[Verginius Rufus]

I hadn't heard that about the Roman stables--but the city was Roman for a long time (Aelia Capitolina, after the emperor Hadrian's family name of Aelius). It would make sense that Mohammed's horse would take his launching spot from a horse stable, for the night trip to heaven.

Was the Western Wall built at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, or by King Herod?

[American in Israel]

Solomon, King Davids son.

[donmeaker]

The current western wall is all that is left of Herod’s temple.

After the conversion of Constantine in the 4th Century, there was a lot of building that supported pilgrimage/tourism. Constintine’s mother (Helen) toured Jerusalem, and (knowing she was coming) the locals had a number of things that they helped her find. For example, three crosses were dug up, but it was unknown which was ‘the True Cross’ so they were each, in turn applied to a woman with ‘a headache’. After the third was applied, she miraculously was healed, so that must have been ‘the True Cross’.

They said one was better off as Herod’s pig than as his son. He had one of his son’s killed for disobedience, but Herod was a Jew by religion, and was reported to keep kosher.