Jerusalem Old City - Dome of the Rock

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Flowers of Jerusalem - Jerusalem Old City - Har HaBait - Dome of the Rock

10 December 2007 - Hanuka

Dome of The Rock

Omar Mosque = El Aqsa
24 Oct 2005

other names:
הר הבית , The Temple, Second Temple, Temple Hill, הר מוריה , Moria , Moriah , Mount Moria
Kipat ha-Sela , כפת הסלע , כפת הזהב
El-Aqsa, Omar Mosque = El Aqsa

LINKS:

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/sacredplaces/domeofrock.html
The site was first consecrated by the Israelites of Exodus.
Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac upon a rock that protruded from the centre of the platform. Later still, upon the same platform, Solomon erected his temple.

Interior 1
Interior 2
Interior 3
Outside

http://www.bibleplaces.com/domeofrock.htm
Built atop the earlier location of the Temple, the Dome of the Rock was erected by the Muslim ruler Abd el-Malik in 688-691.

Jewish Virtual Library

http://sacredsites.com/middle_east/israel/jerusalem.html
Places of Peace and Power
It was also considered to be the site where Abraham had built an altar on which he prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac.
At this same site, the patriarch Jacob gathered stone from the altar upon which his father Isaac was to be sacrificed, and using this stone as a pillow spent the night sleeping upon the rock. Upon waking from a stunning visionary dream, Jacob anointed the stone pillow with oil he had received from heaven and the stone then sank deep into the earth, to become the foundation stone of the great temple that would later be built by Solomon. This hallowed site is known as Beth El, meaning "Gate or House of Heaven."
The First Temple of the Jews was built during the reign of David's son, Solomon. King David had planned to build the Temple at the exact place where he had experienced a revelatory vision of angels ascending a golden ladder into the sky. This site, the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite was originally sacred to the harvest deity known as Tammuz (another name for the deity Adonis). God, through Nathan the prophet, rejected David's wish, evidently on the grounds that he had shed blood, and instead informed him that the Temple would be erected by his son Solomon (II Sam.7:12-13). The Temple 's construction took seven years and was completed in 957 BC. Soon after the Temple 's construction, Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon forced the Jews into exile, removed their temple treasures in 604 BC and 597 BC, and finally completely destroyed the temple in 586 BC. In 539 BC, Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Reconstruction began and the Second Temple was completed by 515 BC. This temple however, did not enshrine the Ark of the Covenant as that sacred object had disappeared sometime before the plundering by Nebuchadrezzar.
The date of the Arc's disappearance and its subsequent whereabouts - long a mystery to archaeologists, historians and biblical scholars - have recently been discussed by the British researcher Graham Hancock. In his richly detailed book, The Sign and the Seal, Hancock presents evidence that the Arc was removed by Jewish priests from Solomon's temple during the rule of the apostate King Manasseh (687-642 BC). The Arc was then hidden for two hundred years in a Jewish temple on the Egyptian sacred island of Elephantine in the Nile. Next it was taken to Ethiopia, to the island of Tana Kirkos in Lake Tana, where it remained for over 800 years until being brought to the city of Axum, capital of the Axumite kingdom. When that kingdom was converted to Christianity after 331 AD, the Arc of the Covenant was placed in a church of St. Mary of Zion where it remains to this day.
Writing in his book Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark, author Laurence Gardner disagrees with Hancock's assertions, and states that the Axumite Ark "Called a manbara tabot, is actually a casket which contains a venerated altar slab known as a tabot. The reality is that, although the Axum chest might be of some particular cultural significance in the region, there are manbara tabotat (plural of tabot) in churches across the breadth of Ethiopia. The tabotat which they contain are rectangular altar slabs, made of wood or stone. Clearly, the prized manbara tabot of Axum is of considerable sacred interest and, by linguistic definition, it is indeed an ark - but it is not the biblical Ark of the Covenant, nor anything remotely like it."

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created 26 October 2005
updated: 24 March 2008