The Times Backs Off on Temple Trutherism

[Valin]

Power Line:

John Hinderaker

October 10, 2015

 

The New York Times provoked widespread dismay when it published an article yesterday titled Historical Certainty Proves Elusive at Jerusalem’s Holiest Place. The article claimed that it is an open question whether the first and second Jewish temples ever existed at Temple Mount. This assertion is an explosive one because some Arabs allege that the temples, if they ever existed at all, were located somewhere other than Temple Mount, and likely somewhere other than Jerusalem. This is part of the campaign to deny, absurdly, that Jews have any historical connection to the land of Israel, or, in particular, to Jerusalem.

 

It is simply insane to deny that the second temple was located at Temple Mount. For one thing, the Western Wall survives, as do the southern steps and other remnants of the temple:

 

(Snip)

 

 

Ample archaeological evidence confirms Temple Mount as the site of the second temple, and the contours of the temple on the mount are generally known. Less is known about the first temple, for which our sources are, I believe, entirely Biblical. But it is written that the second temple was built on the site of the first, and there is no reason to doubt this. Excavation under Temple Mount likely would produce remnants of the first temple and would, in any event, almost certainly produce some of the most sensational archaeological finds in history, but such exploration is prohibited by the government of Israel so as not to upset the Arabs.

 

The Times’s weirdly ahistorical “who’s to say?” article prompted a wave of condemnation and led the paper to post this correction:

 

Correction: October 9, 2015

 

(Snip)

 

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Tablet: ‘The New York Times’ Goes Truther on the Temple Mount

The newspaper settles the ‘explosive historical question that cuts to the essence of competing claims to what may be the world’s most contested piece of real estate’

Liel Leibovitz

Oct. 9 2015

 

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Related:

 

David Rohl Pharaohs And Kings Play List

 

 

About David Rohl

 

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With degrees in Egyptology, Ancient History, Mycenaean Archaeology and Levantine Archaeology, Rohl is a genuine scholar with a full list of academic credentials, but, at the same time, is seen as a highly original thinker. The Kirkus Review called his best-selling first book ‘a ground breaking analysis of archaeological evidence for the historicity of the early books of the Old Testament … a work with profound implications for both Biblical and Egyptian history … a breathtaking archaeological tour de force.’

 

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For most of the last 200 years the academic trend had been to reduce the value of the Old Testament from historically useful narrative to worthless fiction. The most published, most translated, most famous writings on the planet were no better than Harry Potter, and any scholar with the temerity to suggest that they were even a potential source of real history was derided as a crank. Then everything changed when, in 1995, a gifted and compelling voice demanded critical re-examination of the evidence. Crucial assumptions, handed on down through the years from professor to student, had received little such examination. Inconveniently obscure or confused periods tidied generations ago into ‘Dark Ages’ or ‘Intermediate Periods’ had become straight-jackets creaking with the double strain of unresolved contradictions and the insistent questions of modern scholarship. With his first book, A Test of Time, Egyptologist David Rohl burst upon the scene and, in the words of the Sunday Times, ‘set the academic world on its ear’.

 

A consummate communicator, Rohl writes and lectures brilliantly and is one of that rare breed of scholars who can talk to a lay public without condescension and with real passion. Reading Rohl, watching his television programmes or listening to his lectures, one is impressed by a wide-ranging mind completely at home in a familiar landscape. His obvious mastery of the subject, the clarity with which he lays bare the disturbing inconsistencies he is challenging, his impressive marshalling of facts and the lucidity of his arguments mark him out as an important voice in archaeology. Rohl is a fiendishly clever writer. He even manages the trick of occasionally letting his readers get ahead of him so that they work out a conclusion before he suggests it. No wonder his arguments are persuasive – you worked them out for yourself! As a detective story for intelligent, inquisitive people his seminal work, A Test of Time, is unmatched.

 

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[Valin]

Related

 

Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus

 

Synopsis: What is the validity of history found in the Bible? Is it fact or fiction? What does the hard evidence really have to say about the foundational story of the Old Testament: the Exodus out of Egypt? An in-depth investigation by documentary filmmaker Tim Mahoney searches for answers to these questions amid startling new finds that may change traditional views of history and the Bible.