The altar was rough and In Its natural stone, which meets the requirement ot Ex W^'-.u. that the altar should be either of earth or ot unhewn stone. Moreover, there were to be no steps going up to the altar,»— a condition also eatisDed by this rock.
« 1 K 710. 12. S 438 „. , .
y See art. Zios, Miihlau in Kichm', «. 'Zion,' and especially Outhe in .?;/>/'Kv. 27111. > Jer 26H'f- ■ Cf. Ezk 43".
{23 24i»ir., 1 Ch 21ioff. (Oman). •: Yoma iii. 1.
B Jerusalem Sxptored, London. 1864, vol. L 88ff. ■ Heb. Arch. ii. 41. « Is 8«. * Ct. Kzk 47»»-
fi Belonging to the Book of the OovenanU > Ex 20«.
supposing it to be the altar of Solomon's temple. This last U however, but twice named in Kings a and only once in Chron icle8;/5 in all these three instances the altar is described af brazen ; besides the size which the Chronicler gives,}- that is all we are told of the altar of burnt-ofiering of Solomon's temple. Nowack, indeed, completes the picture from the fuller descrip. tion of Ezekiel's temple. 5 but with questionable Justification. It is likely enough that the adjective ' brazen ' is a later addition, and lliat the altar of the first temple was one of unhewn stone. If this stone liad not all along occupied a very important place in popular esteem, it could not have been tolerated, but it would many centuries before have been levelled to the ground.
Since the temple and its courts were arranged in terraces, th« house itself, together with the altar, must have stood on the highest platform : this is true of the ground on which the rock rests.
Among leading authorities who have held that the altar was at the present sakhra, the following may be named :— Williams,! Tobler, Furrcr, Pierotti,? Stade,r Benzinger,li and Nowack.i Sir Charles Warren puts the altar just a little to the south of the rock, but quite close to it.» If the saJchra marks the site of the altar,x the house must have been to the we8t,M the inner or temple court* east, west, south, and north, wliile the remaining structures built on the hill would lie toward* the south.
In order to make the ^ock-cro^vned Moriah fit for building upon, the rocky surface would have to be levelled— the sakhra being left as it was — and the parts lower down raised to be as high as the rest. Subterranean passages and rooms were erected, 'hewn stones,' 'costly stones,' 'great stones' being used, large quantities of earth being thrown in to iill up the intervening spaces.? There are to be seen at the present time remains of these underground buildings. 0
All agree that somewhere on the modem ^aram eth-Sher^ the temple was built ; but this area is a quadrangle ot unequal Bides- Its west side measures 1590 ft., its east 1525 ft. The north and south sides are 1036 and 921 ft. respectively. It il impossible that the temple enclosure included the whole of thu space, though de VoguA, de Saulcy, Sir Henry James, and Sepp maintain that Herod's temple, «ith its courts and en- closures, did cover the Haram surface. German and French writers almost to a man, and the miijority of English and American authorities, unite in holding that the temple building proper stood west of the rock as advocated above, and that with Its adjuncts it covered about 600 ft. east to west and 400 ft. north to south. ., ^ „
A number of English writers have followed Fergussonr m maintaining that the temple occupied a square of some 600 ft. at the S.W. angle of the Haram (so Thrupp, Lewin,; and W. B. Smiths). Fergusson was led to this view by architectural con- siderations, and especi.allv by his acceptance ot the Mosque of Omar site for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. W. R. Smith states succinctly what is to be said for this opinion, but there does not seem much inclination on the part of students ot the subject to accept it. Indeed, but for the necessity to support a foregone conclusion, Fergusson would hardly have hit upon this site for the temple at all.
Sources.— Oui original sources for the history and description of Solomon's temple are threefold.
(1) We have what is said in 1 K 6. 7, which leaves out much that is absolutely necessary to make a complete picture. Many teclinical terms are used, the meaning of which it is beyond our power to elucidate with any feeling of confidence. More- over, the text is exceedingly corrupt and defective, so that conjectural emendation and addition have to be constantly employed. Bottcher in hinAe/iren- Icse, Thenius in his Commentary, and especially Stade in his ZATlViii., have made praiseworthy attempts to supply the student with a correct text.
(2) We have, further, the parallel history in 2 Ch 2'-5' ; but that the history in this book, however sincere and pious, is constructed from the point of
• Viz. 1 K S*! (in a narrative ot the dedication ot the temple) and 2 K IS""' (A has supplemented it by an altar Irom Damascus).
3 •* Ch 41
V 20 cubits long by 20 cubits broad by 10 cubits high.
rEzk43is.i7. , TAf Hofy City ^, p. 296 fl.