Israel's Other Temple: Research Reveals Ancient Struggle over Holy Land Supremacy

Speigel ^ | Matthias Schulz (AFP)

[SunkenCiv]

The Jews had significant competition in antiquity when it came to worshipping Yahweh. Archeologists have discovered a second great temple not far from Jerusalem that predates its better known cousin. It belonged to the Samaritans, and may have been edited out of the Bible once the rivalry had been decided.

Clad in a gray coat, Aharon ben Ab-Chisda ben Yaacob, 85, is sitting in the dim light of his house. He strikes up a throaty chant, a litany in ancient Hebrew. He has a full beard and is wearing a red kippah on his head.

The man is a high priest -- and his family tree goes back 132 generations. He says: "I am a direct descendent of Aaron, the brother of the prophet Moses" -- who lived perhaps over 3,000 years ago.

Ab-Chisda is the spiritual leader of the Samaritans, a sect that is so strict that its members are not even allowed to turn on the heat on the Sabbath. They never eat shrimp and only marry among themselves. Their women are said to be so impure during menstruation that they are secluded in special rooms for seven days.

Outside, on the streets of Kiryat Luza, near Nablus, a cold wind is blowing. The village lies just below the summit of Mount Gerizim. There's a school, two shops and a site for sacrifices. This is home to 367 Samaritans. It's a small community.

Everyone here is required to attend religious services in the synagogue on Saturdays. "Every baby boy has to be circumcised precisely on the eighth day," says the high priest -- not beforehand, and not afterwards.

Most important of all: the sect only believes in the written legacy of Moses, the five books of the Pentateuch, also commonly known as the Torah.

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
This is quite interesting, it's just too bad this topic will probably wind up a scene of sectarian turmoil. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Archeologists have discovered a second great temple not far from Jerusalem***

This is news? I thought most bible students knew of the temple on Mt Gerizim.

This is the mountain the Samaritan woman pointed to when she talked with Jesus and said ....

Jhn 4:20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

[the_daug]

Joh 4:19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Joh 4:20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Joh 4:21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
Joh 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
Joh 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

[jjotto]

If they only accept the “written legacy” of Moses, on what basis do they wear head coverings for religious reasons?

[James C. Bennett]

Ab-Chisda is the spiritual leader of the Samaritans, a sect that is so strict that its members are not even allowed to turn on the heat on the Sabbath. They never eat shrimp and only marry among themselves. Their women are said to be so impure during menstruation that they are secluded in special rooms for seven days.

Outside, on the streets of Kiryat Luza, near Nablus, a cold wind is blowing. The village lies just below the summit of Mount Gerizim. There's a school, two shops and a site for sacrifices. This is home to 367 Samaritans. It's a small community.

Everyone here is required to attend religious services in the synagogue on Saturdays. "Every baby boy has to be circumcised precisely on the eighth day," says the high priest -- not beforehand, and not afterwards.

With the rate of inbreeding going on, there will inevitably be a high rate of children born with serious congenital defects and in premature states. Even these innocents won't be spared an eighth-day genital mutilation?

[Jack Hydrazine]

The high priest wore a head covering.

[Prospero]

Exactly. But, this is what we've learned to expect from the most godless part of the Occident, next to Norway and Sweden, that is.

Samaria's history has was not "edited out." Anyone who actually reads the Bible knows these people were descendant of peoples the old Assyrian Empire (Sargon II, I believe) forcibly moved in to populate an area formerly belonging to the Kingdom of Israel, after they were conquered and carried off to Media in the late 8th century BC, leaving Judea a client state, more or less, until the neo-Babylonians, in turn, conquered Jerusalem, what... eighty years later?

Like Stalin, shuffling tribes around was SOP for the Assyrians, 2800 years ago.

Don't you just love these presumptuous reporter types making loud talk about things they know nothing about?

[AnalogReigns]

It’s a tiny Arab cult. Do any of them really descend from pre-exilic Hebrews from the northern kingdom of Israel? Maybe, maybe not. In any event—if they were reduced to 147 in 1918, not exactly a vital group.

The main part of the article though was dedicated to supposedly “proving” that the Kingdom of David and Solomon—along with Solomon’s Temple is “total nonsense” since no remains of that Temple have been found. (yes, and Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible is recorded as having utterly destroyed it, and all of Jerusalem—rendering the city itself uninhabitable...).

Seriously, this article seemed to drip with delight at finding something that might be able to discredit the Bible and the Jews.

I commented on Der Spiegal’s site that it sounded like the attitude of 70+ years ago...

That will mean something to the Germans for sure.

[AnalogReigns]

Male circumcision is hardly “genital mutilation.” In fact medically it significantly reduces disease in both men AND their wives.

You probably disapprove of the nation of Israel, and its inhabitants too, don’t you?

[Bellflower]

This is a pretty good writeup about the Samaritans, their "temple" and the Jews:

The Samaritan Schism

Lawrence H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition, Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, NJ, 1991.

Throughout the Second Commonwealth Judeans and Samaritans were engaged in intermittent conflict. Many scholars, on the basis of studies of the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Samaritan script, have concluded that the schism should be dated to the building of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim late in the Persian period and its destruction by the Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus in 128 B.C.E. These scholars maintain that the officials of Samaria who opposed the rebuilding of Jerusalem cannot be identified with the later Samaritan sect. This distinction seems to be overdrawn. Granted that the schism was the result of a long process, its earliest stages are to be observed already in the early years of the Persian period.

The Samaritans were a mixed people, made up of Israelites who had not been exiled when the Northern Kingdom was destroyed in 722 B.C.E. and people of various foreign nationalities whom the Assyrians had resettled in the area in an attempt to ensure that Israel’s national aspirations could not again come to the fore. This mixed group had adopted a syncretistic form of Judaism that combined old northern traditions with those of the resettled nations. When work began on the Temple, the Samaritans approached the Jews to join in the project. The Judeans rejected the Samaritans because of their questionable descent......

http://cojs.org/cojswiki/The_Samaritan_Schism

[Bellflower]

Israel was clearly commanded by The LORD to offer sacrifices only at The Temple in Jerusalem. To offer a sacrifice anywhere else was not acceptable to The LORD and sinful.

________________________________

Deuteronomy 12:5 But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, [even] unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come:

Deu 12:6 And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks:

Deu 12:7 And there ye shall eat before the LORD your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the LORD thy God hath blessed thee.......

Deu 12:11 Then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you; your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which ye vow unto the LORD:

Deu 12:12 And ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your menservants, and your maidservants, and the Levite that [is] within your gates; forasmuch as he hath no part nor inheritance with you.

Deu 12:13 Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest:

Deu 12:14 But in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.

[pabianice]

Seconded.

[James C. Bennett]

No I don’t, to your latter question.

And those “studies” pointing to circumcision, technically male genital mutilation, “significantly” reducing STD transmission rates are unreliable and face contradictory evidence. Sweden, Taiwan and Japan with practically nil circumcision rate has lower STD occurrence rates than Israel or Pakistan, where nearly all are circumcised (males). Not to mention doctors and medical lobbies pushing unnecessary surgeries like they did with c sections.

A whole bunch of sensitive genital tissue whose loss significantly degrades male pleasure during intercourse lopped off for what can otherwise be achieved with a basic sense of hygiene - soap and water.

So, are prematurely born inbred children forced to endure that stupid 8th day genital mutilation?

Hack off your limbs too, and you won’t suffer from fractures there...

[Jack Hydrazine]

It wasn’t just questionable descent but actual practice. Many had converted and the rabbis at that time thought their conversions were genuine until it was discovered that they were not. Those conversions were then ruled as invalid and the Samaritans have considered non-Jews since that time.

[SunkenCiv]

[snip] Along the Eastern Wall of the Temple Mount near the Northern end of the wall there is an underlying layer of pre-Herodian stone which displays a corner of a very old wall protruding out. Archeologist Leen Ritmeyer has called this unique corner spot the "offset". It is clearly an older protrusion of an existing wall and corner upon which King Herod had his masons built a new wall. Could this "offset" have been the original NE corner of the outer courtyard of Solomon's Temple? The original outer courtyard of Solomon's Temple measured 500 cubits square as is documented by the exiles in the Mishna. The Jewish exiles who were freed by the Persians returned to Israel to rebuild a Second Temple. When the exiles returned they measured the outer courtyard as being 500 cubits square. They did not build the outer courtyard the 500 cubit square was the remains of the First Temple. This fact dovetails with Ezekiel's measurements as being Solomon's Temple each had a 500 square outer courtyard. So this means that the original Temple had a courtyard of such dimensions. The only contemporary scholar who recorded that was Ezekiel. [/snip]

[the_daug]

It belonged to the Samaritans, and may have been edited out of the Bible once the rivalry had been decided.

I don't think there was any editing at all as the scripture would have more variation and they would use that variation as evidence. The way it is written would create doubt but probably just indifference on the writers part.