stephan huller

I am citing Hjelms. Click the link

Sheshbazzar

I checked the link and read it extensively. Hjelms simply provided a footnote #286 on the assertion, there is no link to, nor evidence of Whom, Where, or When this statement about nature of the sanctuary at Shilo was made.

The quotation linked in your 'it is said...' is just left floating there ....like an unowned turd.

stephan huller

I don't understand what your disputing. Do you think Shiloh was a solid cube like Herod's temple sanctuary?

stephan huller

I think Hjelm's point is about the word h-y-k-l. While it can mean the Jerusalem temple in medieval and modern usage, this usage is Christian and Jewish in origin and is a loan-translation from the Hebrew word. Its original meaning, still the main meaning even in modern Arabic, is a framework. This leaves the question of the meaning in Hebrew open.

First, note that this is not a Semitic word in origin. It is Sumerian. If it is found in several Semitic languages, that means it has been borrowed into each one, from Babylonian-Assyrian or from Aramaic. It has not stayed in each one from the time of Proto-Semitic.

Now, the usage in Biblical Hebrew is ambiguous. It is not used in the Hexateuch, that is, the Torah and Joshua. It first refers to the sanctuary at Shiloh, which admittedly had doors or gates with hinges; but this is still not necessarily a building, a fact apparently registered from the context by the author of the well-known Samaritan 19th c. hymn. It is also referred to Solomon’s temple and palace, but as said before, this is another matter.

In modern Samaritan Hebrew (1907 is modern) it still does not mean a stone building. No Samaritan text refers to Solomon’s temple by the word hêkal (Mas. Hêkhal), because in Sam. usage, the word would not have fitted. It is most often called the Hebrew b-y-t m-k-t-sh, bit maktash (Masoretic bet makhtesh), meaning “the acropolis building”. This name is used regardless of the language of the book.

It is true that the Samaritan book of Joshua says Joshua BUILT this hêkal and put everything inside. But what Joshua BUILT according to the author was the stone fences and stone boundary markers of the designated sacred area IN which the curtains and Tent of Meeting were then put.

For the sake of completeness, let me repeat that all Samaritans of all denominations since the earliest documentation have agreed that this sanctuary was only intact for about 120 years. After that, there was only the stone boundary markers. The general falling away noted in the last verse of the book of Judges enabled Eli, not of the line of High Priests, to set himself up at Shiloh. (Eli was descended from Ithamar, not Phineas. The Rabbinic texts show great disquiet over this break in legitimate succession. This is the importance of the appointment of Zadok as High Priest by Solomon. Zadok was of the line of Phineas. Händel had read the Torah and seen the significance before writing his oratorio). The same general falling away led to the necessity of the occultation of the curtains and vessels from the earthly plane a few years later.

Sheshbazzar

I'm still left wondering where and from whom the QUOTATION;

'there was no roof-beam there, but below was a house of stone and above were hangings and this was the “resting place” originated.

Certainly it fits your argument, but for it to be of any value it must be sourced to some credible ancient witness, otherwise it remains a floater.

stephan huller

And with respect to the existence of Solomon's temple, the Wikipedia page sums it up neatly:

stephan huller

Mishnah Tractate Zebahim 14:6

PhilosopherJay

Hi stephan huller,

I think you've raised some wonderful questions in this thread.

I think we can find the answers by looking at the vast and sharp changes in ideological institutions generally. In the 1850's the Democratic Party in the United States stood for states rights and slavery. The new Republican Party stood for a strong federal government and against slavery. Fast forward 110 years to the 1960's and the parties had practically reversed their ideological stances with the Democrats promoting a strong federal government and civil rights legislation and the Republicans opposing them.

Judaism was a mishmash of different religious beliefs and practices prior to the Temple being built. The constant civil war conditions that existed in Judea during the Hasmonean Period attest to this. Probably circumcision of boys, not eating pig meat and not working on Saturdays were the only customs that Jews had in common.

The Herodean Temple provided a common custom and common practice that helped to unite Jewish people throughout the Roman empire. It also concentrated power in the hands of the Jerusalem priesthood.

Probably diverse practices and interpolation of scriptures would have continued, but the Temple practice would have been central to their religious practices. After some 80 years, most Jews alive would have only have known the custom of the Jerusalem temple. Its destruction would have been devastating to them.

As far as sacrifices were concerned, you are absolutely correct that they could have continued without the temple. However, like hundreds of other outdated Mosaic laws which were no longer applicable, there was little point to it. The Temple was an excuse for sacrifices and the sacrifices was an excuse for having a temple. You could sacrifice to a God anywhere, but what good was it if other people did not see you to know how pious you were. It is as stupid and ridiculous as praying in a closet.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Howard

As a Jewish, basketball fan of the Cleveland Cavaliers, I mourn the loss of LeBron James far more than I mourn the loss of some ancient building.

Sheshbazzar

And so we can go around to outhouse's assertion that there never was a Tabernacle, and it is certain that Wikipedia cannot provide you with any direct archaeological evidence for the existence of Moses' Tabernacle, therefore it must not have existed just like Solomon's Temple.

But you run into a bit of problem if you just discard everything up to the Second Temple, circa 500BCE, as the archeology does support that there were a people known as Israel as early as 1200 BCE (Merneptah Stele)
There is little reason to think that during this 700+ year period the Jews had no religious rituals or national cult center.

You have thus far not even touched on such questions as was the Kingdom of Israel destroyed by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III, or whether Judah ever really experienced the Babylonian captivity, or whether king Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon is a historical figure.

You are leaving out one heaping load of what is accepted as history, to deny the existence of the Jews First Temple, that one ascribed to Solomon, and historically understood to have been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II.

I don't believe in miracles, so I certainly do not believe that the nation of Israel just poofed! into existence with the construction of Zerubbabel's Temple in 515 BCE.

So it is up to you to come up with some credible history of the Jews after you deny the only sequence known.
You can't logically leap a thousand years of time from the Tabernacle of Moses, clear to the 2nd Temple period of Zerubbable to Herod with no historical developments in between.


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