Page 86 - Bible Geography and Near East Studies

nothing left, but that monument of it preserved, I mean the camps of those Romans that hath destroyed
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it, which still dwells upon its ruins.” This commander said that Jerusalem and the temple were gone,
but the Roman fort was still there. It has been suggested that the square walls of the Temple Mount
today are really where the Roman Fort Antonia was.

By the latter part of the fourth century, the Temple Mount had disappeared completely from the
landscape of Christian Jerusalem. The pilgrim Egeria, who visited Jerusalem in the early 380s, provided a
detailed description of the city in letters to her friends, but she made no mention of the Temple Mount.
Similarly, the mosaic world map of Medaba from the mid-sixth century depicts Jerusalem in great detail
but omits the Temple Mount altogether, as does a seventh-century Armenian account of the city's holy
places. No structure existed at this time that could be identified as the Temple Mount.
12

Most recently, researcher and author Marilyn Sams has advanced the argument that Fortress Antonia,
represented by tradition as a monumental or castle-like structure located during Herodian times just
north of the Second Temple on the periphery of the large rectangular temple precinct, was actually a
much larger complex, more akin to the typical standard Roman fortress layout that existed during the
st
time of 1 century Jerusalem, the time of Jesus. “Josephus described it [the fortress] as being “erected
upon a rock of fifty cubits in height” on a “great precipice,” Sams quotes Josephus. “It had all kinds of
rooms and other conveniences, such as courts, and places for bathing, and broad spaces for camps, such
that it had all the conveniences of cities and seemed like it was composed of several cities.” With 60-
foot walls, four towers (the southeast being 105 feet high), and smooth stones covering the slope on its
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east side, it dominated the temple to its south, ready to fend off the most formidable attacks.”

So, if the Temple Mount today was
really Fort Antonia, where was the
temple built in ancient Jerusalem?
Josephus references that the temple
was built about 600 feet south of
Fort Antonia and was connected by
a causeway with the fort on the
higher ground. It would look
something like the picture to the
left.

Josephus said, “Now as to the Tower of Antonia, it might seem to be composed of several cities.” He also
said, “For if we go up to this Tower of Antonia, we gain the city since we shall then be upon the top of the
hill.” Josephus’s description of the Temple Mount in relation to Fort Antonia is more pictured by the
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artist's drawing to the right. Remember, Josephus was alive at the time of his observations and wrote
down what he actually saw!

11 http://www.netours.com/content/view/27/29/
12 https://www.meforum.org/3556/temple-mount
13 https://popular-archaeology.com/article/wailing-at-the-wrong-wall/
14 https://cr.middlebury.edu/bulgakov/public_html/antonia.html
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