Temple in Jerusalem

Scale model of Herod's Temple.

The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ‎, Modern: Beit HaMikdash, Beiṯ HamMiqdāš, Beis HaMikdosh; Ge'ez: ቤተ መቅደስ?: Betä Mäqdäs) was any of a series of structures which were located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. These successive temples stood at this location and functioned as a site of ancient Israelite and later Jewish worship.

The Bible says that the First Temple was built in 957 BCE by Solomon, King of Israel. Raided periodically by foreign empires over the centuries, the First Temple was totally destroyed by Babylonian conquerors in 586 BCE.

The Second Temple was built in 516 BCE with Persian approval. During the first centuries BCE and CE, the Temple was refurbished by the ruling Herod family and was popularly known as Herod's Temple. The New Testament states that Jesus led a riot in protest against unfair mercantile practices at Herod's Temple, and that the Temple curtain (which excluded the common people from God's most sacred place) spontaneously tore at the moment of Jesus' death, approximately a week later. Shortly after the decline of the Herods, the Jewish War began. The Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE at the climax of this war.

The Temple ruins, particularly the Western or Wailing Wall, remain an important pilgrimage site in Judaism. Judeo-Christian eschatology, including the form based on the Book of Revelation, includes a belief that a Third Temple will be constructed in the future.

Temple in Jerusalem in Alpha and Omega

Any questions regarding the location of Jerusalem's first two Jewish Temples, and the feasibility of building a Third Temple, were solved in the 21st century.

Temple in Jerusalem in The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

At the close of the 20th century, there were places in the Temple in Jerusalem that only Jews could see. Gentiles' perceptions there were excluded by magic.

Literary comment

As this timeline's point of divergence is never precisely defined, it is unclear whether this is the Third Temple, or if the fall of the Second Temple was somehow prevented.

Temple in Jerusalem in "Shock and Awe"

Terrorists led by the Son of God occupied the Temple in Jerusalem and threatened loyalist clergy there, before the group of insurgents was put down by Roman forces.