Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock is Hate Speech in Stone; Its removal Urgent

I could go further. In Revelation 11, we are told that the court outside the Temple would be given over to the Gentiles, and they would tread it down for 42 months, ie 1260 years prophetically. In AD 707, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built in what had been the court of the Gentiles, and 1260 years later the state of Israel resumed control over all of Jerusalem, ending the "treading down." It is a pity that they did not have the faith and belief to go ahead and destroy the Dome and el-Aqsa at that time.

The Jordanians had destroyed every synagogue in Jerusalem in the 19 years it was under their control, and had also destroyed much of the Jewish cememtery of the Mt of Olives (Har ha Zeitim), building a road over it, a hotel in it on top, and the like.

If American Christians do not know these things, it is time they learned them.

For as long as Muhammad lived, the Muslim warriors clustered around him, awaiting his every word with bated breath. When he died in AD 632, they burst upon the world with a fury never seen in human history. Never have so few killed so many in so short a time, whether in the name of religion or in any other name.

Read Daniel 12, the key to our times. 1290 years from 632 yields AD 1922, when the British set up a non-Islamic government in Eretz Yisroel for the first time since the Islamic takeover, appointing a Jew as governor and with instructions to implement the Balfour declaration which had called for a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel/Eretz Yisroel.

1335 years yields AD 1967, when the State of Israel became ruler of all the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean, praise God. May it never again come under Islamic rule, whether under the guise of a pally state or any other ruse.

May we all b e faithful by God's power, may the Temple be speedily rebuilt in our days, and may our children and grandchildren see the arrival of Moshiach in all power and glory, as God hastens His coming exactly as scheduled in the prophecies.

Baruch ha Shem.

I think you are going much too far, and you are making the new Covenant exactly what its worst enemies have always contended.

At the most fundamental level, the new Covenant's worst enemies despise the new Covenant because they despise the fact that Jesus claims to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and the only hope for salvation. Their contention that Jesus claimed to be the Christ and the fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophecy is absolutely correct. That they despise him for this is their problem.

Of course, these people would also say that those who hold such an absolutist view of the new Covenant must necessarily despise and persecute the Jews and Israel. There may seem to be some truth here when you look at the historical persecution of Jews by Christians, but these Christians are debased and out of line with scripture, and they're certainly out of line with the love that Jesus has for all people, which he demonstrated by his death on the cross.

Jesus commands us to "love your neighbor as yourself", therefore I will do my best to love my fellow man, including those who happen to be Jewish. Jesus made his best effort to give the Jews the Good News, even having his disciples go to the Jews first, and so I will do what I can to help point the Jews back to their Messiah.

Does this sound anti-Jewish? If anything, you're harming the Jews when you stand between them and their Savior. Being a stumbling block to them by encouraging their rejection of Christ and his atoning blood (and a rejection is exactly what renewd animal sacrifices would be) is the last thing someone who loves the Jewish people should do.

Its far more numerous balanced statements, you are ignoring.

There are no scriptures that "balance" the first three scriptures that I included in my last post. In them, the Son of God is declaring with unmistakable clarity that, under the new Covenant, there is no salvation apart from Him. Less-clear scripture must be interpreted in the light of clear scripture; if in your interpretation the Jews are saved by animal sacrifices, then it's time to revise your interpretation (I am correct in thinking you believe the Jews are saved by something other than Jesus' sacrifice, aren't I?) Similarly, if the Son of God claims to be the rebuilt temple, but your interpretation of the temple involves people stacking stone in Jerusalem, then there needs to be a revision, it seems to me.

The clock is not only ticking on your outmoded stance, it has done ticked out, and your time is up.

The irony here, of course, is that you are the one advocating a return to the outmoded old Covenant.

...welcome Israel back to full loving fellowship with us as not only full members of God's family, but with a unique eschatalogical role...and that involves the Temple

According to Jesus, those who reject God's firstborn Son will be rejected, but he also said that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life, and that includes the Jews. It is therefore imperative to share the Gopel with the Jews in order for them to become our brothers in Christ. And:

I did not see a temple in the City, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

No, no, of course not advocating a return to the Old Covenant for salvation. The fact that the Temple must be brought back into operation, and its actually BEING in operation, will no more save anyone without Christ's blood to which it points forever as an object lesson, than the old temple did which WAS IN FACT IN CONTINUED OPERATION for 37 years after Jesus' death, without that preventing anyone from coming to salvation in Him, nor by its operations SAVING anyone. But what a grand illustration, a passion play enacted daily, of the seriousness of sin and of God's plan for this world, for salvation!

You remain like so many Christians, you just canNOT get your mind off of your own personal salvation, not for one little moment, not even after you may have been saved and sure for 50 years or whatever. Sometimes I think that if I advocated a new public toilet downtown, the Christians would tell me that was not essential to salvation, and that I was trusting in porcelain and concrete instead of Jesus! With all due respect, POPPYCOCK!

I am perfectly free to advocate this temple's reconstruction and reopening, and if its closing helped Christianize hundreds of millions in the West, so its reopening and doubtless constant televising of its operations...and miracles, yes, daily miracles...what a glorious passion play, illustration of God's love and Christ's sacrifice that will be! Until one understands the sanctuary (temple) services, one may trust in Jesus as a child and obtain personal salvation for ones SELF, but will never really come to any communicable adult understanding of Scripture or the mysteries of Godliness: -- have you no view at all for Israel and the world, for something that will impress them more than all the sermons ever preached?

I assure you that my cold shower remark was not directed towards you. I tried to direct my response to "all," but the software being used, apparently rejects that now.

While I am in favor of very sharply curtailed immigration, I would agree with you that a tone of hatred towards others, adds nothing worthwhile to the debate. Indeed, it detracts from one's argument.

I think that some people vent their frustration with the way the Left has misdirected our values and priorities against those whom they see as the beneficiaries of the policies objected to. But the focus of the argument ought to be directed against those who mislead, and the discussion should be on the fallacies of their position.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

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Crystalk, those are some very interesting numbers, especially the ones relating to the "trampling down" of the holy city. But if you mark the beginning of the 1260 years with the construction of the Al Aqsa Mosque, wouldn't you mark the end with the destruction of the Al Aqsa mosque?

I've also read that the number 1260 actually refers to the number of days that are in three-and-one-half years. Apparantly, the number three-and-a-half is symbolic of incompletion or evil, so the 1260 days could represent the evil or the trampling down in a general sense, rather than referring to a specific period of time.

As far as Danial 12, some believe that the 1290 and 1335 days are actually days and have something to do with Jewish persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes.

These scriptures are interesting to look at, but there's enough uncertainty surrounding them that, in my opinion, they aren't nearly as authoritative in answering fundamental questions of doctrine as are the words of Jesus or the apostles or the clearer Old Testament scriptures (like Psalm 40 or Jeremiah 31).

The idea of rebuilding a Temple, that was last in the area something like 1930 years ago, is not spiteful. But the idea of displacing a shrine that has been actively used for over 1300 years in the interim is absolutely ludicrous.

Do you even stop to consider what sort of a precedent you are advocating? Perhaps the point you make made sense when Richard The Lion Hearted went off on an adventurous Crusade in the late 12th Century; but Saladin prevailed, and Jerusalem remained unquestionably a Muslem city for the next 700+ years. Surely, there becomes a time when some sort of right vests--don't your think? Do we even know what uses the Indians might have been making of the sites of some of our sacred shrines, 700 or 1300 years ago? Do we really care?

What if the Druids want to start reclaiming sacred shrines in England?

The idea that the location of the Mosque was somehow a hateful act, needs also to be laid to rest. Abraham, Moses and Jesus are next to Mohammed himself, recognized as the Great Prophets of Islam. You may disagree with their teachings about them, but you make a foolish argument when you suggest that they were somehow dishonoring them.

But the real point is what I began with. How can you suggest some wrong to Christians and Jews when the Moslems who honor the same historic figures, use a site that had been a ruin for over 600 years? Surely 600 years was long enough to see if anyone else, who claimed a right to it, was going to use it.

Of all the issues that need to be sorted out, that we not have a century of religious war--and we have had whole centuries of religious war in the past--surely this idea of yours has to be very near the bottom in importance. It reminds me, frankly (the reason for the Indian mention above) of the time when Dartmouth students started a movement to give New Hampshire back to the Indians. But then the Indians had been there only two centuries before. Nineteen would have been a bit much even for the Dartmouth "Liberal" crowd.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

Christians, and Americans, and Jews are all innocent of the WTC bombing. And so am I. So why does the vituperation get directed at US, instead of at the guilty party, the abomination of desolation itself?

The "guilty party" is hardly a religious shrine. The "vituperation," to which you refer, was not directed against Christians, Americans or Jews, nor did it have anything to do with the WTC bombing. It had to do with a self-defeating focus on the wrong target, in another war, which has nothing to do with what most of us are trying to deal with and wage successfully in 2001.

You may personally hate Moslems. Most of us only hate terrorists--who in this instance happen to be Moslems, but they are not all Moslems, nor is the religion, per se, the enemy. Your argument would be like blaming all Catholics for the antics of the IRA--most of whom are probably atheists, who happened to be born into Catholic families. They have some support in the Catholic community in Ireland, for reasons very similar to why those seen as fighting the Israelis have support among many religious Moslems. But only a real fanatic would seek to destroy Catholic shrines, because some Catholics sympathize with the IRA (most, of course, want no part of them--none whatsoever).

I do not know if any shrines have been destroyed on either side in Northern Ireland. I do know that both sides have their talking points. Hopefully, they will find their way to a peaceful accommodation. Hopefully, so will the peoples of the Near East. But nothing could be more counter-productive than for either side to start attacking the sacred shrines of the other.

Let me put all this another way: Let us say that out of the World's 1,000,000,000 Muslems, 800,000,000 are in families that care enough to wish that America was not allied to the Israelis--that is a wild guess, but bear with me. Probably not over 800,000 of those people are actively prepared to do something mean about it. Perhaps another 80,000,000 are in families that will actually go out and cheer when some from those 800,000 potential terrorists do something nasty. But they do not have the fervor to go out and join them. (The mobs acting up in the streets to celebrate our misery are analogous to a group of drunks in a Boston Bar, cheering on some act of terror by the IRA.)

Along come some overly zealous Americans, and start a movement to dismantle the third most sacred site in Islam. Now you have quite another situation. The real recruitment against us will be on in earnest. Next there will not be 800,000 potential terrorists, but 20 or 30 million, with a far more valid point to make; while the militant support group will not be 80,000,000 but 400 to 500 million.

Why invite that by a mean spirited and spiteful act?

Let us hunt down those who are trying to kill us, and then return to the wise Washington/Jefferson foreign policy where we demand respect, but accord like respect back to all peoples.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

The Dome of the Rock, the first Muslim masterpiece, was built in 687 A.C. by Caliph Abd al-Malik, half a century after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (s). The rock marks the site from where Prophet Muhammad (s) made his Miraaj or Night Journey into the heavens and back to Makkah (Qur'an 17:1). The Dome of the Rock presents the first example of the Islamic world-view and is the symbol of the oneness and continuity of the Abrahamic, i.e. Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith.

Travelers and pilgrims have compared the cupola to a mountain made up of supernatural light, or else to a sun when its gold glitters in the dazzling light of Palestinian mornings, noons, and dusks, with endless variations in the intensity of shades. The atmosphere of beauty that prevails in the Dome of the Rock is like a distant announcement of the destiny of paradise.

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Introduction
First Muslim Masterpiece
The Site
History
Architecture

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While it is true that the Muslims seized Jerusalem late in 638 from a defenseless Christian administration under the Patriarch Sophronios, their armed berserkers were virtually alone and decried as invaders, by a city that was 80% Christian and 20% Jewish.

The year 707, when al Aqsa was completed, marks a time when the population of the city had been reduced by half as Christians and Jews fled from the murderous depredations of the Muslims, and at the same time enough Arabs had come in, and enough women and others forced at swordpoint to sell out Christ, that the Muslims came into actual control of the civil governing on a day to day basis.

The year 1967 marks the year they lost that civil administration, since their Mufti and his Waqf control only the Temple Mount itself, and that subject to Israeli police and army coming in under sufficient provocation, on occasion. Note that it was the Holy City and the Court of the Gentiles, not the holy temple area itself, that Rev. 11 refers to. That is, by coincidence, where elAqsa stands, but I would not contend that is an absolutely controlling fact. The point is clear, and God is in charge, his time table right on schedule.

If the Jews who took over so dramatically on June 8, 1967, had been believing rather than apostate, I think very little would have remained of either structure by nightfall. Now just look what the world will have to go through, because they did not seize their opportunity that June morning.

Carpe diem, as they say.

As you seem to know, there are many other periods of 1260 years, both exact and appx. like the 1290 and 1335 in Dan. 12, that have importance in eschatology, and it is only this one (Rev 11) that runs from 707 to 1967. I probably could give you a dozen or two others, but broadly they all run from dates in antiquity when something went in a sense down the drain, until an offsetting recovery occurred in modernity.

Okay, so you're marking the beginning and end of the 1260-year period with the shifting of the city's control to and from the Muslims, with the construction of the Al Aqsa mosque being a defining moment, a marker in the timeline that provides good point at which to start the 1260 year countdown. That seems plausible.

The larger point I'd like to make is this: considering these prophesies to be evidence in support of a larger interpretive construct which includes God desiring a new, phyical temple is a mistake. The New Testament makes it absolutely clear that the temple is spiritual in nature, just as Christ's kingdom is spiritual in nature. The unclear must be understood in the light of the clear, and it is clear that Jesus Christ fulfilled Old Testament prophecy in a way that the prophets themselves would never have imagined -- spiritually.

The spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom harmonizes and unifies the Old and New Testaments and will ultimately harmonize and unify Jews and Gentiles. It is the power of God's Spirit moving through His Church, which is His Temple, that will draw people to His Kingdom.

Of course, once you've accepted the spiritual nature of the Kingdom, you start to see that the whole pre-millenialist view of things is probably incorrect: there will be no earthly temple, no rapture, no thousand years of peace, no Gog and Magog, no satanic world ruler, no failure of the Church to make disciples of the nations, and no slaughtering of the world's armies by Jesus Christ.

I would guess that our beliefs about these things are 180-degrees apart, and I doubt we're going to reconcile them on this thread! So let me just say thanks for all your thoughtful replies, and I'll see you again soon on another thread.

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