Simon Sebag Montefiore TV - Mary Beard TV - Egypt’s Female Pharaohs TV - Jiddu Krishnamurti - Dalai Lama - Bible’s Buried Secrets TV - Joan R Branham - Ring of Power 2008 - Lawrence Stager - Boaz Gaon - Amnon Rosenfeld - Horizon TV - Yuval Goren - The Solomon Treasures TV - Ancient Aliens TV - Mysteries of the Bible TV - Riddles of the Bible TV - Jordan Maxwell - Decoding the Past TV - Francesca Stavrakopoulou TV - Nostradamus Effect TV - Jamie Theakson TV - William Shakespeare - Ancient X Files TV - Rome Revealed TV - Nova TV - Ancient Impossible TV - Sacred Wonders TV - Art of Persia TV - Buried Worlds with Don Wildman TV - Dan Jones TV - Lost Civilisation TV - I Kings 5:5 - I Kings 6:2 - I Kings 7:1&2 - I Kings 7:21 - I Kings 9:15 - II Kings 24:13 - I Chronicles 22:5&6 - I Chronicles 23:4 - I Chronicles 28:11&12 - II Chronicles 3:3&4 - II Chronicles 36:6&7 - Ezra 5:11-15 - Ezra 6:5 - Ezra 6:15 - Zechariah 6:12&13 - I Esdras 1:40&41 - I Macabees 6:1&2 - II Macabees 6:2&4&5 - Matthew 21:10-13 - Matthew 24:1&2 - Mark 11:15-17 - Mark 13:1&2 - Luke 2:46 - Luke 19:45-47 - John 2:13-19 - Acts 17:24 - I Corinthians 3:16&17 - II Corinthians 6:16 - Graham Hancock TV -
Herod built the most majestic Jewish temple. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy City 1/3: Wellspring of Holiness, BBC 2011
The Temple of Jupiter was a declaration of the astonishing religious and political confidence of Rome. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Rome: A History of the Eternal City I, BBC 2012
Temples were everywhere, so why did they need so many? … Temples are public reminders of the gods’ support for the Roman state. Mary Beard’s Ultimate Rome IV, BBC 2016
Luxor: a revolutionary, a rare female pharaoh named Hatshepsut who built the finest temple of them all … Ancient builders carved it directly into the towering rocky cliffs. They constructed it in three separate levels. Egypt’s Female Pharaohs, National Geographic 2021
Religion is the frozen thought of men out of which they build temples. Jiddu Krishnamurti, cited Observer 22nd April 1928
There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness. Dalai Lama
Scholars must discover what the Temple looked like and how it functioned. Although archaeologists know where its remains should be, it is impossible to dig there. Bible’s Buried Secrets 2/2
Out front was an enormous altar. Beyond that was a porch area that led into the inside of the Temple. There was a room – the holy place. And then beyond that the most sacred room: the Holy of Holies, where tradition says the Ark of the Covenant held the tablets of the law. Joan R Branham, Providence College
The famous King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem means Temple of the son-god Amun. According to the Talmut, King Solomon used the dark power of his magic ring to conjure up demons to help him build his Temple. Ring of Power, 2008
If we take the details we find of Solomon’s Temple in the Book of Kings and compare it with the Ain Dara temple we can piece together a fairly good picture I think of what this Temple might have looked like in the age of Solomon. Lawrence Stager, Harvard University
The story begins in 2001. A professor from the Jerusalem University receives a call from a mysterious person who refuses to give his real name. And asks this professor to come to a hotel in Jerusalem ... He opens up the briefcase. Takes out a gorgeous piece of black stone with ancient writing on it, and asks the two professors to authenticate the piece. Boaz Gaon, Ma-ariv newspaper
We couldn’t find anything that would lead us to the conclusion that it was a forgery. Amnon Rosenfeld, Geological Survey of Israel
The Temple was built to house the Ark of the Covenant. Horizon: King Solomon’s Tablet of Stone, BBC 2004
In July 2001 a unique inscribed tablet of stone mysteriously appeared in Israel. It was an archaeological marvel that seemed to solve one of the Bible’s great riddles. Tested by some of Israel’s top scientists it revealed that in the heart of Jerusalem three thousand years ago one of the legends of the ancient world had really existed – the magnificent Temple of Solomon. ibid.
The geologists studying the stone found that the patina was continuous across the front of the stone ... The patina contained tiny flecks of gold. Just what you’d expect from a stone that had been through a fire in a temple lined with gold. In January 2003 the Geological Survey official pronounced the stone to be genuine. ibid.
Where did the stone come from? ... The whole area is far too politically sensitive for archaeology ... It was then that the saga of the stone became very mysterious indeed. ibid.
Oded Golan is a businessman and renowned collector. Owner of Israel’s largest collection of antiquities. He explained that he wasn’t the owner of the stone and that he didn’t know where it was. He had just been involved as a middleman. ibid.
In 2002 one very special ossuary appeared. Inscribed on the side were the words James, Son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. It was heralded as the first physical evidence of Jesus Christ and caused a worldwide sensation ... Strangely, the owner was Oded Golan. ibid.
The Israeli authorities were also suspicious. They raided Golan’s apartment and store-houses. There they found the ossuary perched on a toilet. And they also unearthed the illusive stone. ibid.
The focus of their attention was the patina ... Yuval Goren is a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University. And a geologist. He has a detailed knowledge of both Biblical archaeology and the rocks of the Jerusalem area. ibid.
How could the patina on the front of the stone be different from that on the back? ... The patina from within the carved letters. Strangely, it didn’t seem to be bonded to the stone in any natural way at all. ibid.
Alarmed by what he found with the stone Professor Goren turned his attention to the James’ ossuary. Again he found a similar story. A freshly cut inscription with an artificial patina applied over the top. On 18th June 2003 the Israeli authorities delivered their verdict. ibid.
In the summer of 2003 after the biggest archaeological investigation in Israeli police history Oded Golan was taken into custody. It was then that investigators realised they could be dealing with more than just the stone and the ossuary. When police searched Golan’s apartment they found a hidden workshop filled with tools and half-made artefacts. ibid.
It is very freshly cut. You can see even the little lines, the little parallel lines of either the chisel of even maybe a drill, an electric drill. Professor Yuval Goren
It is a little Pomegranate made of the tooth of the hippopotamus ... The inscription was engraved on it when it was already broken. It is probably a fake, probably a forgery. Yuval Goren
In recent years a series of extraordinary finds has been found in the Holy Land. These astonishing discoveries are linked to some of the most famous events in the Bible. They appear to be new evidence for the burial of Jesus. And for the legendary Temple of Solomon. The Solomon Treasures, 2008
And it was here more than twenty-five years ago in Jerusalem’s antiquities market that one of the most remarkable artefacts in the Holy Land’s history first came to light: it was a tiny object, just four centimetres long, badly damaged and no-one knew where it came from. But it would be hailed as a unique piece of history. It became known as the Ivory Pomegranate. It was thought to be the ornamental tip of a priest’s ceremonial staff. But what amazed the experts was the inscription: Holy to the Priests of the House of God. It suggested that this exquisite little object was used by priests in the first temple of Jerusalem, which according to the Bible, was built by King Solomon ... There was no independent evidence apart from the Bible that Solomon’s Temple actually existed. ibid.
According to Biblical history the Temple was destroyed by fire in 586 B.C. by invaders from Babylon. The Western Wall where Jewish pilgrims come to pray is all that’s left of a second temple built on the same site as King Solomon’s Temple by King Herod the Great. ibid.
So the Pomegranate was an extraordinary find. The tiny artefact with a large chip on one side was the first physical link to the first Temple of Solomon. But was the Pomegranate authentic? ... When the Museum tried to track down the owner, they came up against a wall: the Pomegranate had already changed hands ... The Pomegranate was returned to Jerusalem and there in the Israel Museum along with such priceless national treasures as the Dead Sea Scrolls it was given pride of place. An authentic link to King Solomon’s Temple. ibid.
The inscription on the shiny black stone describe repairs made to the Temple of Solomon by a king called Jehoash in the 8th century B.C. If it was genuine, it was priceless. Like the Ivory Pomegranate it seemed to confirm that Solomon’s Temple actually existed. Better still, it provided unique confirmation of events in the Old Testament ... All the stranger would reveal was it was found near the Temple Mount. ibid.
They found the surface contained tiny flecks of charcoal – which proved to be over two thousand years old. And they found tiny specks of gold – just what might be expected if it had survived a fire when the gold-encrusted Temple of Solomon was destroyed. ibid.
In 2002 one of these ancient bone boxes became the centre of world-wide media attention ... James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. The ancient bone-box was hailed as the final resting place for St James, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. And the first archaeological evidence linked to Jesus himself. It caused a sensation ... And its owner was Oded Golan. ibid.
Oded Golan: Golan has been collecting ancient artefacts since he was a boy. He admitted he had been helping to sell the missing stone tablet but denied he had ever been its owner. But authorities were not convinced by the story. And what made them highly suspicious was that the same collector, Oded Golan, had recently been involved with another sensational discovery that suddenly appeared. ibid.