The Holiest Sites of Jerusalem: The History of the Temple Mount and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

There was not any one entity more central to the Yahwistic Judean religion during the monarchy than the temple of Solomon. It symbolized the presence of YHWH in the nation, as well as his enduring protection of the nation and the Davidic royal throne. Judean worshippers directed their prayers toward the Solomonic temple, and eventually, the Judean prophets and theologians declared that this was the only legitimate location where priests could perform sacrifices and other religious rites for YHWH. Its significance can be seen most clearly in the dramatic cognitive dissonance experienced by the Judeans in Babylonian captivity after the destruction of the temple, which had been so central to their religious conception that they had great difficulty reconciling its destruction with their continued belief in YHWH at all.

The most famous church in Jerusalem for nearly 2,000 years, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, often called the Church of the Resurrection, was built in the era of St. Constantine, and the church as a structure has no history separable from the city of Jerusalem and its environs. It is venerated as being on the site where Jesus was crucified and buried, and naturally, making it a crucial pilgrimage site for Christians, and it is now the home of the Greek Orthodox Jerusalem Patriarchate. Moreover, it was the site of many important councils, some of which altered Christian history forever. In short, the Sepulchre was and is synonymous with Jerusalem, and it was essentially the nodal center of the city.

The Temple Mount remains the holiest place in Judaism and among the holiest in Islam, and due in part to that religious sensitivity and the current placement of the Al-Aqsa Mosque there, archaeological work is almost nonexistent. The political tensions between the modern state of Israel and the Palestinians have also made the temple and all of Jerusalem contentious issues.

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ספר מוקלט: 18 ביולי 2025