On the traditional anniversary of destruction of Jerusalem’s two temples, Stephen Rosenberg writes an article in the Jerusalem Post on the evidence for the existence of the temples in light of the Muslim denials.

There is a persistent narrative by the Islamists to deny any past Jewish presence on what they call Haram al-Sharif. Like the cult centers of Mecca and Medina, they call it the Noble Sanctuary rather than the Temple Mount. The propaganda is spreading throughout the Arab world, and would deny any legitimacy to our claim to have experienced the destruction of two Temples on the site. All the evidence, the propaganda goes, is written by Jews and is therefore suspect. The claim for the building of the First Temple comes from the Book of Kings. It is a detailed description, but nothing of the structure has been found. The inscription on a little pomegranate showing it to have been part of a priestly scepter from the First Temple has recently been denounced as a later forgery. The parallels with temples in Syria are fine, but no proof that one existed in Jerusalem. What evidence is there that a Jewish Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians? There is a tablet in the British Museum that Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem in his seventh year (597 BCE) and captured the city, but he destroyed no temple and only set up a "king of his own heart" (Zedekiah). The tablet goes up to the year 594 and then stops. The following years are missing and the next tablet restarts in 556 BCE. The crucial year 586 is lost.

The article continues here.

The Jerusalem Post has an article which summarizes the conclusions of a new work by Hebrew University Professor Moshe Sharon.  The article’s final section is the most interesting.

In the final section of his work Sharon builds on the research of Tuvia Sagiv, attempting to prove that the foundations and design of Al-Aksa replicated the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which the Roman Emperor Hadrian had built on the Temple Mount.
Noting that all Roman Temples of Jupiter had an almost identical design, Sharon compares the schematic of the ruins of a Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek to that of the Al-Aksa complex.
“Jupiter’s Temple in Baalbek had exactly the three features which we find in the Al-Aksa complex: the polygon building in the front where the worshipers assembled, the open space where the god’s statue stood and the rectangular main temple. The same symmetrical line which goes through the three components of Jupiter’s Temple also goes through the Al-Aksa complex, and both plans fit each other perfectly,” writes Sharon.
Sharon and Sagiv’s theory is potentially incendiary because it suggests the Al-Aksa complex was built on pre-existing foundations and was not designed according to Muhammad’s famous Night Journey to Jerusalem.
Sharon’s research, which questions the Islamic justification for the Dome’s existence and describes similar patterns in Jewish and Muslim worship, has inflamed some figures in Israel’s Islamic community.
“We Muslims believe that Jews have no right to a single inch in front of the Al-Aksa Mosque, the whole complex – everything within the walls of the holy site. Jews have no right to worship there – under the ground, above the ground or in between the skies,” said MK Sheik Ibrahim Sarsur, who heads the Islamic Movement in Israel.

The entire article is here.

HT: Joe Lauer