Page 25 - Satan in the Sanctuary

The Stage Is Set 27

Why such controversy about archaeological findings?
Universally, archeologists are eager to demonstrate what
they have found, and to publish their discoveries. This has
been true at other diggings in Israel.
But, we suggest, the Temple site has a character of im-
portance about it not wholly attributable to its sacredness.
We suggest that the idea of reconstruction underlies the
controversy noted by Blizzard.
The authors also talked with an Israeli guide who has al-
so been down in the diggings. The guide accompanied Ma-
zar, and also Rabbi Dov Perla, director of the Israeli
Government Department of Sacred Sites and Antiquities of
the Ministry of Religion, in the latter's excavations of the
northerly section of the Western Wall. He gives an account
of the findings in the diggings which may serve to give an
appreciation of the past Temples:
Digging through portions of the Western and Southern
walls the excavators found an intriguing network of tun-
nels underground. I have examined them. One of them
appears to be a passageway for the ancient high priest to
pass from his living quarters to the Court of the Priests.
This tunnel was of particular importance on the day of
atonement when the high priest could not defile himself
by contact with other people. In his task of atoning for
all of the Jews he had to be completely pure and unde-
filed on that day. But other tunnels were not for human
passage, but for water drainage. This was extremely so-
phisticated. Solomon's and Herod's Temples contained
intricate systems for storing water and carrying it away
from the Temple site to the adjacent Kidron Valley. The
ancient "Laver" or "Sea", the great bronze bowl standing
before the Temple, had to be drained and replenished
regularly with vast quantities of water. Also, the altar of