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New Light on the Nabataeans

Recent excavations at the rose red city of Petra reveal devastation by the same earthquake which destroyed Jerusalem in 363 A.D.

By Philip C. Hammond

The stones were piled and ready. Costly wood had been purchased. The necessary metal was at hand. The Jews of Jerusalem were rejoicing. Tomorrow—May 20, 363 A.D.—the rebuilding of the Temple would begin! Almost 200 years after the Roman Legions under Titus had destroyed the Temple, the Emperor Julian—called by his Christian subjects “the Apostate”—had given his imperial permission to rebuild the Temple. The Jewish people eagerly responded. We do not know what was playing on the stage of the theater at Petra on May 20, nor whether services were being held in the temple of Dhu-Shara or […]

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Endnotes

1.

S. P. Brock, “A Letter Attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem on the Rebuilding of the Temple.” Bulletin of the Society of Oriental and Asian Studies, 40, 1977, pp. 267–86 and “The Rebuilding of the Temple Julian: A New Source,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 108, 1976, pp. 103–107.

2.

2 Maccabees 4:1–5, 7–9.

3.

Josephus, Antiquities XIII, 21.

4.

Nelson Glueck, Deities and Dolphins (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965).