AdamsonLittle

Jeffrey,
You missed this "However, it can be anywhere else. "

I am not denying that there was no Jerusalem in the world. The Jerusalem mentioned in the literature you mentioned and Dead Sea Scrolls can be anywhere else than in Israel/Palestine where conclusions after exhaustive comprehensive studies speak of its absence. The place associated today does not match geographically with the accounts in Josephus etc. You will agree that in ancient records First temple is on the top of a mount in some wide valley which was surrounded by some distant and some close hills. Just this info is enough to discount current Palestinian location where the Golden Temple is on a ridge.

manwithdream

Does anyone know anything about Dr. Ernest Martin's book about the Temple's location?
Here is a long article that discusses his ideas.
http://www.askelm.com/temple/t001211.htm

Minimalist

Nor, apparently, Finkelstein.

Anat

What is this based on?

BTW have you looked at the Madaba mosaic? It is broken in the middle of the name of the city whose location matches that of Jerusalem, but the part that remains seems to start with 'hagiapolisierousa' - looks like it used to be 'hagiapolisierousalem' not anything like Aelia. Found in a 6th century church, quite a few centuries before the crusades.

As for Finkelstein, his view is that in the 7th century BCE the city in the current location of Jerusalem was the capital of Judah and it may have had a temple which was believed according to local tradition to have been from the founding of the kingdom (regardless of truth of that belief). See for example Grounds for disbelief

J-D

According to the conventionally accepted accounts, the name 'Aelia' derives from the gentilicial name of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and, as a name for a city on the site now occupied by Jerusalem, dates back only to Hadrian's reign. If this is correct, then any city on that site before Hadrian's time must have had some other name.

AdamsonLittle

Book: God's Mountain: The Temple Mount in Time, Place, and Memory, by Yaron Z. Eliav. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Quote:
Page 1
"Egyptian Aristeas writes in a letter, letter of aristreas, his view of the city and its temple" when we approached near the site we saw the city built in the midst of whole of the jews, upon a hill which extended to a great height. On the top of the hill the Temple had been constructed, towering above all" image of a city on a mount.

Page2
"Less known is the gap between this image and the actual physical-topographical situation in the city " Jerusalem, mountains surrounding it" Psamist poem 125:2 , but the city and the Temple are actually located on one of the more unassuming ridges in the area, which by no strech of imagination can be seen as a lofty mountain."

Minimalist

http://www.archpark.org.il/


Click on the link for the Pre-First Temple Period. In the Chalcolithic there are pottery remains at the Gihon Spring. Who knows what they called the town but a steady water source was far too valuable to abandon for long.