Temple Architecture: What Can Archaeology Tell Us About Solomon’s Temple?

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Solomon’s Temple presents a double puzzle, one old and the other more recent. The first relates to the fact that the Biblical description of the building is not entirely clear and can be interpreted in several ways. The second puzzle relates to the origin of the architecture: What is the architectural source of the building? It may seem strange that the Bible’s description of Solomon’s Temple is so inexact, especially because the Temple furniture and utensils are described so minutely. For example, the bronze laver stands are described in minute detail (1 Kings 7:27–9); the building description itself lacks […]

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Footnotes

Two cubits were used at this time, the old cubit and the royal cubit. The Bible probably refers here to the royal cubit, measuring 52.5 centimeters. The old cubit is 45 centimeters. See R. B. Y. Scott “Weights and Measures of the Bible,” Biblical Archeologist, Vol. 22 (1959), pp. 22–40, especially pp. 23–27; Gaby Barkay, “Measurements in the Bible—Evidence at St. Étienne for the Length of the Cubit and the Reed,” BAR 12:02.

Endnotes

Konrad Rupprecht, “Nachrichten von Erweiterung und Renovierung des Tempels in 1. Könige 6, ” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina Vereins (ZDPV) 88 (1972), pp. 38–52.

Yohanon Aharoni, “The Solomonic Temple, the Tabernacle and the Arad Sanctuary,” in H. A. Hoffner, ed., Orient and Occident, The C. H. Gordon Festschrift (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1973), pp. 1–8.

Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden, 1958), pp. 230–231; Th. A. Busink, Der Tempel von Jerusalem, I (Leiden, 1970), pp. 180–181. This double usage also occurs in Akkadian. In Akkadian, ekallu can mean either an entire building or its “main room” (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary E, 60; Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch 1, 192).

Robert C. Haines, Excavations in the Plain of Antioch, II (Chicago, 1971), pp. 53–55, plate 103.

Rudolf Naumann, Architektur Kleinasiens (2nd ed., Tübingen, 1971), pp. 343 ff.; J. Warner, “The Megaron and Apsidal House in Early Bronze Age Western Anatolia: New Evidence from Karatas,” American Journal of Archaeology 83 (1979), pp. 133–147.

Paolo Matthiae, Ebla: An Empire Reconsidered (Garden City, NY, 1981), pp. 112ff.

Winfried Orthmann and Hartmut Kühne, “Mumbaqat 1973,” Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Geselschaft (MDOG) 106 (1974), pp. 53–97; Orthmann, “Mumbaqat 1974,” MDOG 108 (1976), pp. 25–44.

Jean Margueron, “Quatre campagnes de fouilles à Emar (1972–1974): un bilan provisoire,” Syria 52 (1975), p. 62f.

F. Seirafi, A. Kirichian and M. Dunand, “Recherches archéologiques à Ayin Dara an Nord-Ouest d’Alep,” Annales archéologiques arabes de Syrie XV:2 (1965), pp. 3–20.

10.

Yigael Yadin, Hazor: The Head of All Those Kingdoms, Joshua 11:10 (London, 1972), pp. 102–104.

11.

Emmanuel Eisenberg, “The Temples at Tell Kitan,” Biblical Archeologist (BA) 40 (1977), pp. 77–81.

12.

G. Ernest Wright, Shechem: The Biography of a Biblical City (New York and Toronto, 1965), pp. 80–102; G. Loud, Megiddo II Seasons of 1935–39 (Chicago, 1948), pp. 102–105; Claire Epstein, “An Interpretation of the Megiddo Sacred Area During the Middle Bronze II,” Israel Exploration Journal 15 (1965), pp. 204–221.

13.

Immanuel Dunayevsky and Aharon Kempinski, “The Megiddo Temples,” ZDPV 89 (1973), pp. 161–187.

14.

William G. Dever, “The MB II C Stratification in the Northwest Gate Area at Shechem,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 216 (1974), pp. 31–52.

15.

Albrecht Alt, “Verbreitung und Herkunft des Syrischen Tempeltypus,” Kleine Schriften, II (Munich, 1953), pp. 100–115.

16.

Aharoni, “Arad: Its Inscriptions and Temple,” BA 31 (1968), pp. 2–32.