The Third Temple (From Wikipedia)
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The Modern rebuilding efforts
Although in mainstream Orthodox Judaism the rebuilding of the Temple is generally left to the coming of the Jewish Messiah and to divine providence, a number of organizations, generally representing a small minority of Orthodox Jews, have been formed with the objective of realizing the immediate construction of a Third Temple in present times.
Many Evangelical Christians believe that New Testament prophecies associated with the Jewish Temple, such as Matthew 24–25 and 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12, were not completely fulfilled during the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 (a belief of full preterism / one who holds that the prophecies in the Bible about the End Times have already been fulfilled — compare futurist, presentist
and that these prophecies refer to a future temple.
This view is a core part of dispensationalism, an interpretative framework of the Bible that stresses biblical literalism and asserts that the Jews remain God's chosen people.
According to dispensationalist theologians, such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye,
The Third Temple will be rebuilt when the Antichrist, often identified as the political leader of a trans-national
alliance similar to the European Union or the United Nations, secures a peace treaty between the modern nation of Israel and its neighbours following a global war. The Antichrist later uses the temple as a venue for proclaiming himself as God and the long-awaited Messiah, demanding worship from humanity.
The Temple Institute and the Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement each state that its goal is to build the Third Temple on the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah). The Temple Institute has made several items to be used in the Third Temple.
Attempts to re-establish a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount
In August 1967, after the Israeli capture of the Mount, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) (and later chief rabbi of the State of Israel), began organizing public prayer for Jews on the Temple Mount.
Rabbi Goren was also well known for his controversial positions concerning Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount. On August 15, 1967, shortly after the Six-Day War, Goren led a group of fifty Jews onto the Temple Mount, where, fighting off protesting Muslim guards and Israeli police, they defiantly held a prayer service.[14] Goren continued to pray for many years in the Makhkame building overlooking the Temple Mount where he conducted yearly High Holy Days services. His call for the establishment of a synagogue on the Temple Mount has subsequently been reiterated by his brother-in-law, the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, She'ar Yashuv Cohen.
Goren was sharply criticized by the Israeli Defense Ministry, who, noting Goren's senior rank, called his behaviour inappropriate.
The episode led the Chief Rabbis of the time to restate the accepted laws of Judaism that no Jews were allowed on the mount due to issues of ritual impurity. The secular authorities welcomed this ruling as it preserved the status quo with the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. Disagreeing with his colleagues, Goren continually maintained that Jews were not only permitted, but commanded, to ascend and pray on the mount.
Goren repeatedly advocated or supported building a Third Temple on the Temple Mount from the 1960s onward, and was associated with various messianic projects involving the site. In the summer of 1983, Goren and several other rabbis joined Rabbi Yehuda Getz, who worked for the Religious Affairs Ministry at the Western Wall, in touring a chamber underneath the mount that Getz had excavated, where the two claimed to have seen the Ark of the Covenant. The tunnel was shortly discovered and resulted in a massive brawl between young Jews and Arabs in the area. The tunnel was quickly sealed with concrete by Israeli police.[15] The sealed entrance can be seen from the Western Wall Tunnel, which opened to the public in 1996.
The Chief Rabbis of Israel, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Yitzhak Nissim, together with other leading rabbis, asserted that "For generations we have warned against and refrained from entering any part of the Temple Mount."[16] A recent study of this rabbinical ruling suggests that it was both "unprecedented" and possibly prompted by governmental pressure on the rabbis, and "brilliant" in preventing Muslim–Jewish friction on the Mount.[17] Rabbinical consensus in the Religious Zionist stream of Orthodox Judaism continues to hold that it is forbidden for Jews to enter any part of the Temple Mount[18] and in January 2005 a declaration was signed confirming the 1967 decision.[19] On the eve of Shavuot in 2014, or 6th Sivan, 5774 in the Hebrew calendar, 400 Jews ascended the Temple Mount; some were photographed in prayer.[20]
Obstacles
The most immediate and obvious obstacle to realization of these goals is the fact that two historic Islamic structures which are 13 centuries old, namely the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, are built on top of the Temple Mount. Any efforts to damage or reduce access to these sites, or to build Jewish structures within, between, beneath, beside, cantilevered on top of, or instead of them, could lead to severe international conflicts, given the association of the Muslim world with these holy places.[21]
The Dome of the Rock is regarded as occupying the actual space where the Second Temple once stood, but some scholars disagree and instead claim that the Temple was located either just north of the Dome of the Rock, or about 200 meters south of it, with access to the Gihon fresh water spring, or perhaps between the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.[22]
In addition, most Orthodox Jewish scholars reject any attempts to build the Temple before the coming of Messiah. This is because there are many doubts as to the exact location in which it is required to be built. For example, while measurements are given in cubits, there exists a controversy whether this unit of measurement equals 1.84 feet, the scholarly consensus, or 1.43 feet, put forward by respected historian Asher Selig Kaufman.[23] Without exact knowledge of the size of a cubit, the altar could not be built. The Talmud recounts that the building of the Second Temple was only possible under the direct prophetic guidance of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Without valid prophetic revelation, it would be impossible to rebuild the Temple, even if the mosques no longer occupied its location.
Despite obstacles, efforts are under way by various analytical groups to articulate the benefits to local and regional constituents and participants to encourage developments that would progressively align in support. It is known from the Talmud[24] that in the time of King Agrippa, Jerusalem was filled with millions of visitors and pilgrims from the entire region. Some current opinions suggest that the potential of spiritual tourism would support the growth goals of the Mayor of Jerusalem[25] for 10 million tourists annually. This would provide a significant boost to the economy and would benefit people locally and regionally, many of whom live in poverty.[26] Since the rebuilding of the Temple can come only through a process of peace,[27] it must be preceded by numerous efforts, including the financial and project infrastructures to support such a large increase in tourism, local and regional co-operation agreements to enable its construction and the success of modern attempts to revive the Sanhedrin, the authority which must be empowered for such an event to occur.
Many rabbis interpret halakha (Jewish religious law) as prohibiting Jews from entering the Holy of Holies.[28] The situation is complicated as the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque fall under control of Muslim clerics, but Israeli police administer its security.[29] According to CNN:
In 1990, rumors that Jewish extremists planned to start rebuilding the Temple started a riot in which 17 Palestinians were killed and scores wounded by police gunfire. In 1996, the Israeli government opened an archeological tunnel just outside the compound, sparking riots in which 80 people, most of them Palestinians, were killed.[29]
A 2000 visit to the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon resulted in a clash between "stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli troops, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd," coinciding with the beginning of the Second Intifada (widely interpreted as having ended in 2005).[29] During the Sukkot festival in 2006, National Union Knesset member Uri Ariel visited the Temple Mount without incident and the Israeli police witnessed no provocation by the protestors.[28]
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