ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE – DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE

As Jesus left the temple and was walking away, His disciples came up to Him to point out its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” – Matthew 24:1-2

Perhaps one of the most famous passages in which Jesus addresses the Temple is Matthew 24. Here Jesus prophesies the complete destruction of the Herod’s Temple.

Herod began construction on the Temple and its surrounding buildings in A.D. 20, the eighteenth year of his reign. John 2:20 states that the temple took 46 years to build – a time span longer than Herod’s reign. He never lived to see the entire structure completed. Indeed, Josephus tells us (Antiquities 20.219) that final embellishments and repairs on components of the Temple were just being completed at the time of the Jewish revolt in A.D. 70. It was at that time that Titus came into Jerusalem with the 10th Roman Legion and razed the Temple to the ground, burning it, dismantling it, and plowing the entire Temple Mount to the ground, exactly fulfilling the words of Jesus in Matthew 24.

(Thanks to the ancient Historian Josephus and to the amazing researchers at Epic Archaeology for this research)