The Temple
Commentator Kent Hughes wrote: ‘The Temple was considered one of the great wonders of the Roman world. It had been under construction forty-six years (John 2:20) and was just nearing completion. Its spectacular location on Mt. Moriah gave it an imposing dominance over ancient Jerusalem. From a distance it looked like a mountain of gold, because its nine massive gates and much of its exterior was plated with gold and silver. The great bronze gate alone was worth more than any of the other gates’.
The ancient Jewish historian Josephus wrote:
‘The exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye. For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays. To approaching strangers it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white. Some of the stones in the building were forty-five cubits in length, five in height and six in breadth’.
1 Hughes, R. K.Mark: Jesus, servant and savior (Crossway Books, Vol. 2,1989), p. 1
2 Josephus, Antiquities., XV, 11.3
The incredible size of the foundation’s stones, almost the size of boxcars, was breath-taking. As Josephus said, ‘The temple was built of hard, white stones, each of which was about twenty-five cubits in length, eight in height and twelve in width.’