Since you seem to be the one to ask, I thought that that the Temple contained the Ark of the Covenant, which would contain stone tablets. Hey, I admit my ignornance on what got destroyed or lost and when, but Pompey was apparently confused too.
“Hey, I admit my ignornance on what got destroyed or lost and when,
but Pompey was apparently confused too.”
As for the Ark of The Covenant...that’s still an “Indiana Jones” type
mystery. You’ll hear speculations of
“It’s in Ethiopia”,
“No, it’s buried under the Temple Mount”,
“No, it’s under the Vatican!”,
etc.
If it is discovered, I won’t be suprised it’s found in a crate in
a US government archive!
But for Pompey, the confusion was that “a worshipped G-d” had to have
a physical representation in terms of a statue, painting, figurine, etc.
When he stormed into the temple of Jerusalem, he was shocked to see
(to his eyes) “nothing”. I suspect he thought the Jews had some sort
of grand solid-gold statue of their G-d...and they’d spirited off
so it wouldn’t fall into Roman hands.