Herod’s Temple in East Anglia

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There it is in the heart of the British countryside I of East Anglia: the largest, the most detailed and the most accurate model of Jerusalem’s Second Temple ever built.

Breathtakingly beautiful, the model is difficult to equate with its surroundings—not a museum or an institution of learning but a barn adjoining a 16th-century farmhouse on a place called Moat Farm. The cackling of ducks and geese that regard the moat as their home wafts gently over the air. The improbability of it all recedes into the background, however, as, through the model, we enter the world of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

The model is the work of 61-year-old Alec Garrard, farmer, former house builder and Methodist laypreacher; his formal education ended at 14. Garrard has been a keen modelmaker from a young age. He built a model of a dreamhouse for his wife and a model of the Mayflower, the ship in which the English Puritans sailed to America. His model of the Biblical Tabernacle has traveled extensively, mostly to churches. As a logical follow-up to the Tabernacle model, he became interested in Herod’s Temple and looked at existing models. Finding that none of them were completely accurate, he decided to build one himself.

Three years of research introduced Garrard to the difficulties and contradictions in the sources. The records of Josephus and the Mishnah^a (particularly the tractate Middot) were the obvious written sources, although the information they supplied was, at times, contradictory. A treasure house of knowledge, largely forgotten, was preserved in the works of writers such as Alfred Edersheim,¹ and Dean Frederic W. Farrar,² who had searched through the works of a multitude of ancient writers for references to fill in the background to the gospels. As to the contemporary experts Garrard consulted, he describes the information proffered by them as “woolly.”

A cardboard cut-out model was the vehicle for his 064early labors on the project. The scale of 1:100 did not, at the time, seem overly ambitious. He began the actual construction of the model by building the Temple, as he then understood it. Only then did he begin to think about the courts and adjacent buildings and installations.

As he attempted to follow the measurements in the Mishnaic tractate Middot,³ however, he found there was not enough space to fit everything in. Middot gives the measurements of the Temple Court as 187 cubits (322 feet) long and 135 cubits (232.5 feet) wide and then proceeds to enumerate the various ritual buildings and chambers with their measurements, which, when added up, could not be arranged within the given space. Drawing on his experience as a builder, where everything “had to work,” Garrard established a principle that if the description of the ancient writer did not fit a building that would work, he would draw the most reasonable conclusion. He decided that the measurements in Middot must describe the internal dimensions of the court, excluding the chambers, and not, as would appear from a superficial reading, the distance from the exterior of one of the outer walls of the Temple Court to its opposite.

Locating the altar presented another type of 065difficulty. Some researchers place the altar off-center to conform with the Mishnaic requirement that the high priest performing the sacrifice of the red heifer^b (Numbers 19:1–10) must be able to look directly into the sanctuary entrance from the Mount of Olives.⁴ In his model, Garrard placed the altar in the center. With a ramp leading up from the south, there was simply nowhere else to fit it. Garrard also satisfied himself that the entrance to the sanctuary would be visible from the Mount of Olives by sighting it on his model. Looking from the Mount of Olives, over the eastern wall, through the Nicanor Gate and over the top of the altar, the sanctuary opening is, in fact, clearly visible.

The actual measurements of the altar given by Josephus and the rabbinic sources are conflicting.⁵ Garrard compromised and modified them in order to fit the model into the overall picture. The ramp leading up to the altar conforms to the original Biblical mandate stipulating that the priests should not go up by steps lest their nakedness be seen (Exodus 20:26). Middot describes a circuit⁶ or ledge surrounding the altar on which the priests could walk and tend the sacrifices. A horn, or hornlike projection, was on each of the four corners of the altar. There was also a red line around the middle of the altar that marked the level above which the blood of certain sacrifices had to be sprinkled and also below which certain others had to be sprinkled if they were not to be considered invalid.⁷

Four fires are on the altar model, two of which were normally burning, with a third as an auxiliary. On the Day of Atonement, an extra fire was lit.

The laver, or basin of brass in which priests washed, stood between the porch of the Temple and the altar and rested on 12 huge lions.⁸ The laver was filled mechanically every day by an ingenious device designed by a man whose name is recorded in the Mishnah as Ben Katin.⁹

North of the altar is the place of slaughter.¹⁰ Here were 24 posts, each with a ring, in which the head of the sacrificial animal about to be killed was placed. After the slaughter, the carcasses were hung up in the shambles, which consisted of eight short pillars upon which were blocks of cedar wood, into which were fixed iron hooks. Tiny figures of priests are shown in the model laying out pieces of the sacrifice on marble tables.

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Packed with detail, the result of years of culling the ancient sources and their interpreters, the model is extraordinarily evocative.

During its construction, the model became so large that it could no longer be accommodated in Garrard’s home. Exhilarated by what he had learned already, he decided to further enlarge its scope. A former stable, next to the farmhouse, was appropriated, rebuilt and extended to house what was now absorbing most of his waking hours. The model could now grow to its full Herodian dimensions.

All in all, it took Garrard four years to construct the full expanse of the Temple platform. The construction of the outer walls of the Temple Mount was the next hurdle. Looking for assistance to ensure accuracy, he called the office of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) in London, where he was connected to the executive secretary, Rupert Chapman. Garrard told Chapman that he was building a very exact model of the Temple Mount and needed some information. Chapman replied: The man you need is right next to me.” As it happened, my husband Leen Ritmeyer was visiting the PEF library that day in connection with his doctoral dissertation—“The Architectural Development of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.” As Leen tells it: “I often get requests like this and try to help where I can. I’ve seen a few models that try to be accurate but are not terribly impressive.” Leen sent Garrard some information and left it at that. When Garrard sent him photographs of the model, however, Leen became more interested, sending him detailed drawings for the layout of the eastern, southern and western walls.

Leen describes his first view of the model as an uncanny experience. Here with unusual clarity and precision was a three-dimensional depiction of the Temple Mount, a subject that had absorbed Leen’s working life for 20 years. It was not long before the two were working together to improve the accuracy of the model still further.

The work never seems to end. One of the most difficult decisions was exactly where to place the Temple on the Temple Mount. Originally Garrard aligned it with the Golden Gate; he has now placed it over the rock Es-Sakhra,^c today covered by the Dome of the Rock. He has altered the structure of the Temple itself in accordance with the most recent ideas conceived by Joseph Patrich and drawn up by Leen.^d The older view as to the location of the Antonia Fortress has also been rejected and the more recent position proposed by Father Pierre Benoit adopted.^e

Garrard’s original purpose in creating the model was to provide a backdrop to the life of Jesus. For Garrard, the project has not only filled in the physical background of the Gospels, but has also given him an understanding of the essential Jewish characteristics of the world in which Jesus moved.

Garrard has depicted various scenes from the Gospels that have the Temple and its surroundings as a backdrop. He has done this with the help of nearly 2,000 figures barely ¾ of an inch high (2 cm), each in authentic dress—Pharisees, Sadducees, worshipers, pilgrims, Roman guards, merchants and temple officials. For example, a group of seven priests stands on the steps of the Temple under its golden vine;¹¹ you see their fingers touching one another as they pronounce the priestly blessings recorded in Numbers 6:24–26.

The golden vine, wreathed over posts at the entrance to the Temple,¹² is made of delicately twisted 067gold-colored wire, tinsel and a myriad of tiny beads. The golden vine was a gift from Herod. Individuals, however, could give a freewill-offering to purchase a leaf, a berry or a cluster made of gold to be hung on this vine. It was perhaps the actual sight of this colossal vine that occasioned Jesus to say: “I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman” John 15:1).

Garrard has placed the scene of Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem, riding on a donkey with the people spreading branches in his way, below the steps that lead up to the Double Gate on the southern wall of the Temple Mount. This scene is usually located near the Eastern Gate as Jesus and the people are recorded as coming from the Mount of Olives. Garrard, however, argues that because Matthew (21:10) says that Jesus first went into the city, he could only have entered via the Double Gate (the Triple Gate, also on the southern wall, was probably reserved for the priests).

Each of the tiny bricks in the basic structure was made by hand and then baked in a toaster oven. For larger objects, Garrard used the family oven. Parts of the model, such as the Royal Stoa and the underground passageways from the Double Gate, can be pulled out to examine their ornate decoration. An electrical system allows the interior of the Royal Stoa to be illuminated.

Problems of interpretation remain, however. The brightly colored floor inside the Court of the Women is fanciful. Garrard has incorporated numbers significant for Judaism—7, 10 and 12—into the design, but all that the sources say is that “the open court was from end to end variegated with paving of all manner of stones.¹³ The model is as accurate as it can be in the present state of our knowledge. A caveat is unnecessary, however, as no one could be quicker than its creator to change anything that needs to be altered in the light of more complete information.

Looking at Garrard’s model, one could wish to have one’s size appropriately diminished so as to visit this Lilliputian land. Even as giants in this miniature world, however, we are transported back to a scene of such vividness that reading the Gospel narratives and the Book of Acts will never be the same again.

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Getting There: From London to Jerusalem in 100 Minutes

Alec Garrard’s model Temple Mount is located on Moat Farm, Fressingfield, Eye, in Suffolk, England—about 70 miles outside London. To get there by car from London, take the Outer Ringroad IM251, which circles the city At Junction 28, take A12 and travel northeast for about 50 miles to Ipswich Turn onto A45 and drive toward Bury St. Edmunds After approximately eight miles, turn onto A140 and go north toward Norwich. After 12 miles, turn right onto B1117 toward Eye When you reach Stradbroke, turn left at a sign for Fressingfield. After approximately half a mile, turn right Follow this until you pass a water tower, where you turn right Moat Farm will be on the right after about one mile.

If traveling by train take the train to Diss from London’s Liverpool Street station The train runs regularly, leaving London at half past the hour From the Diss station, take a taxi to Moat Farm, Fressingfield.

Ganard can be reached at 037986-308. Please call ahead to make an appointment.

There it is in the heart of the British countryside I of East Anglia: the largest, the most detailed and the most accurate model of Jerusalem’s Second Temple ever built.