• Herod the Great—A Master Builder
    Awake!—2009 | September

    • Jerusalem and Herod’s Temple

      The greatest of Herod’s projects was the temple he built in Jerusalem. The original temple on the site was built by King Solomon, who followed architectural plans his father, David, had received by inspiration from God. (1 Kings 6:1; 1 Chronicles 28:11, 12) That temple was destroyed by the Babylonians some 420 years later, and about 90 years after that, it was replaced by a rather modest structure built by Judah’s Governor Zerubbabel.

      Regarding the temple that Herod built on the same site, Josephus wrote: It was “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.”

      Thousands of men were involved in building the temple’s retaining walls, which on the west were about 1,600 feet [500 m] in length. The huge stones were set in place without mortar. One weighed close to 400 tons and was “unequaled in size anywhere in the ancient world,” according to one scholar. No wonder disciples of Jesus were impressed! (Mark 13:1) The walls were topped by a huge platform called the Temple Mount​—the largest man-made platform in the ancient world. It could have accommodated more than 25 American football fields [144,000 sq m]!