A Brief History
On July 12, AD 70, the army of Titus Caesar Vespasianus, a Roman general that would later become Roman Emperor, finally attacked the walls of the city of Jerusalem after a 6 month siege, succeeding in taking the city 3 days later.
Digging Deeper
By taking Jerusalem, Titus effectively ended the Jewish revolt and in a punitive measure he had the Second Temple destroyed, a temple that has yet to be rebuilt. The Second Temple, known as Herod’s Temple, had stood for nearly 6 centuries until its destruction. The Jews never recovered from this defeat, and the culture and religious practice of Judaism was altered by these events.
Not until 1948 with the establishment of the country of Israel would the Jews once again claim a homeland of their own, and not until 1967 would Israel finally reclaim all of Jerusalem. With the Muslim “Dome of the Rock” occupying the former site of the Second Temple, some religious believers believe that if Israel builds a Third Temple on this site after removing the Dome of the Rock, the event will trigger The End of Times. Do you share this belief?
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Should Israel construct a Third Temple?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Charles River Editors. The Ancient Roman Sieges of Jerusalem and Masada: The History of the First Jewish-Roman War’s Most Famous Battles. Charles River, 2016.
Goldstein, Daniel. The Third Temple: A Sign of The Coming Messiah. Jewels of Judaism Publishing, 2018.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Didier Descouens of Distruzione del tempio di Gerusalemme by Francesco Hayez, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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