Replicas of the Jewish Temple explained

Replicas of the Jewish Temple are scale models or authentic buildings that attempt to replicate either the Temple of Solomon or the Second Temple (Herod's Temple) in Jerusalem.

Sources for the description of the Temple are found primarily in the works of Josephus, tractate Middot and the Temple Scroll; however, these sources are not consistent.[1]

Scale models

Judah Leon model

In the seventeenth century, Rabbi Jacob Judah Leon of Amsterdam (1602–1675) built a widely exhibited model of the Temple based on his understanding of the biblical specifications.[2]

Schott model

See main article: Hamburg Temple Model. Another notable model was constructed by Gerhard Schott (1641–1702), follows an interpretation made by the Spanish Jesuit Juan Bautista Villalpando. Schott's model, known as the Hamburg temple model, is still displayed in the Museum for Hamburg History.[3]

Conrad Schick models

See main article: Schick models of Jerusalem. Conrad Schick constructed a series of replicas of the Jewish Temple. His replica of the Biblical Tabernacle was visited in Jerusalem by several crowned heads of state, toured the United Kingdom, and was exhibited at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. It was purchased by the King of Württemberg, who awarded Schick a knighthood in recognition of his work. Schick built a replica of the contemporary Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock for the Ottoman Sultan. His final model, in four sections, each representing the Temple Mount as it appeared in a particular era, was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904.[4] [5]

A scale model existed at the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva, but was destroyed during World War II. Two of Schick's models are located in the basement of the Schmidt school for girls in east Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate.

Another of Schick's models is at the Bijbels Museum ("Biblical Museum") in Amsterdam.

Avi-Yonah model

See main article: Holyland Model of Jerusalem. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem houses the Holyland Model of Jerusalem, a model of Jerusalem in the Late 2nd Temple Period originally constructed by archeologist Michael Avi-Yonah at the Holyland hotel.

Other models

Building-sized replicas of the Temple

In 2009, Jews from settlements Mitzpe Yeriho in the West Bank, began to build a life-size replica of the Temple of Jerusalem.[10]

In 2010 the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God started the construction of a replica of Solomon's temple in São Paulo, Brazil. According to local press reports, the building would be an "exact replica" of the ancient Temple of Solomon,[11] but with increased dimensions, despite resembling considerably more Herod's Temple. The temple was inaugurated in July 2014. The mega-church seats 10,000 worshipers and stands 180 feet tall, the height of an 18-story building.

Buildings evoking the Temple

Several churches and synagogues have been designed to evoke the Temple. The most famous of them is el Escorial, the royal residence of Spain (1563–1584) by architect Juan Bautista de Toledo under the order of Philip II of Spain. The central axis reveals a pattern of an courtyard, a sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies.[12]

The Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor, New York was built in 1844 by architect Minard Lafever as a replica of the Temple.[13] [14]

The 1906 building of Temple Israel in Boston was intended to be a replica of the Temple.[15] The Church of St. Polyeuctus in Constantinople was built with the precise proportions given in the Bible for the Temple.[16]

The 1909 building of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, designed by Joseph Barsky, was intended to evoke the Temple following a widely-circulated reconstruction of the temple by Charles Chipiez.[17]

A handful of temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are evocations of the Temple. The Cardston Alberta Temple, Laie Hawaii Temple, and Mesa Arizona Temple are all designed after the style of Herod's Temple.[18] Others, such as the Salt Lake Temple pay more indirectly homage, by orienting towards Jerusalem and having a large basin used as a baptismal font is mounted on the backs of twelve oxen, as was the Molten Sea of the Temple.[19]

Masonic Temples in Freemasonry bear a similar symbolism. Solomon's Temple is a central symbol in Freemasonry, which holds that the first three Grand Masters were Solomon, Hiram I of Phoenicia, and Hiram Abiff, the fictitious craftsman and architect who built the temple. Masonic initiation rites include the reenactment of a scene set on the Temple Mount while it was under construction. Every Masonic lodge, therefore, is symbolically the Temple for the duration of the degree, and possesses ritual objects representing the architecture of the Temple. These may either be built into the hall or be portable. Among the most prominent are replicas of the pillars Boaz and Jachin through which every initiate has to pass.[20]

Replicas in the form of the Dome of the Rock

During and after the Christian conquest of Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock was renamed the Templum Domini. The nearby al-Aqsa Mosque was renamed the "Temple of Solomon", the latter of which was where the Knights Templar had their headquarters in Jerusalem. The two buildings were sometimes conflated,[21] and several buildings were designed as replicas of Solomon's Temple in the shape of the Dome of the Rock.

These replicas include the octagonal, fifteenth-century Church of St. Giacomo in Italy, and the octagonal, nineteenth-century Moorish Revival style Rumbach Street Synagogue in the Pest section of Budapest.

Palestine Park on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York has a small replica of the temple, depicted as the Dome of the Rock, part of a living topographical map of the Holy Land, complete with the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea. Chautauqua Lake stands in for the Mediterranean Sea.[22]

In art, both Perugino's Marriage of the Virgin and Raphael's The Marriage of the Virgin both show the Temple as a Renaissance version of the Dome of the Rock.[23]

Replicas of the tabernacle

The Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania has a replica of the biblical tabernacle dating from 1922.[24] The Mennonite Information Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania had a replica dating from the 1940s.[25] [26]

The Mishkan Shiloh synagogue in Shilo, Mateh Binyamin is designed as a replica of the Tabernacle.[27]

In Israel, Timna Valley Park and Kibbutz Almog feature full-scale replicas.[28] [29]

Notes and References

  1. Book: S, L H. . Historical Perspectives: From the Hasmoneans to Bar Kokhba in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls . DESCRIPTIONS OF THE JERUSALEM TEMPLE IN JOSEPHUS AND THE TEMPLE SCROLL . BRILL . 2001-01-01 . 978-90-04-12007-5 . 10.1163/9789047400745_009 . 69–82. Accordingly, such studies have usually attempted to establish a correspondence between Josephus' accounts and the Temple plan found in tractate Middot of the Mishnah. It has generally been assumed that some form of harmonization of the data in these two sources would yield a reasonable reconstruction of the architectural plan and appearance of what is generally termed the Herodian Temple-- the Temple as rebuilt by King Herod (38-4 B.C.E.)… Josephus presents three descriptions of the Jerusalem Temple. In Antiquities 8, he describes the Temple as it was built by Solomon. Scholars have suggested that Josephus was influenced in this description by the nature of the Temple as it stood in his own day. In narrating the life of King Herod in Antiquities 15, Josephus describes the Temple which Herod built. Finally, in War 5 Josephus describes the Temple within the context of the description of Jerusalem on the eve of the Roman conquest. In addition, various minor comments regarding the Temple structure which appear scattered throughout the writings of Josephus will be dealt with in notes… The Temple plan found in the Temple Scroll is set out in one of the sources of the Temple Scroll. Probably dating to the early Hasmonean period or to earlier in the Hellenistic period, this plan is spelled out in great detail with exacting dimensions. I t was created based on some form of exegesis of the Tabernacle texts in the Pentateuch as well as the descriptions of the Temple in Exodus, Kings and Chronicles with some literary dependence on the Temple plan of Ezekiel as well. In this context, we should note that Josephus' description of the Solomonic Temple was no doubt to a great extent the product of biblical interpretation on his part… The descriptions of the Jerusalem Temple presented by Josephus and the Temple Scroll share very little beyond basic details which they derived from the biblical material pertaining to the Solomonic Temple. The structure of courtyards, the surrounding chambers, and the facades described are quite different… Josephus' plan for the Solomonic Temple resulted from biblical interpretation with only minimal influence from the existing Temple of his day..
  2. Al L. Shane, Jacob Judah Leon of Amsterdam (1602–1675) and his models of the Temple of Solomon and the Tabernacle, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 96, 1983, pp. 145-169
  3. The Temple of Jerusalem by Simon Goldhill, Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 140
  4. [Simon Goldhill]
  5. H. Goren and R. Rubin, "Conrad Schick's Models of Jerusalem and its Monuments", PEQ 128 (1996), pp. 103-124
  6. http://www.cjh.org/programs/exhibitionarchive.php?action=show&id=57
  7. Web site: Temple Square North Visitors' Center . Temple Square North Visitors' Center . churchofjesuschrist.org . 2012-02-21 . 2013-10-15.
  8. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/4837528/A-model-of-biblical-proportions-man-spends-30-years-creating-a-model-of-Herods-Temple.html A model of biblical proportions: man spends 30 years creating a model of Herod's Temple
  9. Branham . Joan R. . The Temple That Won't Quit . Harvard Divinity Bulletin . 36, No. 3 . Autumn 2008 . 23 March 2021.
  10. Fanatycy budują replikę Świątyni Jerozolimskiej [on-line], [w:] "Dziennik" [dostęp: 9.10.2009].
  11. http://www.estadao.com.br/estadaodehoje/20100722/not_imp584551,0.php Réplica do Templo de Salomão deve custar R$ 200 milhões
  12. http://sapiens.ya.com/jrcuadra/jringles.htm Simbology [sic] and projective genesis in architecture: El Escorial and the Temple of Solomon''], by Juan Rafael de la Cuadra Blanco, Ph. Dr. Architect.
  13. "The Rise of Eclecticism in New York, Talbot Hamlin, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 11, No. 2 (May 1952), pp. 3-8.
  14. The Architecture of Minard Lafever, Jacob Landy New York, Columbia University Press, 1970, pp. 230, 287.
  15. The Jews of Boston, Sarna, Jonathan D., and Smith, Ellen, editors, Boston, 1995, p. 177
  16. Hamblin, William J. and Seeely, David Rolph, Solomon's Temple; Myth and History, Thames and Hudson, 2007, p. 109
  17. Sergey R. Kravtsov, "Reconstruction of the Temple by Charles Chipiez and Its Application in Architecture", Ars Judaica, Vol. 4, 2008
  18. Web site: LDS Temples - Mormon Temples - Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Ldschurchtemples.com . 2013-10-15.
  19. Hamblin, William J. and Seeely, David Rolph, Solomon's Temple; Myth and History, Thames and Hudson, 2007, p. 191–3
  20. James Stevens Curl, The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry, Overlook Press, New York, 1991, 56 -62
  21. Web site: Babbs . Sean . Research Guides: HIST 2220 War and Society (Jobin) - An Introduction to Works Held in Rare and Distinctive Collections: The Crusades in Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Art . 2023-12-09 . libguides.colorado.edu . en.
  22. Imagining the Holy Land: maps, models, and fantasy travels by Burke O. Long, Indiana University Press, 2002, pp. 28 ff.
  23. The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance, Jacob Burckhardt, Peter Murray, James C. Palmes, University of Chicago Press, 1986, p. 81
  24. Web site: Home . Glencairn Museum . 2013-10-15.
  25. Web site: Mennonite Information Center . Mennoniteinfoctr.com . 2013-10-15.
  26. "Rising up; Tabernacle replica in Gordonville fixed after storm", Lancaster New Era, Lancaster, June 15, 2002,: Joan Kern
  27. http://www.shilo.org.il/traveller.htm ON THE ROAD TO SHILO by Yocheved Aron
  28. Jewish Journal, July 14, 2005, "Hit Biblical Jackpot at Timna's Mines", Lisa Alcalay Klug
  29. The Tabernacle – Shadows of the Messiah: Its Sacrifices, Services, and Priesthood, David M. Levy, Kregel Publications, 2003, p. 91

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