The
Temple of
Solomon
Construction of Solomon's
Temple
(1) Iron Age or Late Bronze Age?
During
the period traditionally assigned to the era of Solomon - Iron Age IIA (1000
to 900 B.C.E.) - "the so-called cities of Megiddo, Gezer
and Hazor, and Jerusalem itself were in reality
more like villages....Within were relatively small public buildings and
poorly constructed dwellings with clay floors. The objects reveal a material culture
which, even by the standards of the ancient Near East, could not be judged
sophisticated or luxurious...The 'magnificence' of the age of Solomon is
parochial and decidedly lackluster, but the first book of Kings implies
exactly the opposite."
- Prof. James Pritchard, Solomon and
Sheba
(1974), p. 35
"...
Byblos
is rich in fine stone buildings from the Bronze Age. However, when it comes
to the Iron Age (which is purportedly the time of Solomon and his ally, Hiram
of Tyre) there are no stone buildings at
Byblos.
How then did Solomon acquire building expertise from
Phoenicia if
the Phoenicians did not have the skill or resources to build stone structures
for themselves?"
- David M. Rohl, A
Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 174
"... He (Solomon) also built cities which might be
counted among the strongest, Hazor and Megiddo, and
the third Gezer, which had indeed belonged to the Philistines's; but Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had made
an expedition against it, and besieged it, and taken it by force: and when he
had slain all it's inhabitants, he utterly overthrew it, and gave it as a
present to his daughter, who married Solomon, for which reason the king
rebuilt it, as a city that was naturally strong, and might be useful in wars,
and the mutations of affairs that sometimes happen."
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
"Pharaoh, king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burnt it with fire, and has slain the Canaanites's who dwelt in the city, and had given it as
dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife; So Solomon rebuilt Gezer."
- I Kings 9:15
According
to archaeologists,
Gezer was rebuilt on the ruins
of the fourth city with a larger circumference and walls measuring 14 feet in
thickness. The brick towers belonging to the old wall were filled with
scarabs, beads, fragments of pottery and other objects contemporary with the
reign of Egyptian Pharoah Amenhotep
III.
"As
for myself I have discovered from our own books, that
after Pharaoh, the father-in-law of Solomon, no other king of Egypt did any longer use that name: and that
it was after that time when the fore mentioned queen of Egypt and
Ethiopia
came to Solomon."
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
"The
thought that crossed many scholars' minds was that the name or title of
Pharaoh continued and the Josephus was in error. But Josephus was relating
that the family name after this king had died ceased and was not continued
even by his own offspring. This again pointed to Ikhnaton,
Amenhotep III and included queen Tiy [mother of Ikhanton] as
well."
- Rev. Robert Palmer (private correspondence)
Ikhanton (or Akhenaten)
was the controversial pharaoh who attempted to revive the worship of the sun
god. Tutankhamun was probably Akhenaten's
son by a minor wife and ruled from the age of nine to twenty. After his
death, Tutankhamun was succeeded by a courtier
named Ay, then a general, Horemheb who branded Akhenaten a heretic and attempted to destroy any trace of
him. As far as Egyptian history was concerned, the last legitimate ruler of
the 18th dynasty and the last person to use the name Amenhotep
was Amenhotep III.
"Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of
Egypt and
married his daughter. He brought her to the City of
David
until he finished building his palace and the temple of the LORD, and the
wall around
Jerusalem."
- I Kings 3:1
"Solomon
married Pharaoh's daughter so one might expect a certain amount of Egyptian
influence in the artistic tastes of the Solomonic
court. If we look at some of the ivories from Megiddo's LB II palace we find
a number of Egyptian motifs, including papyrus plants, lilies and lotus
flowers (the floral motifs of Upper and Lower Egypt), as well as palm trees
and winged sphinxes."
- David M. Rohl, A
Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 178
"Then the king made a great throne inlaid with
ivory and overlaid with fine gold. The throne had six steps, and its back had
a rounded top. On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing
beside each of them. Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end
of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom."
- I Kings 10:18-20
In
addition a court scene depicted in ivory also shows Egyptian elements.
"First, above the chariot horses is a winged sun-disk, second, the queen
offers a lotus flower to her husband; and third the king is seated upon a
throne, the sides of which are guarded by winged sphinxes (i.e., human-headed
lions)."
- David M. Rohl, A
Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 178
"After Pharaoh's daughter had come up from the
City of
David
to the palace Solomon had built for her,he
constructed the supporting terraces."
- I Kings 9:24
"The
only Egyptian architectural remains ever found in Jerusalem may be identified
with the palace of Pharaoh's Daughter, constructed by Solomon after the
completion of the Temple of Yahweh in the king's 11th year...These remains
date to Late Bronze IIA-B and are contemporary with the reigns of the
Egyptian Pharaohs Haremheb (late-reign) and Seti I."
- David M. Rohl, A
Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 184
"Excavations
at Megiddo built during this period,which I Kings
9:15 records as being built up by Solomon, revealed a Late Bronze Age palace
50 metres long with two-metre
thick walls, a royal treasure-room with a magnificent hoard of treasures and
the richest collection of Canaanite carved ivory yet discovered in Palestine
(Yigael Yadin of the
University of Jerusalem)."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology -
Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"
"The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of
three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was
the inner courtyard of the temple of the LORD with its portico."
- I Kings 7:12
The
building technique used in the gate of the late Bronze Age city of
Megiddo (when it
reached its cultural zenith) consisted of three courses of ashlar blocks built on top of a basalt foundation. This
is identical to the technique used by Solomon and his Phoenician craftsmen
according to the Bible - and to that employed in the Late Bronze Age Palace
of Ugarit in
Phoenicia.
"When
Solomon built the
Temple of
Yahweh in
Jerusalem,
he erected two great pillars which flanked the entrance to the cella of the building. They were called Jachin and Boaz [I Kings 7:15-22].
Temple
2048 at
Megiddo
also has a pair of columns guarding the entrance..."
- David M. Rohl, A
Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 178
"Here is the account of the forced labor King
Solomon conscripted to build the LORD's temple, his
own palace, the supporting terraces [or the Millo],
the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer."
- I Kings 9:15
"The
massive Late Bronze Age stone terracing system constructed along the eastern
slopes of the City of David is to be identified with the Jerusalem Millo, constructed in the reign of Solomon..."
- David M. Rohl, A
Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 181
