.”

A scholar claims that the number of ancient stone wheels visible only from the sky may number more than a million. Google Earth is now being used to identify these throughout Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Iraq has budgeted $8.5 million to develop the infrastructure at the ancient city of Babylon.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

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The bridge from the Western Wall plaza to the Temple Mount has been in the news frequently since the collapse of the earthen embankment in 2004. Arutz-7 reports on the latest in the saga:

Jerusalem’s engineer demands that the ”Mughrabi” bridge for Jews to the Temple Mount be repaired or closed because of dangers.
The complaint of its stability could not come at a worse time for Israel. The bridge, also known as the Rambam Gate, has been a potential explosive subject involving Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.
Jerusalem engineer Shlomo Eshkol wrote a letter to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation and demanded that the safety hazard in the temporary structure be fixed within 30 days. Although “temporary,” the structure has existed for several years after the collapse of the old permanent bridge.
Eshkol said authorization for a new bridge was granted last May, but action has been stalled because all parties involved disagree over who has the authority to tear down the current bridge and finance a new one.

The story continues here. For background, see here and here.

Ramp from Western Wall prayer plaza to Temple Mount
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Tom Powers has posted today his experience in traveling through the drainage channel up from the City of David to the street below Robinson’s Arch. You’ll need to go there for the dozen photos and a step-by-step description, and I’ll encourage you to do that with a couple of sections from his conclusion:

MY TAKE on the experience:  It’s hard to see this underground route turning into a major tourist draw on the order of Hezekiah’s Tunnel. I see it being more for the hard-core afficionado (like me). For one thing, after the initial novelty of traversing an ancient sewer wears off, it gets a bit, well… tedious – it’s 650 meters from Siloam up to the Davidson exit!…. I anticipated entitling this post “Final Section…” but it turns out there is obviously more to come in terms of opening these underground spaces. First, where the present route makes its final jog to the east to run along the foundation courses of the Temple Mount, the cleared drain channel continues straight ahead, northward, but is still blocked/gated. However, a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) said he found the way open a few weeks ago — and follwed it. He went quite a ways, he said, until there was no more lighting and he had to turn around; he estimated he might have been under the Western Wall prayer area….

I appreciate Tom’s careful work to allow all of us to “visit” this newly opened excavation in Jerusalem.

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