"I have not yet begun to fight!"

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Friday, December 6, 2013

Abomination of Desolation part 2

The Jerusalem Temple 2

– a summary history of its site, structure, service and abuse –

TO JERUSALEM TEMPLE 1

BC / BCE

General POMPEY conquers the Jerusalem Temple after a siege of three months. He takes ARISTOBULUS prisoner, enters the Holy of Holies, orders the continuance of Sacrifices, makes Judea a Roman province, deprives the Hasmonean dynasty of its royal title.
HYRCANUS II is reinstated as high priest without royal title (63-40).
GABINIUS, the first Roman governor, puts down the rebellion of ALEXANDER (son of ARISTOBULUS). He appoints HYRCANUS to care for the Temple and divides the Jews under five administrative councils, located at Jerusalem, Gadara, Amathus, Jericho, and Sepphoris in Galilee.

CRASSUS DIVES, second Roman governor of Judea, plunders the Temple treasury.

HEROD the Great (president of the Olympic Games) begins a complete remodelling the Second Temple, including fort Baris which he names Antonia after MARK ANTONY. HEROD now takes control of the high priest's vestments.

An edict by AUGUSTUS confirms the right of Jews to send their shekel to the Jerusalem Temple.

c.6

c.July: ZACHARIAH is visited by the angel GABRIEL in the Temple during his priestly service regarding his son, JOHN THE BAPTIST's birth.

c.5

Infant JESUS is brought to the Jerusalem Temple for the first-born male sacrifice, is prophesied over by SIMEON and by HANNAH, and returned to a house in Bethlehem (Lk.2).

c.4

Persian Magi arrive in Jerusalem seeking a newborn Jewish king.

March 13: HEROD removes MATTHIAS as high priest and burns alive the 40 Jews who destroyed his great golden eagle over the Temple's principal gate.

BC / BCE

c.March: HEROD's son ARCHELAUS kills 3000 Jews in the Temple and surrounding area at Passover. He travels to Rome to be awarded rule over Judea.
While he is away, resentment against Roman and Herodian authorities boils over into anarchy. Various Jewish would-be-kings exploit Jewish nationalism and cause chaos. Judea is 'full of robberies'. Many soldiers and civilians killed and buildings burnt, including the Temple cloisters.
Roman administrator VARUS of Syria re-establishes peace and crucifies 2000 of the worst offenders (Josephus, Ant.17.10).

Temple Façade

AD / CE

JESUS visits the Temple at age 12, questions the Bible teachers, and asserts to His parents the priority of His relationship to God. (Lk.2:46-49).

c.27

JESUS is baptized by JOHN, and is driven by the Spirit into the Judean desert for fasting prayer and to be tempted.
(This is the 15th year of TIBERIUS according to the Syrian calendar).
JESUS begins preaching, and cleanses the Temple courts in Jerusalem to protect its function as a place of prayer (Jn.2:13-25).

c.28

PILATE takes money from the Temple treasury to build an aqueduct for Jerusalem. In reaction, Galilean nationalists (zealots) are most prominent in the protest. PILATE's disguised troops slaughter them in the Temple courts during their protest. HEROD ANTIPAS ruler of Galilee takes offence that his subjects are massacred without the acknowledgment of his jurisdiction over them (Lk.13:1,2).

'Jesus said to her (Samaritan woman), "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father. You worship that which you do not know; we (Jews) worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers. God is spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."'

John 4:21-24.

October: JESUS in the Temple challenges the 'thirsty' to come to Him (Jn.7:37-38) in defiant contrast to the high priest's water-pouring ritual before the Altar.

Nisan 10, Monday: JESUS curses the fig tree, cleanses Temple courts (Mk.11).
Nisan 11, Tuesday: JESUS' last public ministry, prophesies Temple destruction –

'And Jesus came out from the Temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the Temple buildings to Him. And He answered and said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down."'

and then while sitting of the Mount of Olives JESUS gives the private prophecy of the End Time to PETER, JAMES, JOHN, and ANDREW (Matt.24; Mark 13; Luke 21) in answer to their two questions of 'when?' and 'how will we know?' (Matt.2:3).

Matthew 24:1-2.

Nisan 14, Friday April 7, 3 PM: JESUS dies by His own choice (Jn.10:18-19), earthquake, Sanctuary Veil is rent from top to bottom exposing an empty Holy of Holies (Jewish priest Josephus in Jewish War V,v,5). The westernmost light in the Sanctuary is extinguished by this event and Rabbi YOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI is reported to have rebuked the Sanctuary for its great doors swinging opening of their own accord (Talmud Bavli, Yoma 39b). (Sadly, later Jewish scholars try to explain this as the temple's anticipation of its own destruction at the hands of the Romans a generation later).

VITELLIUS returns the high priest's vestments to Jewish control, and replaces the high priest.

Summer: CALIGULA orders his own statue to be erected in the Jerusalem Temple and worshipped. He is persuaded by HEROD AGRIPPA to change his mind.

HEROD AGRIPPA II (son of AGRIPPA I, great grandson of HEROD the Great) becomes tetrarch of Chalcis and northern territory, and receives the right to appoint the Jewish high priests.

FELIX bribes Jews to murder their high priest JONATHAN in the Temple; thereafter many murders begin to occur among crowds at the Jewish Temple feasts (Jos.Ant.20.8).

PAUL is arrested in the Temple court, he provokes conflict between Pharisees and Sadducees before the Sanhedrin (Ac.23:6,7).

c.60

Pharisees exclude Sadducees from entering the Jerusalem Temple.
Jews raise the Temple wall of the inner court to block the view from AGRIPPA's palace, and of the Roman guards patrolling on the western cloisters.

The Jerusalem Temple remodelling that started with Herod the Great is completed.
Jewish Zealots begin hostage taking.

EAST

NORTH

Scale model of Jerusalem and its temple as at 66 AD/CE located in the grounds of the Holyland Hotel, Jerusalem. The temple is view from the North-north-east toward the Tadi gate of the Outer Court, with the four towers of Roman garrison fortress of Antonia in the right of centre, and with the sheep pool and market in the foreground.

See:
Jerusalem City Sketch Map

Jewish Zealots (religious nationalists) cut the throats of the high priests (Jos.War.7.8).

August 6: The perpetual Sacrifice in the Temple ceases!
August 15-17: Porticoes of the Temple are burnt.

"But now at this time it was that one of the priests, the son of Thebuthus, whose name was Jesus, upon his having security given him, by the oath of Caesar [Titus], that he should be preserved upon condition that he should deliver to him certain of the precious things that had been deposited in the Temple, came out of it and delivered him from the wall of the holy house two candlesticks, like to those that lay in the holy house, with tables, and cisterns, and vials, all made of solid gold and very heavy. He also delivered to him the veils and the garments, with the precious stones, and a great number of other precious vessels that belonged to their sacred worship.
The treasurer of the Temple also, whose name was Phineas, was seized on, and showed Titus the coats and girdles of the priests, with a great quantity of purple and scarlet, which were there deposited for the uses of the veil, as also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a large quantity of other sweet spices, which used to be mixed together and offered as incense to God every day. A great many other treasures were also delivered to him, with sacred ornaments of the Temple not a few, which things thus delivered to Titus obtained of him for this man the same pardon that he had allowed to such as deserted of their own accord." (Josephus).

c.August 28th, 'Av' 9: THE TEMPLE BURNS ...
September: Upper City and HEROD'S palace captured. TITUS' Roman troops demolish City and Temple after a siege of 134 days.
TITUS allows JOSEPHUS, priest turned historian, to have the 'holy scrolls' from the Temple.
Emperor VESPASIAN insists that the Jewish Temple Tax be diverted to the use of temples of Jupiter Capitolinus.

81-96

The Great Persecution of Christians by Roman emperor DOMITIAN.
He rigorously enforces his father VESPASIAN's redirection of Jewish Temple Tax to Jupiter Capitolinus.

130

Emperor HADRIAN arrives in Jerusalem, grants a generous rebuilding on the old ruins and renames the city – Aelia Capitolina.

132

SIMEON BAR-KOSEBA re-institutes ritual sacrifice in Jerusalem.

135

BAR-KOSEBA is driven from Jerusalem and killed at his fortress at Bethar. HADRIAN has an arch constructed about 440 metres north of the city to commemorate his victory over BAR-KOSEBA.
Jerusalem is plowed over according to the ancient Roman rite of building a new city and rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina (from which all Jews are banned, including Christian Jews) on a grid plan (which still dominates the Old City today) with a magnificent temple to Jupiter Capitolinus (the Roman 'Zeus').
Golgotha is covered by a temple to Aphrodite.
Judea's name is also changed to Syria Palestina.
HADRIAN prohibits Jewish ordination, public assembly, circumcision, and any religious regulation of the calendar. All Jews are banned from the whole district of Judea (Galilee becomes the centre of Palestinian Jewry), resulting in confusion among Jews in later years over the precise location of their Temple in Jerusalem.

135/6

Emperor HADRIAN constructs the 'Ecce Homo Arch' in Jerusalem, using TITUS' military ramp of 70 AD as its base.

138

Emperor ANTONINUS PIUS (138-61) revokes HADRIAN's Jewish religious prohibitions, but has an equestrian statue of himself erected on Temple Mount.

c.200

Extensive Roman building continues at the southern end of the Temple Mount.

234

Christian scholar ORIGEN settles in Caesarea, Palestine. He regards Jews mourning on the Mount of Olives over their lost Temple as pathetically misguided.

289

The Tenth Legion leaves Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), and the Romans build a new city wall.

326

Emperor CONSTANTINE's mother, HELENA AUGUSTA, makes a tour of the eastern provinces of the empire, culminating in Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem).
Here the suburb of Mount Sion is now confused with the Biblical Mount Zion.

327

Bishop MAKARIOS' excavation discovers a rock hewn tomb which is declared to be the 'tomb of Christ', assisting the bishop's campaign to make his diocese the metropolitan see. The surrounding hillside of rock is removed and a space around it cleared for the construction of a circular martyrium – the Anastasis (Resurrection) – completed later long after CONSTANTINE's death.
(This was later incorporated into CONSTANTINE's beautiful basilica of prayer, built beside street Cardo Maximus with five naves, one of which included the Rock of Golgotha, and ending in a semicircular apse at the western end, nearest the the tomb. Thus came Christianity's 'Church of the Holy Sepulchre' to be the center point of Roman Aelia).

333

The anonymous 'Bordeaux Pilgrim' reports that Jews anoint the "lapis perfusus" rock near HADRIAN's statues on Temple Mount in Aelia (Jerusalem) in mourning for the loss of their Temple, and that the "crypta" of Jesus and Golgotha hill are not yet enclosed by the basilica.

335

September 17: The completed Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Aelia is dedicated to mark the thirtieth anniversary of CONSTANTINE's accession to the position of Caesar.
It becomes a focus of Christian pilgrimage.
The worship of relics and of sites of sacred geography begins to grow among pilgrims from now on.

362

July 19: Emperor JULIAN meets Jewish leaders in Antioch and writes to Patriarch HILLEL II promising to make Jerusalem a Jewish city again. He orders the Jewish Temple's reconstruction. ALYPIUS is appointed to carry out the task.

363

Christians gather in the Martyrium of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to pray that the Temple reconstruction be stopped.
May 27: The reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple is halted by an earthquake that ignites gases accumulated under the old Temple foundations, which erupt in 'globi flammarium' - balls of fire. (JULIAN also attempts to restore the temple of Delphi. The oracle is reported to have responded with nothing but a wail over its departed glory).
JULIAN's death causes the project to be abandoned.

438

Empress EUDOKIA (wife of THEODOSIUS II) gives the Jews permission to pray on Temple Mount on holy days other than the Ninth of Av.
On Sukkoth many Jews gather in Jerusalem and process around the Temple site waving palm branches. Syrian monk BAR SAUMA, known for violence against Jews, mobilizes his dsiciples to stone the Jewish procession. Many Jews die. Jewish survivors capture 18 of his disciples and appeal to empress EUDOKIA for justice. BAR SAUMA assembles a crowd of monks that threaten to burn the empress if she sides with the Jews. The Roman Governor's investigators announce that all Jewish victims died of natural causes. BAR SAUMA publishes the news as a victory for the Cross.

443

Empress EUDOKIA permits Temple reconstruction, but the effort fails.

614

Sasanian Parthians (Persians) conquer Jerusalem, massacre its inhabitants, and attempt unsuccessfully to reconstruct a temple on Temple Mount.

629

March 21: Byzantine king HERACLIUS drives the Persians from Jerusalem and enters in triumph. (The 'Golden Gate' in the eastern wall of Temple Mount may have been built to commerorate this victorius entrance).
HERACLIUS builds an octagonal victory shrine over the center of the pentagonally cut bedrock on Temple Mount (probably originally cut to this shape for SOLOMON's Sidonian queen's shrine to Ashtoreth north of his great Temple. (Click for the research on Temple Mount).

688

Tenth Caliph, 'ABD AL-MALIK IBN MARWAN, commissions the rebuilding of emperor HERAKLIUS' shrine on the Rock as Islam's answer to the monumental churches of Jerusalem that surrounded any rocks and caves of Christian significance.
Qur'anic verses are laid into the walls of this 'Dome of the Rock' that refute the deity of Jesus.

691

The 'Dome of the Rock' is completed.

709

Caliph AL-WALID I repairs and extends the Temple Mount retaining walls upward with smaller rocks, and constructs many other buildings in the vicinity, including a mosque on the southwest corner of the Haram (Temple Mount).

717-720

Caliph 'UMAR (II) AL-AZIZ orders all Jews and Christians (so-called dhimmis) across the empire to wear distinctive clothing. Jewish women are required to wear tinted shoes with bells. He is reported to have excluded Jews from Temple Mount and restricted them to praying at only one gate.

747

September 11: An earthquake wrecks Jerusalem, collapsing the eastern and western sides of the Dome of the Rock. The 'Nea' church complex is also destroyed and not rebuilt.

775

Caliph AL-MAHDI commissions the rebuilding of the Temple Mount (Haram) Mosque on a larger scale than ever before with a beautiful dome. It is now called al-masjid al-aqsã – the Remote Mosque – identifying it with MOHAMMAD's Night Journey with Gabriel.

1033

An earthquake disturbs the surface area of Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The subsidance around HADRIAN's 'Solomon's Stables' is filled up with archaeologically rich debri.

1099

Crusader Latin kingdom of Jerusalem is set up, and the Dome of the Rock (surmounted by a cross) becomes the Christian 'Templum Domini' church.

1194

SALADIN removes the cross from the top of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

1523

DAVID REUVENI (Reubeni) arrives in Jerusalem after its surrender to the Ottoman empire (known for its friendliness to Jews). He announces himself as Israel's end time Messiah and initiates a change in the prayer place for Jewish pilgrims from the Mount of Olives and gates of Temple Mount (the Haram) to the Western (Wailing) Wall (Kotel) / Buraq Wall. (see 1541).
Ottoman emperor SULEIMAN orders the Cenacle Church (above the so-called tomb of David) closed and made into a mosque as a result of complaints about the behaviour of Christian Franks at the venue.

1541

Sultan SULEIMAN the Magnificent completes the defensive walls of Jerusalem, with 34 towers and 7 gates; its first proper fortification in 300 years, and issues an official edict giving Jews a place of prayer (nine feet wide) at the Western Wall. (see 1523). Jews even hold government positions.
In Jerusalem, Eastern Orthodox (Greek) Patriarch GERMANUS institutes the Hellenic Confederacy of the Holy Sepulchre as official guardians of the Christian holy places, while the Franciscans (Roman Catholic) form a national community to guard the same holy places on behalf of Latin Christianity.

1943

AVRAHAM STERN (אברהם שטרן‎) founder of the LEHI terror group in Palestine (known to the British as the Stern Gang), presents as the eighteenth, of his 18 Principles of Rebirth: "The building of the Third Temple as a symbol of the new era of total redemption".

1958-1964

The Dome of the Rock is restored with generous aid from Muslim countries.

1961

June: In Caesarea, Israel – Italian archaeologists led by Dr. FROVA find a limstone block inscribed with a dedication to Roman Emperor TIBERIUS by PONTIUS PILATE Governor of Judea. (It is today in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem and described as "Limestone, inscribed 82.0 cm H, 65.0 cm W, Building Dedication, 4 Lines of Writing (Latin) Date of Discovery: 1961 AE 1963 no. 104")

A stone (2.43×1m) with Hebrew writing "To the Trumpeting Place", excavated by Benjamin Mazar at the southern foot of the Temple Mount, believed to have been a part of the Second Temple.

1967

June 7: Temple Mount captured by General MOSHE DAYAN from the Jordanians.
June 17: Temple Mount is returned by Israel to control of the Muslim Wakf.

1968-78

Professor BENJAMIN MAZAR directs excavations south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and near the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, and discovers a piece of masonry which identified the place originally on the Temple wall for the blowing of the trumpet, with the inscription 'To the Trumpeting Place' from the time of Herod's temple.

1985

January 3: YEHUDAH ETZION of Khai Vekayam with a group of Jewish zealots conspire to blow up the Dome of the Rock to clear the site for reconstruction of the Jewish Temple which they presumed stood at that location. They are arrested and imprisoned.

1996

October 11: TUVIA SAGIV's historical and geophysical research on Temple Mount is published on Internet, identifying the Temple site as being 16m under the Al-Kas Fountain, between the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aksa mosque. (See templemount.org).
He appeals to Israeli prime minister NETANYAHU to facilitate excavation through the underground 'Solomon's Stables' (a Crusader construction) without disturbing the Temple Mount surface area.
Muslims start a mosque under Temple Mount in the 'Solomon's Stables' of HADRIAN, as was previously agreed to by the RABIN government.

1997

March 30: Khai Vekayam movement challenges the use of 'Solomon's Stables' in Temple Mount as a Mosque in the Israel Supreme Court.
April 1: Remains of the Jerusalem street Cardos secundos leading to the Temple area, apparently of the 1st century, is unearthed.

2000

June 28: Prime Minister EHUD BARAK ordered a meeting in his office to discuss security arrangements on the Temple Mount in the wake of protests against construction being carried out by the Muslim Waqf (religious trust). The meeting will address recommendations to halt the development and improvements underway and to block the entrance of construction materials and heavy equipment such as tractors and trucks until the Waqf agrees to coordinate its activities with the Antiquities Authority. The Antiquities Authority has been restricted from supervising the construction along the eastern wall of the Temple Mount.
October: ARIEL SHARON (of Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps massacre notoriety) violates the Al Aksa Mosque on Temple Mount to assert Jewish rights to the area, triggering many months of violence from Palestinian Muslims that leads to a state of undeclared war...

2002

September: Engineers of the Israel Antiquities Authority report a 5mm increase over the year of an outward bulge (first mentioned in a 1974 document) in the 2 metre thick southern perimeter wall of Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif), near 'Solomon's Stables' (Al-Marwani Oratory) that endangers its stability.
October: The Islamic Waqf employ Jordanian engineer RAEF NIJEM to solve the problem of the increasing bulge in the southern wall of the Haram (Temple Mount).

2003

January: In Israel – a sandstone tablet, inscribed in ancient Hebrew script with details about renovation of the Temple in the time of king Joash (Jehoash), is declared an authentic 9th century BC artefact by SHIMON ILANI of Israel's Geological Institute after a year of tests. The grey sandstone was orginally white. Specks of gold had melted into the surface of the tablet, probably at a later conflagration in the Temple or during its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
The tablet has a 15-line inscription that resembles descriptions in 2 Kings 12:1-6, 11-17, reports Israel's Geological Survey, which examined the artifact. In it, the king tells priests to take –
"holy money ...to buy quarry stones and timber and copper and labor to carry out the duty with faith." If the work is completed well, "the Lord will protect his people with blessing," reads the last sentence of the inscription. (See Joash).
October: In Jerusalem – the construction date of the Siloam Tunnel built by king HEZEKIAH to safeguard Jerusalem's water supply from Assyrian seige is confirmed by radiocarbon dating of plant material deposits and stalagtite core samples. (Amos Frumkin, a geologist and director of the Cave Research Center at Hebrew University in Jerusalem).

2004

Sunday, August 29: The Jerusalem Post reports on the sale of Jerusalem soil and dirt from the Temple Mount site as a means of [Jewish] salvation, at $77 each. The soil had been extracted from the Western Wall Tunnel as part of its clearance. Two of the three business partners selling "holy soil", NACHMAN AVIKSER and YORAM DANIEL, are Jeshivah students at the Jewish Shuvu Banim Yeshiva in the Old City's Muslim Quarter.

October: A Jewish 'Sanhedrin' is reestablished in Tiberias, Israel, the place of its last meeting 1,600 years before. It subsequently meets monthly in Jerusalem. Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the burgeoning Sanhedrin, said in an official statement that because of "concerns that external pressure would be brought to bear upon individuals not to take part in the establishment of a Sanhedrin, the names of most participants have been withheld up to this point."

2005

June: The 'Sanhedrin' calls for detailed architectural plans for the re-building of the Jewish Temple. The call follows the election of Rabbi ADIN STEINSALTZ as temporary president of a group aspiring to become Judaism's highest-ranking legal-religious tribunal.
The new Sanhedrin established a division on state matters which takes a nationalistic position on matters of foreign policy and seeks to establish the new Sanhedrin as an upper theocratic political chamber with veto power over Israeli state laws and government actions it deems inconsistent with Halakha, traditional Jewish law. The new Sanhedrin has encountered extensive controversy, with opposition to its claims to religious legitimacy and its proposed role within the State of Israel.

2006

October: Plans are announced to build a new minaret on the Temple Mount, the first of its kind for 600 years. King ABDULLAH II of Jordan announced a competition to design a fifth minaret for the walls of the Temple Mount complex. He said it would "reflect the Islamic significance and sanctity of the mosque". The scheme, estimated to cost £200,000, are for a seven-sided tower — after the seven-pointed Hashemite star — and at 42 metres (130 ft), it would be 3.5 metres (11 ft) taller than the next-largest minaret. The minaret would be constructed on the eastern wall of the Temple Mount near the Golden Gate.

2007

January 13: The Chief Mufti of the Palestinian Authority, Sheikh TAYSUR RAJEB Al-TAMIMI, condemns the "dominance of the Zionist occupiers on holy Muslim real estate" in a Friday address to listeners at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
"They are attempting to do all they can to build a synagogue and allow Jews freedom to desecrate the Mount," he said. He warns of "consequences" for "its attempts to 'Judaize' Jerusalem" and its Temple Mount" via archaeological digs designed to show a Jewish connection to the city. "This Jewish plot endangers the mosques and is intended to allow the construction of their false Temple" Al-TAMIMI said.
April: Temple builder, Herod the Great's sarcophagus (coffin) is discovered at ancient Herodion. Although Herod was appointed as 'king of the Jews' by Rome, he was himself not a Jew but of Idumean/Edomite descent. Jewish settlement in the area of ancient Herodian (Gush Etzion) however claims the discovery as supporting their political rights in the area.
May: Religious Zionist rabbis entere the Temple Mount, eliciting widespread criticism from other religious Jews and from secular Israelis, accusing the rabbis of provoking Muslims. An editorial in the newspaper Ha'aretz accused the rabbis of 'knowingly and irresponsibly bringing a burning torch closer to the most flammable hill in the Middle East,' and notes that rabbinical consensus in both the Haredi and the Religious Zionist worlds forbid Jews from entering the Temple Mount.
May 16: Rabbi AVRAHAM SHAPIRO, former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel and rosh yeshiva of the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, reiterates that it is forbidden for Jews to enter the Temple Mount. The Litvish Haredi newspaper Yated Ne'eman, which is controlled by leading Litvish Haredi rabbis including Rabbi YOSEF SHAOLOM ELIASHIV and Rabbi NISSIM KARELITZ, accuses the rabbis of transgressing a decree punishable by 'death through the hands of heaven.'
July 5: In the British Museum, London, MICHAEL JURSA, associate professor at the University of Vienna discovers a cuneiform receipt tablet acknowledging Nebo-Sarsekim’s payment of 1.7 lb (0.75 kg) of gold to a temple in Babylon. Dated to the tenth year of Nebuchadnezzar (595 BC), eight years before the fall of Jerusalem, the tablet reads in full:

[Regarding] 1.5 minas [0.75 kg] of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of ] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni, Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (Reynolds 2007).

The Hebrew spelling of the name is slightly different from the cuneiform, but there is no question that it is the same person mentioned in Jeremiah regarding the seige of Jerusalem and destruction of the first Temple. Although the NIV Bible translates Nebo-Sarsekim’s title as "chief officer" (Jer.39:3), the literal translation is "chief eunuch", exactly the same as in the tablet.

2009

October: Palestinian protesters gather on Temple Mount after rumours that an extreme Israeli group intend damaging the sacred site. Israeli police storm the Temple Mount complex to disperse Palestinian protesters who began throwing stones at them. Police use stun grenades on the protesters, of which 15 are arrested, including the Palestinian President's adviser on Jerusalem affairs. 18 Palestinians and 3 police officers are injured.

2011

June 29: Israeli scholars announce that they have confirmed the authenticity of a 2,000-year-old burial box bearing the name of a relative of the high priest Caiaphas of the New Testament. The ossuary (a stone chest used to store bones) bears an inscription with the name –

"Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri."

The Israel Antiquities Authority says the ossuary was seized from antiquities robbers who plundered an ancient Jewish tomb of the Second Temple period three years ago and has since been undergoing analysis.

December: Israeli archaeologists uncover a button-size tin seal (near northwest corner of temple mount) dating from the first century stamped with the words "Daka Le’Ya" ('pure for God) meaning that the object to which it was attached was approved as ceremonially pure so as to be used in the Temple ritual.

The Sanctuaries

The Third Temple

Antichrist Clone

WEST