The Temple Revealed

The True Location of the Jewish Temple Hidden in Plain Sight

Christian Widener

• Publisher: End Times Berean, LLC
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780578748849
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

AN EXPLOSIVE AND DEFINITIVE NEW LOOK AT THE QUESTION OF EXACTLY WHERE THE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM SHOULD BE REBUILT

Endorsed by NEW YORK TIMES Bestselling Authors, JOSH D. MCDOWELL, JOEL RICHARDSON, and WILLIAM J. FEDERER

With peace in the Middle East finally on the horizon, could it now be time to begin rebuilding the Jewish temple?

Does your heart yearn to see prophecy fulfilled and the temple rebuilt?

Is it possible to know for sure where the temple was located so that it can be?

Are you willing to examine the case for the temple location, based on a thorough review of biblical and historical testimony, archaeological evidence, and logical inference and

deduction?

If so, then you can know with certainty where it was formerly located and

that rebuilding the temple is now possible!

In ­The Temple Revealed you will:

• discover biblical prophecies that have been unknowingly

fulfilled right before our eyes;

• unravel more than three thousand years of Temple Mount history;

• explore the latest archaeological findings;

• realize the prophetic and spiritual significance of the temple

and why it's so important;

• see exactly where the temple actually sat almost two thousand years ago;

• understand a plan for how the temple could be rebuilt peacefully in our day;

and much more...

Prepare to be overwhelmed by the evidence that the temple location

has been hiding in plain sight...

Are you ready to engage in one of the most significant debates regarding Jerusalem?

The issue revolves around the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, which has lain in ruins since AD 70 and which many would say is the next prophetic piece in Israel's restoration. Of course, that necessitates determining precisely where it should be located when it is rebuilt. In the pages of The Temple Revealed, the entire case is laid out, with the evidence to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the famed Golden Gate is the true eastern gate of the First and Second Temples and marks the east-west line of where the temple should be rebuilt. It is also shown that the Dome of the Spirits covers the remains of the threshing floor of Araunah, which gives us the precise location of the Holy of Holies of the temple. Using these two landmarks, which are validated using historic testimonies, recent and not-so-recent archaeological finds, logical deduction, and God's Word, we can now confidently proclaim the correct location to begin rebuilding the temple. Answering anything definitively about Jerusalem is like trying to untangle a knotted fishing line, but with a little patience and persistence, we can separate a lot of fact from fiction. Dr. Widener starts with the accounts recorded in the Bible and then uses historic testimony and archaeological evidence to discover the true location of

PART I

DISCOVERING WHAT HAS BEEN HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

(JEREMIAH 33:3 ESV)

1

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

TO SOLVE ANY MYSTERY, a detective must uncover clues that others have missed. Sometimes that comes from returning to the scene of the crime and seeing something that was there but wasn’t noticed before. Other times it comes from looking again at the same evidence but seeing something new. We can miss things when we become comfortable with an idea that blinds us to the obvious. Here’s an example. I want you to repeat a word for me. Ready? The word is silk. Say it out loud three times: Silk. Silk. Silk.

Now, quick, answer me out loud: What do cows drink?

(I bet you said, “Milk.”)

Now, I know that this is an extremely juvenile example, but hopefully it illustrates the point. But if that doesn’t seem relevant for understanding how something being repeated multiple times can misdirect us, let me try another example.

In 1983, David Copperfield performed a famous illusion in front of a live audience. Right before their eyes, he made the Statue of Liberty vanish and then later reappear. He accomplished this feat by seating the entire audience and his own stage on a very slowly rotating platform. He began his trick with the crowd facing Lady Liberty. Then he lowered a very large curtain behind the stage to obscure the statue. While he distracted the crowd with a variety of other entertainment, the stage slowly turned away from the statue, so slowly that no one noticed the motion. Then he raised the curtain to show the crowd that the statue had vanished, then closed the curtain and entertained them with loud music until the platform had returned to its original position. Finally, he removed the curtain to show them that all was right again in the world and that our liberties, so hard-won in our country, were still secure. By misdirection, he had hidden something so enormous in plain sight.

If we look up the Webster definition of the word hidden, we find that it doesn’t just mean buried and out of sight. It can simply be that it is obscured or made difficult to understand or perceive.

hidden adjective | \ ˈhi-dᵊn

1 : being out of sight or not readily apparent : concealed

2 : obscure, unexplained, undisclosed²

How could something as important as the temple be hidden in plain sight? Simply by misdirection and mislabeling of the things that have been found. Certainly, there have been many attempts over the millennia to deliberately destroy Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and any evidence of the Jewish presence there, but it can also happen innocently. In attempts to be conservative and try to avoid potential bias, archaeologists prefer to take their stand on more defensible positions, which favor younger dating assertions over older ones. Furthermore, none of the work is free of bias or religious implication, not when we are speaking about Jerusalem and the lands of the Bible. Plus, we are also talking about things pertaining to God; so, I think God could have intentionally concealed this truth until it was the proper time. And it wouldn’t be the first time God has hidden things in plain sight. For example, one day, Jesus was speaking with the Pharisees and the Sadducees on the Temple Mount, and he was speaking to them very bluntly, which angered them and made them want to stone him. I will reproduce the whole passage here because I think it bears reading. After you read it, you will understand how miraculous it was that these religious leaders were not able to stone Jesus at that very moment:

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.”

Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”

Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”

“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.

Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.”

This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come’?”

But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.”

“Who are you?” they asked.

“Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.”

They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Even as he spoke, many believed in him.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

“Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”

“I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”

At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”

Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”

“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:12–59)

Jesus was equating himself with God and claiming to be his Son, which the Pharisees were not willing to accept and considered blasphemy. So needless to say, they were more than a little upset. Slipping away from this angry crowd in broad daylight on the Temple Mount appears to me to be much more of a miraculous event than what one might get from a casual reading of the text. How did he hide himself and slip away right in front of everyone? It should have been very easy to apprehend Jesus in a crowd when both Scripture and history indicate that he was a gentle and calm man. I don’t think anyone can imagine Jesus as an Olympic athlete and parkour runner pulling some ninja move and vanishing by virtue of his physical prowess. And clearly, an angry crowd intent on stoning him would not just let him waltz away. So how did he do it? I think he simply confused their minds and made them unable to perceive him, and then he calmly walked away. A very similar thing happened in the days of Elisha the prophet when he prayed for God to blind the eyes of the army of Aram who had come to capture him.

As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, “Strike this army with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked. Elisha told them, “This is not the road and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for.” And he led them to Samaria. After they entered the city, Elisha said, “LORD, open the eyes of these men so they can see.” Then the LORD opened their eyes and they looked, and there they were, inside Samaria. When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?”

“Do not kill them,” he answered. “Would you kill those you have captured with your own sword or bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master.” So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory. (2 Kings 6:18–23, emphasis added)

In this passage, we see that God also blinded the eyes of the army of Aram so that they would not recognize Elisha and kill him. While we don’t know exactly how God did it, we can conclude that it is possible for something to be hidden by God in plain sight, even though it may seem unlikely or even impossible.

I’m bringing this up because it is perhaps the best explanation for how the temple location has remained obscured up to the present time. Hopefully, after reading this book, the truth will become obvious. The reason it isn’t obvious is that there are too many wrong ideas and presumptions that have been accepted as facts. In reality, what is thought to be true is generally based on the work of a limited number of scholars who are trusted to have arrived at the proper conclusion. After all, how many people have months, even years of their life to dedicate to understanding the full history of the Temple Mount and all the associated archaeological findings, and then reassembling all the evidence into the correct picture of what happened? It’s like trying to piece Humpty Dumpty back together again (which couldn’t be done with “all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men”³). As a result, we have dozens of different pictures of Humpty Dumpty, but none that are completely convincing—so, many have concluded it is simply not possible to be sure at this point in time. Why? Because the strength of modern consensus has made it difficult to recognize any reliable landmarks to show us the true location of the Jewish temple.

However, there are current landmarks, preserved to this day, that show us the true temple location. But to identify them, it is necessary to sift through the historical records and separate common ...