Herod's Temple

Biblical References

The name "Herod's Temple" does not appear in the Bible. Scholars use it for the Second Temple as extensively rebuilt by Herod the Great. This is the building the New Testament calls "the temple."

• Luke 1:8-23: Zechariah encounters an angel while burning incense in the sanctuary.
• Luke 2:22-38, 2:41-52: The infant Jesus is presented at the Temple, where Simeon and Anna appear; at the age of twelve, Jesus converses with the teachers in the Temple, listening to them and asking them questions.
• Matthew 4:5: During the temptation in the wilderness, the devil sets Jesus on a pinnacle of the Temple.
• John 2:13-22: The cleansing of the Temple. The Jews say, "Forty and six years was this temple in building" (John 2:20).
• Mark 13:1-2: Jesus declares that the Temple buildings will be thrown down so that "there shall not be left one stone upon another."
• Mark 15:38: When Jesus dies, "the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom."
• Acts 3:1-11, 21:27-30: Peter and John heal a lame man at the Beautiful Gate, and Paul is seized in the Temple.

Background

The people who returned from the Babylonian exile rebuilt the Temple under the leadership of Zerubbabel (Ezra 6:15; see rebuilding of the Temple). Herod is known to have begun a major renovation and expansion of this Temple around 20 BC. He greatly enlarged the platform of the Temple Mount and surrounded the sanctuary with a series of courts. The outermost court was open even to Gentiles; moving inward came the Court of the Women, the Court of Israel (for Israelite men), the Court of the Priests, and finally the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Stones inscribed with warnings forbidding Gentiles to enter the inner courts have been excavated. Construction is reported to have continued for some time after Jesus' lifetime. In AD 70, during the Jewish War, the Roman army captured Jerusalem, and the Temple was burned and destroyed.

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

The New Testament reinterprets the meaning of the Temple in terms of Jesus and the church. The Gospel of John explains that the saying "Destroy this temple" referred to Jesus' body (John 2:21). Paul calls the community of believers the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Hebrews speaks of a greater tabernacle not made with hands (Hebrews 9:11), and the New Jerusalem in Revelation has no separate temple (Revelation 21:22).

Interpretations and Debates

• The prophecy of destruction: Interpretations of Mark 13 and Matthew 24:15 differ. Some hold that the prophecy was entirely fulfilled in AD 70, others that it concerns the end times, and still others that both are in view. Some dispensationalists cite 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 as grounds for expecting the Temple to be rebuilt in the future. Many Reformed scholars, by contrast, read the temple in this passage as referring to the church or as symbolic.
• The torn veil: Many identify it as the veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, while others regard it as the outer curtain at the entrance to the sanctuary.
• The number of Temple cleansings: John places this event at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, whereas the Synoptic Gospels place it in the final week. Accordingly, some hold that there were two cleansings, while others hold that a single event has been placed differently in the narratives.
• Distinguishing later traditions: The Western Wall, today called the "Wailing Wall," is not part of the Temple building itself but a portion of the retaining wall that supported the Temple Mount platform. Likewise, traditions about the exact location of the "pinnacle of the Temple" cannot be confirmed from the biblical text.

In the Korean Church

The passages on the cleansing of the Temple are frequently cited in sermons criticizing the commercialization of the church or problems surrounding offerings. Korean churches have a custom of calling church buildings "temples" (seongjeon). Some criticize this usage and call for it to be corrected, arguing that in the New Testament the temple is not a building but Christ and the church. Others maintain that it is simply a reverent expression that sets apart the place of worship. Holy Land pilgrimages commonly include visits to the Western Wall and the remains of the southern steps of the Temple Mount.