Temple in Jerusalem Abomination of Desolation
Temple News Story 04-30
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A Contentious Battle for the Temple
Mount's Survival CBN CBN.com – Gabriel Barkay is a professor of Biblical archaeology at Bar Ilan University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His academic areas of interest include the archaeology of Jerusalem, burials and burial customs, and art, epigraphy, and glyptics in the Iron Age. Professor Barkay's most famous discoveries are small silver plaques containing the priestly benediction from the Book of Numbers. These plaques are believed to contain the oldest biblically-related inscription. Recently he spoke with Pat Robertson in Israel about the concerns over the collapse of the Temple Mount. PAT ROBERTSON: I am here in Jerusalem, and yesterday I was on the Temple Mount, and went over extensively what is being done there. You cannot believe what the Muslims have done in violation of a treaty. They have carved underneath the floor of the land adjoining the al-Aqsa mosque, a mosque that will hold 10,000 people -- huge steps leading down to it. And in the process, they have excavated enough fill material to imperil the wall structure. The wall is bulging out, and the people of Israel are warning that during Ramadan, if thousands and thousands of people come in there, that the entire structure could collapse. It is very serious. I learned something else I will tell you about after this interview, that was moving to me as I was there on that site. I had an interview with a man who is a leading archeologist here in Israel, to tell about a cultural Intifada. The word 'Intifada' means shaking. It is not just an Intifada that deals with military action in Gaza and other parts of the West Bank; there is a cultural Intifada that is even more devastating. Here is that interview taken up on the Mount of Olives yesterday. I am here overlooking the Temple Mount with a leading archaeologist, Gabriel Barkay in Israel, who is with the Bar-Ilan University. We want to find out what is going on in the Temple Mount. It is nice to have you with us on The 700 Club. Could you tell me, we heard there is a possibility of a collapse of the al-Aqsa mosque from all of the pilgrims who will come here in Ramadan, because of excavations. Can you tell us the situation there? GABRIEL BARKAY: Actually, the Temple Mount is a huge enclosure that is larger even than the City of David. That huge enclosure was created by King Herod the Great who, instead of a mountain, created a flat platform. He surrounded the mountain with a large shoebox-shaped arrangement of tall and heavy walls. These walls are retaining walls, behind which there is artificial fill, between the retaining wall and the natural slope of the mountain. So, instead of the mountain, we have now a flat platform. With the activities of the religious authorities of the Muslims upon the Temple Mount since the 1990s, with the construction of the al-Marwani mosque within the subterranean structure, including also paving of much of the area next to the al-Aqsa mosque, the very delicate equilibrium that existed there for many centuries was disturbed. Today the runoff of rain water does not penetrate the ground, but it penetrates the walls. The eastern wall of the Temple Mount got cracked. The south wall of the Temple Mount has a huge bulge developing on it, and the matter is, that the last earthquake, which took place in February of 2004, did not help too much. And with large crowds gathering upon the paved areas of the Temple Mount, we see a very, very dangerous situation. ROBERTSON: The bulge of the wall, I understand the Jordanians have moved in to try to reinforce it. Are they doing that? Is anybody doing that, to reinforce the wall? BARKAY: We can see from this point, that next to the southern wall of the Temple Mount there are scaffoldings against the wall. Along the -- or on the face of the eastern wall -- you can see scaffolding as well. This is the work of an Egyptian team. They work there. They carry out their repairs, which were achieved in a kind of a secret agreement between the Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians. In 1996, the mosque, which was built into that place, that is a mosque that houses today up to 10,000 people. It is a huge subterranean mosque. It was added as part of the illicit construction activity by the Wakfa authorities since the 1990's. ROBERTSON: What agreement was it that allowed the Palestinians to do this kind of work? BARKAY: Actually, there was no such agreement reached between the parties. In the Camp David talks in 2000, President Clinton and others brought up the idea that in the future, there will be a division of sovereignty on the Temple Mount. Whatever is above ground will be for the Palestinians. That will include the mosques. And whatever is underground, which includes the remnants of the temples of the Jews and anything else, that would be Israeli sovereignty. And so the Muslims got the message and began to dig down and they began to fill in every subterranean hollow and every space which was there, to occupy it, in order to avoid any possible presence of Israelis later on, if and when a future solution is reached. Actually what we see is that the Temple Mount is regarded as a political matter, rather than a place to be cherished by all nations. ROBERTSON: This is Solomon's Temple and the place where Jesus walked. How does it get to be a Muslim holy site? BARKAY: Upon this rock, on top of the Temple Mount, which is now under the golden Dome of the Rock, upon that rock Abraham, according to Genesis 22, tried to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. The father-son sacrifice in Jerusalem go together, not only in the case of Abraham, but also with Jesus. In any case, that took place on the Temple Mount. Later on, David built upon that same rock, built an altar in the threshing floor of the Araunah the Jebusite, to stop the plague. His son Solomon built the first temple that was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian. Then later on, the second temple was built. In any case, the place of the temple is the foundation stone of the Judeo-Christian common tradition. When the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, that was in 1638 of the Christian era, and the army of the prophet a short time after the prophet's death, was led by Omar. And Omar had in his army several Jews from Arabia who served in his forces. Among them there was a man named Cobb. This man told him about the significance of the Temple Mount, and Omar immediately built a wooden mosque on the Temple Mount, which was the first mosque built there. And this is regarded as the third in its importance for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina. ROBERTSON: Is there any possibility that the Jews will take back sovereignty over the Temple Mount, which is their heritage, and prevent this desecration from going on? BARKAY: Following the Six Days War, the government of Israel declared Jerusalem a united city and the capital of the state of Israel. So Israeli sovereignty is all -- is upon all of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount. On the other hand, it was clear that there would be much Arab and Muslim opposition to any activity of the Israelis upon the Temple Mount, so the day-to-day care of the Temple Mount was left in the hands of the Muslim religious authorities, the Wakfa. This was the situation until the 1990s. In the 1990s, that very fragile continuous situation got broken when a new mosque was built, and as for the future, you know that it is dangerous to be a prophet in Jerusalem. I am a Jerusalemite, but I am no prophet, so I cannot tell. ROBERTSON: Thank you for being with us. BARKAY: Thank you very much. ROBERTSON: Ladies and gentlemen, as I am here in Jerusalem, I am simply appalled at the desecration of holy sites that are holy to Jews and Christians. What is happening here, as I said before, is a cultural Intifada, an attempt to erase all knowledge that the Jews were in the holy land, and to try to make believe that they had no right to be here at all. There is a desecration of the tomb of Joseph, and the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, etc. The whole situation is terribly fragile. It is impossible to get into Bethlehem without the right kind of tour with Muslim plates. Jericho is completely closed off. It is a mess from the way it used to be. |
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