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The Puzzling Doorways of Solomon’s Temple

By Madeleine Mumcuoglu, Yosef Garfinkel

The Bible tells us that the doors of the inner shrine of Solomon’s Temple had five mezuzot (singular mezuzah) (1 Kings 6:31). Whatever they were, the Bible is not referring to the little parchment texts in a case posted on the doorposts of Jewish houses that are called mezuzot. The word mezuzah is often defined as doorpost. Did this gate in the Temple have five doorposts? Hardly. But whatever mezuzot are in this Biblical text, the door to the inner sanctuary of Solomon’s Temple had five of them. The next outer gate of Solomon’s Temple had four of them […]

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Footnotes

1.

Yosef Garfinkel, Michael Hasel and Martin Klingbeil, “An Ending and a Beginning: Why We’re Leaving Qeiyafa and Going to Lachish,” BAR 39:06; Yosef Garfinkel, “The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism,” BAR 37:03; Hershel Shanks, “Prize Find: Oldest Inscription Discovered in Israelite Fort on Philistine Border,” BAR 36:02; Hershel Shanks, “Newly Discovered: A Fortified City from King David’s Time,” BAR 35:01.

Endnotes

1.

Mishnah Tractate Middot; Herbert Danby, The Mishnah: Translated from the Hebrew, Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2012), pp. 589‒598.

2.

Carlo Zaccagnini, “Patterns of Mobility Among Ancient Near Eastern Craftsmen,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42 (1983), pp. 245‒264; Jean-Marie Durand, Documents épistolaires du Palais de Mari, Tome 1 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1997), pp. 285‒301.