Biblical Studies and Archaeology Community Group
The mission of this group is to provide a place to learn about ancient places and their history.Biblical studies may accompany archaeological discussions as they pertain to the Bible. Please refrain from any negativity as this should be place of positive reinforcement of our love for our Lord, Jesus Christ! May we all become God's ambassadors and embrace our...
"On the 10th of August, in A.D. 70 -- the 9th of Av -- in Jewish reckoning, the very day when the King of Babylon burned the Temple in 586 B.C., the Temple was burned again. Titus took the city and put it to the torch, burning the Temple."
"Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus was present in Jerusalem when the city was captured and the Temple was burnt. He described the event in this manner:"
"The Romans, though it was a terrible struggle to collect the timber, raised their platforms in twenty-one days, having as described before stripped the whole area in a circle round the town to a distance of ten miles. The countryside like the City was a pitiful sight; for where once there had been a lovely vista of woods and parks there was nothing but desert and stumps of trees. No one - not even a foreigner - who had seen the Old Judea and the glorious suburbs of the City, and now set eyes on her present desolation, could have helped sighing and groaning at so terrible a change; for every trace of beauty had been blotted out by war, and nobody who had known it in the past and came upon it suddenly would have recognized the place: when he was already there he would still have been looking for the City."
Above excerpt and additional information can be found at http://www.templemount.org/destruct2.html
"The walls of Jerusalem's Old City have been more or less in the same place as today from the first century CE onwards. That is remarkable because they were destroyed many times."
"There is one exception: just after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70, when Jews were forbidden to worship in the city, and the population dwindled starkly. But the emperor Hadrian built a wall along the familiar outlines again, which today denote the Old City, after he had destroyed the old walls in the showdown of the Second Jewish War (132-135 CE)."
Previous excerpt and information on the City's Gates found at http://www.jewishmag.com/65mag/jerusalemgates/jerusalemgates.htm
Audio resource:
http://www.khouse.org/6640_media_serve.php?show_id=218&show_day=tuesday
Video Presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxI0TvZnM6U
Western Wall Webcam:
http://www.livekote.com
"Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus was present in Jerusalem when the city was captured and the Temple was burnt. He described the event in this manner:"
"The Romans, though it was a terrible struggle to collect the timber, raised their platforms in twenty-one days, having as described before stripped the whole area in a circle round the town to a distance of ten miles. The countryside like the City was a pitiful sight; for where once there had been a lovely vista of woods and parks there was nothing but desert and stumps of trees. No one - not even a foreigner - who had seen the Old Judea and the glorious suburbs of the City, and now set eyes on her present desolation, could have helped sighing and groaning at so terrible a change; for every trace of beauty had been blotted out by war, and nobody who had known it in the past and came upon it suddenly would have recognized the place: when he was already there he would still have been looking for the City."
Above excerpt and additional information can be found at http://www.templemount.org/destruct2.html
"The walls of Jerusalem's Old City have been more or less in the same place as today from the first century CE onwards. That is remarkable because they were destroyed many times."
"There is one exception: just after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70, when Jews were forbidden to worship in the city, and the population dwindled starkly. But the emperor Hadrian built a wall along the familiar outlines again, which today denote the Old City, after he had destroyed the old walls in the showdown of the Second Jewish War (132-135 CE)."
Previous excerpt and information on the City's Gates found at http://www.jewishmag.com/65mag/jerusalemgates/jerusalemgates.htm
Audio resource:
http://www.khouse.org/6640_media_serve.php?show_id=218&show_day=tuesday
Video Presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxI0TvZnM6U
Western Wall Webcam:
http://www.livekote.com
Throughout Jewish history, calamity and misfortune have befallen the Jewish people during this time, which we call "The Three Weeks" in English or Bein HaMitzarim (literally, "between narrow straits") in Hebrew. Our greatest tragedy, the destruction of the Holy Temple, occurred on the 9th of Av, known in Hebrew as Tisha BâAv, which falls this year on July 30. The Temple was Godâs dwelling place on earth, where His Divine Presenceâthe Shechinaârested; it was the place where Heaven and Earth met, and where Man could commune directly with the Divine. With the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews believe, God's Presence was more fully hidden from us, prophecy ended, Jewish sovereignty ended, and the Jewish people were expelled from the Holy Land."
Above excerpt and additional info. found at http://www.ifcj.org/site/News2?abbr=rabbi_&page=NewsArticle&id=28209&news_iv_ctrl=1481
Throughout Jewish history, calamity and misfortune have befallen the Jewish people during this time, which we call "The Three Weeks" in English or Bein HaMitzarim (literally, "between narrow straits") in Hebrew. Our greatest tragedy, the destruction of the Holy Temple, occurred on the 9th of Av, known in Hebrew as Tisha B'Av, which falls this year on July 30. The Temple was God's dwelling place on earth, where His Divine Presence, the Shechina, rested; it was the place where Heaven and Earth met, and where Man could commune directly with the Divine. With the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews believe, God's Presence was more fully hidden from us, prophecy ended, Jewish sovereignty ended, and the Jewish people were expelled from the Holy Land."
Above excerpt and additional info. found at http://www.ifcj.org/site/News2?abbr=rabbi_&page=NewsArticle&id=28209&news_iv_ctrl=1481
God bless you!
"The Dome of the Rock was built during the caliphate of Abdul al-Malik and completed in 692 CE. It stands directly over the extensive rock which, by Muslim tradition, was the landing and departure point of Muhammad on his steed El-Burak during his Night Journey from Mecca. The "evidence" is the foot and hoof marks on the rock - a cultic relic from early days.
These marks also indicate that it is from here, and to here, that God will come and go at the End of Days. As His direction of travel is not known, the Dome of the Rock was built facing the four winds of heaven. It has no focus except the central rock, and entrances on all four sides. Does the central rock indicate the presence of a Jewish Temple? Not necessarily, but the Koran itself now makes that clear.
The prophet's night journey is described in Surah 17: "Glory be to Him who made His servant go by night from the Sacred Temple [Mecca] to the farther Temple [Al-Aksa, Jerusalem], whose surroundings We have blessed..." It goes on to say, "We solemnly declared to the Israelites: 'Twice you shall commit great evil in the land... and We sent against you a formidable army which ravaged your land... and when the prophecy of your second transgression came to be fulfilled, We sent another army to afflict you and to enter the Temple, as the former entered it before..."
Thus the Koran itself gives us the evidence of the destruction of the two Temples that had stood on the site of Al-Aksa. "
Source and additional info. found at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1248277914500&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Prophetic shocker: Romans didn't destroy Temple
Author compiles evidence showing Mideast people razed Jerusalem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 21, 2009
1:00 am Eastern © 2009 WorldNetDaily
One of the central tenets of the Christian belief in a coming Roman
Antichrist is under fire because, as the author of a new book shows, the
destruction of the Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was actually carried out by
peoples from the Middle East, not Europe.
As Joel Richardson, author of "The Islamic Antichrist," writes today in
WND's commentary section, one of the pillars of the European Antichrist
theory is a prophecy in Daniel 9: "The people of the prince who is to
come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary."
When the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 and the city of Jerusalem
sacked, while under Roman occupation, many prophecy scholars assumed the
future dark prince needs to be Roman. However, historical research by
Richardson now suggests otherwise.
He points out Emperor Augustus made a series of sweeping reforms that
led to dramatic changes in the ethnic make-up of the Roman armies. After
this time, the army was increasingly composed of anything but Italian or
European soldiers. Instead, he writes, they were composed of what were
known as "provincials," or citizens who lived in the provinces â the
outer fringes of the empire.
Richardson's research found the army that destroyed the Temple and
Jerusalem was actually overwhelmingly comprised of Middle Eastern
peoples, not Europeans. Explicit accounts cited come from Publius
Cornelius Tacitus, Titus Flavius Josephus as well as more modern
scholars and historians.
"All said, the historical evidence is overwhelming. After examining a
sampling of evidence from both ancient historians as well as the most
cutting-edge modern scholarship to date, we may very confidently
conclude that the 'Roman' soldiers in the Eastern provinces that
destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple were in fact Eastern peoples â the
inhabitants of Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia and Egypt," Richardson writes.
"Again, they were the ancestors of the modern-day inhabitants of the
Middle East."
Richardson's "The Islamic Antichrist" has debuted at No. 1 on Amazon in
two religious categories and held those positions for nearly two weeks.
It's not only a hot book at Amazon, it is also hot in e-book format at
Scribd. But it is offered autographed only at the WND Superstore.
In "The Islamic Antichrist," Richardson, a student of Islam, exposes
Western Christians to the Muslim traditions. He says most Christians
have no idea of the stunning similarities between the biblical
Antichrist and the "Islamic Mahdi."
Richardson's book stands in stark contrast to most other popular
prophecy books of the last 40 years.
The student of the Middle East says that after decades of reading
popular prophecy books and even best-selling fiction like the "Left
Behind" series, millions of evangelical Christians around the world are
expecting the Antichrist to emerge from a revived Roman Empire, which
many have assumed is associated with the Roman Catholic Church and the
European Union.
Not so, argues Richardson. His book makes the case that the biblical
Antichrist is one and the same as the Quran's Muslim Mahdi.
"The Islamic Antichrist" is a book almost certain to be greeted in the
Muslim world with the same enthusiasm as Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic
Verses." The author is prepared. He has written the book under a
pseudonym to protect himself and his family.
"The Bible abounds with proofs that the Antichrist's empire will consist
only of nations that are, today, Islamic," says Richardson. "Despite the
numerous prevailing arguments for the emergence of a revived European
Roman empire as the Antichrist's power base, the specific nations the
Bible identifies as comprising his empire are today all Muslim."
Richardson believes the key error of many previous prophecy scholars
involves the misinterpretation of a prediction by Daniel to Babylonian
King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel describes the rise and fall of empires of
the future, leading to the endtimes. Western Christians have viewed one
of those empires as Rome, when, claims Richardson, Rome never actually
conquered Babylon and was thus disqualified as a possibility.
It had to be another empire that rose and fell and rose again that would
lead to rule of this "man of sin," described in the Bible. That empire,
he says, is the Islamic empire, which did conquer Babylon and, in fact,
rules over it even today.
Many evangelical Christians believe the Bible predicts a charismatic
ruler, the Antichrist, will arise in the last days, before the return of
Jesus. The Quran also predicts that a man, called the Mahdi, will rise
up to lead the nations, pledging to usher in an era of peace. Richardson
makes the case these two men are, in fact, one in the same.
Blessings!
Blessings!
70 AD - http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/jewishtemple.htm
Photo of historical evidence of 70 AD - http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Darch%2Bof%2Btitus%2Bmenorah&w=160&h=89&imgurl=www.bing.com%2Fimages%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Darch%2Bof%2Btitus%2Bmenorah%23focal%3D8e349bacb153ed1d638935df60ddf5c5%26furl%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fupload.wikimedia.org%252fwikipedia%252fcommons%252f0%252f05%252fArch_of_Titus_Menorah_22.jpg&size=&name=search&rcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fimages%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Darch%2Bof%2Btitus%2Bmenorah%23focal%3D8e349bacb153ed1d638935df60ddf5c5%26furl%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fupload.wikimedia.org%252fwikipedia%252fcommons%252f0%252f05%252fArch_of_Titus_Menorah_22.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fimages%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Darch%2Bof%2Btitus%2Bmenorah%23focal%3D8e349bacb153ed1d638935df60ddf5c5%26furl%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fupload.wikimedia.org%252fwikipedia%252fcommons%252f0%252f05%252fArch_of_Titus_Menorah_22.jpg&p=arch+of+titus+menorah&type=&no=2&tt=115&oid=http%3A%2F%2Fts2.mm.bing.net%2Fimages%2Fthumbnail.aspx%3Fq%3D4819911696450693%26id%3D78f9681a3efaa184705215a758fd18a9&tit=File%3AArch+of+Titus+Menorah+22.jpg+-+Wikimedia+Commons&sigr=16554d7q9&sigi=15uh7ah98&sigb=11vdm7prf&fr=yfp-t-701-s