Page 82 - Eschatology - Student Ebook

Study Section 10: More about the 3 Temple
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10.1 Connect

There is more to worshiping the Lord in the temple than just the building. The temple is
designed after the tabernacle where sacrifices were offered daily for the sins of the people.
There were pieces of furniture, implements, tools, alters, wardrobes, priestly clothes,
anointing oils, and a host of other parts to come together to complete the process of daily
worship at the temple. When Titus destroyed the temple in 70 AD., everything was
destroyed along with the building. The golden lampstand, the washing basin, the ark of the covenant,
the table of showbread, the brazen alter, the priests garments, and all the tools were gone. Destroyed!

If Israel did rebuild a temple in Jerusalem as we looked at in the last section, all of these items would be
required to reestablish temple worship there. And some of the items cannot be replaced. Israel cannot
just build another Ark of the Covenant! They need the original one! They need all the five ingredients
for the oil of anointing. There is a lot more involved than just building a building. In this lesson, we will
see how Israel is preparing to provide these items for temple worship…

10.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to explain why the Copper Scroll find in Cave 3 near Qumran was so
significant.

2. The student should be able to explain how the Temple Institute has reconstructed all the
furnishings and furniture for temple worship.

3. The student should be able to explain the importance of finding the Ark of the Covenant and why that
is so important to temple worship.

10.3 Title of Course

The Copper Scroll. In March of 1953 a copper scroll was found in Cave 3 near Qumran on the
west side of the Dead Sea. It took years to break the scroll into readable pieces, but they
discovered that the scroll contained the locations of buried treasure from the sacred Temple
which included sacred Temple vessels, manuscripts, gold and silver bullion, the oil of
anointing, and even the breastplate of the high priest. 64 sites in 3 major areas were
described. The problem is that the descriptions of the topography of the burial sites have
changed in the 1900 plus years since the scroll were written.

Recently a team discovered in Cave 11 a clay vessel approximately 5’ high that
contained a thick, almost solidified oil. According to Exodus 30:23-26, the
holy anointing oil was used in the Temple services to anoint (set apart) priests
and implements for holiness. It was to be made of five costly ingredients.
When the oil found in Cave 11 was analyzed, it was shown to be composed of
the exact same five ingredients. One of the five ingredients in this oil is the
rare persimmon or balsam oil extracted from the balsam tree. There were only two groves of balsam
trees in Israel, one in Jericho and another in a wadi near En Gedi on the west side of the Dead Sea.

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