Why the Dome-of-the-Rock is Better than a Re-Built Temple

Why is there no need for a Jewish Temple to replace the Muslim Dome-of-the-Rock?

Well, first of all, the Dome is very pretty, and would make a nice Church some day.

But secondly, the idea that a Jewish Temple must one day (soon) stand in the place of the Muslim Dome of the Rock is a pure superstition. It is founded upon a tradition of the Jews—infused with some imagination—and not upon any command of God’s Word.

With all of the talk and Bible study concerning the Jewish Temple Mount, you would expect the Bible to have much to say about that particular Mount. But most Christians—especially the ones who lecture us most about a coming rebuilt Temple—would certainly be surprised by how little the Bible actually says about that location. Most of what is assured to us today—and what is the subject of geopolitical tension and theological fighting—is founded upon little more than assumptions.

We are told in 2 Chronicles 3:1 that Solomon built the Temple on Mount Moriah, and that this was the location of Ornan’s threshingfloor which David purchased. Today archeological evidence places the site of the Second Temple (Herod’s Temple, the one which stood when Jesus walked the earth) where the golden-domed Mosque now stands. But surprisingly, there is no archaeological proof that the first Temple, Solomon’s Temple, stood on that same location, although there is no evidence of it being anywhere else, either. So, we are left with no proof—biblical or historical—that the current Temple Mount is in the same place as Ornan’s threshingfloor. But this is not the main point of the story.

Before we go further, we should remember that there are actually a series of mountains associated with the city of Jerusalem: Mounts Moriah, Zion, Olives, and a few others that have little or no biblical significance of which we can tell. Mt. Zion is the highest peak, and stands almost half a mile west of the Temple Mount itself, which is Mt. Moriah. Between the two is a considerable valley. Even farther east of the Temple Mount, across an even deeper valley, rises the Mount of Olives which is also higher than Mt. Moriah. From this peak, Jesus and His disciples looked westward upon the Temple, and Jesus declared its pending destruction (Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). A picture from the Mount of Olives today reveals the Mosque to the west where the Temple once was, and the clearly much higher ridge of Mt. Zion farther in the western background. Here’s a simple cross-section on Wikipedia illustrating the relationship in size and location of Mt. Zion (left) and the Temple Mount, Moriah.

For the location of the Temple, the Bible tells us Solomon chose Mt. Moriah, “where the Lord had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite” (2 Chron 3:1 ESV). “Appointed” is more properly “prepared,” as the KJV and NAS have it. David not only appointed this place, but actively established, made ready, or set up the site. And why did David establish this as a site for a permanent Temple? Did he have a command from God to do so?

Not really. The story of David and Ornan is told a few chapters earlier in 1 Chronicles 21. God had sent a plague upon the people of Israel as punishment for David numbering the people (1 Chron. 21:1–14). Via the Angel of the Lord, the plague killed 70,000 men. When the Angel reached Jerusalem, God stopped short of destroying the city, and the Angel was stopped at the point of Ornan’s threshingfloor.

Then God sent the prophet Gad to instruct David to go to Ornan’s threshingfloor and set up an altar in that place. This would have been a simple altar of uncut stones and without steps, according to God’s law (Ex. 20:24–26). David obeyed. The altar was eventually set up, David offered sacrifices and prayers to God, and God answered by fire from heaven upon the altar. All said and done, the Angel of the Lord was commanded to sheathe his sword, officially ending the plague upon Israel.

It is important to note all that was required of David, and the purpose for it. David was only required by God to build an altar, not even necessarily to sacrifice on it. And the purpose of the altar was clearly in response to the presence of God’s wrath via the Angel of the Lord and the temporary instance of the plague. There is no indication anywhere that God intended this to be a permanent location, and there certainly is no requirement, commandment, or statute that it should be so.

Ornan, however, was actually willing to donate the whole property to the King for this purpose. David insisted on paying for it. The transaction went down. Therefore, the property legally belonged to David. Since God never indicated any need to dedicate the property to the Lord or a Temple or Priesthood, then we can only assume that for the rest of David’s life, the property legally belonged to the King.

Consequently, it was purely David’s decision—not God’s command—that the Temple be built at the site of Ornan’s (Araunah in 2 Sam. 24) threshingfloor.

But David himself was not allowed to build a house for God; God forbid him to do so because he had been a man of bloodshed and war (1 Chron. 22:8). Rather, David’s future son would build the house, and “his name shall be Solomon” (1 Chron. 22:9). He would be a man of rest.

As a side note, we could easily assume that God referred to David’s then immediate son Solomon. But remember, when that Solomon was born, it was David who named him Solomon; but God sent the prophet Nathan to give the child a different God-given name, Jedidiah (2 Sam. 12:24–25). God did not see David’s “Solomon” as Solomon, but Jedidiah. Moreover, David’s words to Solomon indicate that the son who would build the Temple and bring peace was yet to be born: “Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest” (1 Chron. 22:9). Obviously, as David spoke, his Solomon was already born, alive and listening to his father speak. We are left to conclude that the ultimate Solomon—“peaceable and perfect”—which God promised David was Jesus. In the mean time, Solomon would provide a type of that yet-to-come True Solomon.

When Solomon later built a house to the Lord, he followed through with what his father had already established and prepared (2 Chron. 3:1). Like his father, Solomon had no explicit direction or command from God where to put the Temple, but only directions to build it and how. In addition to having bought the real estate and established it as the site, David also prepared raw materials, construction supplies, organized labor, and secured government clearances, support, and aid for the construction project he put before his son (1 Chron. 22:2–5, 14–19).

The whole project, from conception to completion, was David’s design. The only exception was the pattern for the Temple and its instruments: these God supplied to David (1 Chron. 28:11–19). But of the location of the Temple, God commanded nothing. It was David’s decision.

David decided this location not because he had a command from God or directions from the prophet, but because he was afraid of the Angel of the Lord that had been stationed at Ornan’s threshingfloor. Even though God had accepted David’s sacrifices, the Angel of the Lord had sheathed His sword, and the plague and threat were ended, David nevertheless was afraid.

Meanwhile, the actual priesthood, the tabernacle, and the ark of the covenant were all fifteen miles away in Gibeon (1 Chron. 21:29; 16:37–43). But, “David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord” (1 Chron. 21:30). Yet in the very next verse (22:1), we find David declaring of Ornan’s threshingfloor, “Here shall be the house of the Lord God and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”

So not only did David not have a command from God where to build, but he never even asked God. Afraid to leave the place he was at, he just declared it, unilaterally, the site of God’s House.

Thus the location of Solomon’s Temple was the result of David’s momentary weakness and self-interested convenience.

Many people have argued that the site on Mt. Moriah is significant for the Temple because it is the same spot where Abraham bound Isaac as a sacrifice, and where God provided the substitute. Thus David’s altar was upon the same spot as Abraham’s altar, and thus the Temple belongs there. The proof of this is supposed to be in Genesis 22:2, where God tells Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” But notice here God does not designate “Mount Moriah” as is designated in 2 Chronicles 3:1. Here it only says the “land of Moriah,” which is a general area. Remember that this area, assuming it is the Jerusalem area, has several mountains. In this general area, God promises to reveal to Abraham “one of the mountains” on which to sacrifice. In the rest of the story in Genesis 22, we are never told exactly which one of the mountains God chose. Anyone arguing that it must be Mount Moriah is trying to get away with an argument from silence—a pure assumption unwarranted by the Scripture.

But there is good reason for this silence. God does not want any particular geographic location to become an idol for His people. He wants us to be free from all idolatry, including inordinate attachments to the rituals and rudiments he once commanded. At other times, God has “hidden” certain things in order to prevent idolatry. He would not allow the whereabouts of Moses’ body to be known after his death (Deut. 34:5–6). Similarly, He allowed the ark of the covenant to be lost (contemporary claims notwithstanding), as the Jews had allowed the mere presence of it along with the Temple rituals to become idolatry. Even after the Solomonic Temple was destroyed and the Second Temple rebuilt, the ark was never restored. Thus the writer of Hebrews could not speak of its existence (Heb. 9:5). Likewise, nowhere does Scripture specifically prescribe the location of the alleged Temple Mount. The word “Moriah” only appears in Scripture in two places (Gen. 22:2 and 2 Chron. 3:1), and “Mount Moriah” only the one time, and this latter was David’s choice, not God’s.

Scripture does say where God has chosen to dwell forever, and it is, in fact, in Jerusalem. Psalm 132:13–14 says it plainly: “For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place: this is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.” But this does not require a Jewish Temple to be rebuilt at all, let alone on Mt. Moriah. Even if we presumed to interpret this literally (as we shall see, we should not), and presumed that God’s “dwelling place” indicates a literal Temple, then we should more properly desire a Temple upon the higher peak of Mt. Zion rather than Moriah; for the text says, “the Lord has chosen Zion.” Now, many times, especially in the Psalms, Scripture uses “Zion” to designate the entire city of Jerusalem. But this would rather expand the available real estate rather than narrow it to the so-called Temple Mount: we should then be open to place a Temple anywhere in Jerusalem.

I will summarize all I have said to this point: Scripture nowhere designates the so-called Temple Mount as a necessary place for a Jewish Temple. It never did, God never said it, God never required it, and He does not require it now or anytime in the future.

But many Christians today, swayed by the old dispensational school of theology, believe strongly that the exact location of the Temple Mount, Mt. Moriah, must be the location of a future Jewish Temple. And, of course, the problem is that large golden-domed Al Sakhra Mosque (and actually a second mosque as well, the Al Aqsa, sits within the southern wall of the Temple Mount) sits on that location. Supporters of a rebuilt Temple, therefore, wish for the day that Mosque will be removed. For example, one dispensationalist woman in the video Waiting for Armageddon (see at 1:18ff) is so committed to the claims of that system that she punctuates her tour of the Temple Mount with the exclamation: “There’s no place for that Mosque. It has to be removed.” In the same production, tour guide and dispensational scholar H. Wayne House imposes his belief in a rebuilt Temple via Photoshop: he displays a picture of the tour group with Temple Mount in the background, but has digitally cut out the Dome-of-the-Rock, and spliced in a rendering of the Jewish Temple. Voila! A digitally-answered prayer for a future re-built Jewish Temple on Mt. Moriah.

This prayer bears two parts: 1) that a future Temple must be built, and 2) that it must be built exactly where the Dome sits now.

The first claim often makes reference to Revelation 11:1–2. There John is told to “measure the temple of God.” Dispensationalists assume that this must refer to a Temple that will be built in the future. One reason for this is due to their belief that Revelation was not written until AD 90, when no Jewish Temple was left standing. But this assumption rests on highly fragile footing, surprising considering that so many people are ready to stake an international holocaust on it. But the work of Kenneth Gentry and others on the dating of Revelation has left this “late date” view severely crippled. His book Before Jerusalem Fell has established for decades now that Revelation was much more likely written before AD 70. David Chilton’s Days of Vengeance shows why such a dating allows the book to make much more sense: it mostly pertained to localized events of that time and place. And with an “early date” of AD 66 or 68 or so, it makes sense for John to be told to “measure the temple,” because the Jerusalem Temple was still standing.

Nevertheless, even if we granted that Revelation 11 speaks of a future Temple, it says absolutely nothing about where that Temple must be located. Silence. Anyone who assumes it must be Mt. Moriah, in the place of the Dome-of-the-Rock, is adding to Scripture here in a big way.

So we are absent any—and I mean any—Scripture mandate about where a Temple should have been, or should be located. This is no big deal to a preterist, of course, since he or she would not expect a rebuilt Temple anyway. But it should be quite freeing to a Zionist or a dispensationalist. For these people now no longer have to worry about replacing the Dome-of-the-Rock (perhaps, for my service in providing this illumination, they may desire to send a donation to American Vision). Since the whole complex of mountains called “Zion” is at their disposal, they could biblically, prophetically, start building a Temple tomorrow, or even today.

But, if the Jews want that Mount so badly as to insist on it, they should do what David did: pay fair market value. And if the Muslims don’t want to sell at any price, tough lamb chops. Go somewhere else.

Israel has control over all of Mt. Zion except the Mosque-domed Temple Mount. But Israel doesn’t need this, biblically speaking. So, I have a proposition: every Zionist, Orthodox Jew, Dispensationalist, and Premillennialist who believes there must be a rebuilt Temple ought immediately to start a foundation and a movement to build a Temple anywhere in Jerusalem that Israel already controls. This will hasten the last days and the coming of Jesus Himself!

Of course, failure to do this will be a tacit admission that all of these parties are more interested in bashing Muslims than advancing their own religion. Thus, their motivation to capture the Temple Mount when they don’t really need it will be revealed as pure envy.

Such a motivation may be masked by arguments about the special significance of the actual rock beneath that Dome—being the rock on which Abraham meant to sacrifice Isaac, or David stood, etc.—but we have already seen how none of these arguments has merit. To insist on these positions is to declare oneself in the service of the traditions of men, or ancient Jewish superstitions. Ironically, to do this puts the Christian or Jew on no better grounds than the Muslims who occupy that rock now, clinging to the superstition that Mohammed ascended to heaven from than spot.

Why trade one superstition for another? Especially with the risk of bloodshed and war, which cost David the privilege of building a Temple to begin with?

There is no biblical reason that any Temple should ever stand (or ever should have stood) upon Mt. Moriah. If anything, it should be upon Mt. Zion, taken either as the particular peak named Zion—a half-mile West of Mt. Moriah—or as anywhere in the general area of Jerusalem. To insist on anything more specific is to trade the dictates of Scripture for superstition.

I say let the Dome-of-the-Rock stand. In fact, I will go so far as to say that it would be non-Christian and unbiblical to call for its replacement by a Jewish Temple. Rather, in due time, Christ reigning from his current throne will spread the Gospel and subdue all His enemies—even the Muslim and Jewish enemies. He will bring them into the Church—His body—the only True Temple and Dwelling Place of God. Even Zion has been “spiritualized,” if you will—revealed to be fulfilled in the person of the Ascended Christ: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant” (Heb. 12:22–24). (Was the writer of Hebrews really guilty of “spiritualizing” the text?!)

What is Zion but the Spirit-Indwelt people of God? What is the Temple except these same Indwelt people of God? To trade this truth for any stack of concrete blocks on any hill is to trample the Son of God underfoot and slap God in the face.

Someday, even Muslims and Jews will be converted and understand this truth. Some dispensationalists may see it, too. When that day comes, that beautiful golden-domed Mosque may just make a very pretty church.

Before then, I would hate to see it spoiled with the worthless blood of bulls and goats, and the idolatrous incantations of would be Sadducees (Heb. 9).

The thing I find most irrational about dispensationalists is that while they claim to take OT prophecies literally and criticize those who spiritualize OT prophecies-- clearly Jesus and the Apostles spiritualized OT prophecies and they accept those interpretations as legitimate but cast aspersions on Christians who follow Jesus and the Apostles method of interpretation.

Many Christians have been duped into the belief that anything Jewish automatically translate into faithfulness. After all, the reasoning goes, the Bible was written primarily by Jewish people so who better to understand what’s there than other Jews? They fail to grasp the harsh reality that much of the writings and practices of the Jews comes after the time of Christ, and were written consciously as an apologetic against Christ and Christianity. Is it surprising, then, to find Jewish teachers who would reinterpret the OT prophets in such a way as to deny how the NT writers understood those prophets wrt Jesus Christ, His person and work?

They also fail to discern the fact that these post-resurrection Jewish authors were not divinely inspired. In fact, some folks might go so far as to suggest that they were satanically inspired, since one must either be in the kingdom of light or the kingdom of darkness. There is no middle ground. E.g., Is a Jewish writer who denies Christ a better source of truth than a Muslim writer who denies Christ?

The Bible is all about Jesus Christ. The Law and the Prophets testify of Him. The divinely-inspired NT writers were able to connect the dots. What some “Christian” theologies have attempted to do is run a dividing wedge through the Bible and say that some texts are not really about Christ and the Christian faith, but about Israel, the earthly people of God. They do this by adopting a so-called “literal” interpretation of the Bible, but, in fact, all they are doing is dismissing the NT approach to interpreting the Old, and adopting the same approach that unbelieving Jews have utilized to say that this or that passage is not about Jesus.

So Jesus made a covenant for only one week (Seven years)?

That’s not what it says:

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:

The timeline for the confirmation of the covenant and the total extent of the covenant are not the same.

The angel now returns to Christ. We have explained why he made mention of the coming slaughter; first, to shew the faithful that they had no reason for remaining in the body of the nation in preference to being cut off from it; and next, to prevent the unbelievers from being satisfied with their obstinacy and their contempt of their inestimable blessings, by their rejecting the person of Christ. Thus this clause was interposed concerning the future devastation of the city and temple. The angel now continues his discourse concerning Christ by saying, he should confirm the treaty with many for one week This clause answers to the former, in which Christ is called a Leader. Christ took upon him the character of a leader, or assumed the kingly office, when he promulgated the grace of God. This is the confirmation of the covenant of which the angel now speaks. As we have already stated, the legal expiation of other ritual ceremonies which God designed to confer on the fathers is contrasted with the blessings derived from Christ; and we now gather the same idea from the phrase, the confirmation of the covenant. We know how sure and stable was God’s covenant under the law; he was from the beginning always truthful, and faithful, and consistent with himself. But as far as man was concerned, the covenant of the law was weak, as we learn from Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 31:31, 32.) I will enter into a new covenant with you, says he; not such as I made with your fathers, for they made it vain. We here observe the difference between the covenant which Christ sanctioned by his death and that of the Jewish law. Thus God’s covenant is established with us, because we have been once reconciled by the death of Christ; and at the same time the effect of the Holy Spirit is added, because God inscribes the law upon our hearts; and thus his covenant is not engraven in stones, but in our hearts of flesh, according to the teaching of the Prophet Ezekiel. (Ezekiel 11:19.) Now, therefore, we understand why the angel says, Christ should confirm the covenant for one week, and why that week was placed last in order. (John Calvin)

[6.] He must confirm the covenant with many. He shall introduce a new covenant between God and man, a covenant of grace, since it had become impossible for us to be saved by a covenant of innocence. This covenant he shall confirm by his doctrine and miracles, by his death and resurrection, by the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper, which are the seals of the New Testament, assuring us that God is willing to accept us upon gospel-terms. His death made his testament of force, and enabled us to claim what is bequeathed by it. He confirmed it to the many, to the common people; the poor were evangelized, when the rulers and Pharisees believed not on him. Or, he confirmed it with many, with the Gentile world. The New Testament was not (like the Old) confined to the Jewish church, but was committed to all nations. Christ gave his life a ransom for many. [7.] He must cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease. By offering himself a sacrifice once for all he shall put an end to all the Levitical sacrifices, shall supercede them and set them aside; when the substance comes the shadows shall be done away. He causes all the peace-offerings to cease when he has made peace by the blood of his cross, and by it confirmed the covenant of peace and reconciliation. By the preaching of his gospel to the world, with which the apostles were entrusted, he took men off from expecting remission by the blood of bulls and goats, and so caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease. The apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews shows what a better priesthood, altar, and sacrifice, we have now than they had under the law, as a reason why we should hold fast our profession. (3.) Concerning the final destruction of Jerusalem, and of the Jewish church and nation; and this follows immediately upon the cutting off of the Messiah, not only because it was the just punishment of those that put him to death, which was the sin that filled up the measure of their iniquity and brought ruin upon them, but because, as things were, it was necessary to the perfecting of one of the great intentions of his death. He died to take away the ceremonial law, quite to abolish that law of commandments, and to vacate the obligation of it. But the Jews would not be persuaded to quit it; still they kept it up with more zeal than ever; they would hear no talk of parting with it; they stoned Stephen (the first Christian martyr) for saying that Jesus should change the customs which Moses delivered them (Acts 6:14); so that there was no way to abolish the Mosaic economy but by destroying the temple, and the holy city, and the Levitical priesthood, and that whole nation which so incurably doted on them. This was effectually done in less than forty years after the death of Christ, and it was a desolation that could never be repaired to this day. And this is it which is here largely foretold, that the Jews who returned out of captivity might not be overmuch lifted up with the rebuilding of their city and temple, because in process of time they would be finally destroyed, and not as now for seventy years only, but might rather rejoice in hope of the coming of the Messiah, and the setting up of his spiritual kingdom in the world, which should never be destroyed. Now, [1.] It is here foretold that the people of the prince that shall come shall be the instruments of this destruction, that is, the Roman armies, belonging to a monarchy yet to come (Christ is the prince that shall come, and they are employed by him in this service; they are his armies, Mt. 22:7), or the Gentiles (who, though now strangers, shall become the people of the Messiah) shall destroy the Jews. [2.] That the destruction shall be by war, and the end of that war shall be this desolation determined. The wars of the Jews with the Romans were by their own obstinacy made very long and very bloody, and they issued at length in the utter extirpation of that people. [3.] That the city and sanctuary shall in a particular manner be destroyed and laid quite waste. Titus the Roman general would fain have saved the temple, but his soldiers were so enraged against the Jews that he could not restrain them from burning it to the ground, that this prophecy might be fulfilled. [4.] That all the resistance that shall be made to this destruction shall be in vain: The end of it shall be with a flood. It shall be a deluge of destruction, like that which swept away the old world, and which there will be no making head against. [5.] That hereby the sacrifice and oblation shall be made to cease. And it must needs cease when the family of the priests was so extirpated, and the genealogies of it were so confounded, that (they say) there is no man in the world that can prove himself of the seed of Aaron. [6.] that there shall be an overspreading of abominations, a general corruption of the Jewish nation and an abounding of iniquity among them, for which it shall be made desolate, 1 Th. 2:16. Or it is rather to be understood of the armies of the Romans, which were abominable to the Jews (they could not endure them), which overspread the nation, and by which it was made desolate; for these are the words which Christ refers to, Mt. 24:15, When you shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel, stand in the holy place, then let those who shall be in Judea flee, which is explained Lu. 21:20, When you shall see Jerusalem encompassed with armies then flee. [7.] That the desolation shall be total and final: He shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, that is, he shall make it completely desolate. It is a desolation determined, and it will be accomplished to the utmost. And when it is made desolate, it should seem, there is something more determined that is to be poured upon the desolate (v. 27), and what should that be but the spirit of slumber (Rom. 11:8, 25), that blindness which has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in? And then all Israel shall be saved. (Matthew Henry)

All of the things that went into the establishment or confirmation (“make strong”**) of the covenant lasted for one week. This included the teaching ministry, Christ death and resurrection, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, up until the time of the public ministry of Paul to the gentiles.

** And he shall confirm the covenant - literally, "he shall make strong" - והגביר vehı̂gebı̂yr. The idea is that of giving strength, or stability; of making firm and sure. The Hebrew word here evidently refers to the "covenant" which God is said to establish with his people - so often referred to in the Scriptures as expressing the relation between Him and them, and hence used, in general, to denote the laws and institutions of the true religion - the laws which God has made for his church; his promises to be their protector, etc., and the institutions which grow out of that relation. The margin reads it, more in accordance with the Hebrew, "a," meaning that he would confirm or establish "a covenant" with the many. According to this, it is not necessary to suppose that it was any existing covenant that it referred to, but that he would ratify what was understood by the word "covenant;" that is, that he would lead many to enter into a true and real covenant with God. This would be fulfilled if he should perform such a work as would bring the "many" into a relation to God corresponding to what was sustained to him by his ancient people; that is, bring them to be his true friends and worshippers. (Albert Barnes)

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