Article of Faith?
A stone tablet could be a relic of King Solomon's temple-- or a clever forgery
Solomon's Temple was the glory of Jerusalem after its completion in the 10th century B.C. Fronted by colossal bronze columns, it was said to be built of hewn limestone. The nave was lined with fragrant cedar and held a massive golden table and altar. In an inner sanctuary guarded by gilded olive-wood doors, even the walls glistened with gold.
The sole remaining testimony to this wondrous temple is the biblical account--and now, perhaps, a dark slab of sandstone, about the size of a legal pad, that made headlines in Jerusalem in January. If authentic, says Gabriel Barkai, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University, "it could be the most significant archaeological finding yet in Jerusalem and in the land of Israel." The ancient Hebrew inscription would be the first ever found from an Israelite king and lapidary evidence of Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, which some scholars and many Palestinians deny ever existed.
But judging the authenticity of the Jehoash tablet, named after a king who ruled Judea from 835-796 B.C., won't be easy. Instead of being unearthed in an archaeological dig, surrounded by clues to its age and significance, it turned up amid rumors that its mysterious owner had purchased it from Palestinians who found it in a Jerusalem dump. News of its existence became public when researchers at the Geological Survey of Israel said they had examined the tablet at the owner's request and found it was almost certainly genuine.
Yet in a debate that has raged for months in Israel, the doubting voices are getting louder. Citing what they see as damning errors in the inscription--which describes needed repairs to the temple and how Jehoash collected money to pay for them--several top scholars have called the tablet an obvious forgery. And the GSI's director recently said that his scientists may have spoken too soon and that more tests are needed. Edward Greenstein, an expert in ancient Semitic languages at Tel Aviv University, says red flags went up when he examined a photograph of it through his magnifying glass. Although if authentic the tablet would be 2,800 years old, most letters were still clearly etched. "It just looked too good to be true."
This is hardly the first time that suspect relics have surfaced in the Holy Land (story, Page 48). But the debate is unusually charged this time around because the tablet has been thrust into the fierce struggle for the spiritual and physical possession of the elevated compound in Jerusalem's Old City known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
Stone of contention. The compound is home to the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, two of Islam's holiest sites, and the Wailing Wall, all that remains of Judaism's Second Temple, said to occupy the site of Solomon's original temple. When news of the tablet broke, an extremist Jewish group called the Temple Mount Faithful, dedicated to building a third temple where the Islamic shrines now stand, declared it a message from God that the construction should begin immediately. Muslim spokesmen responded that any damage to the mosques would spark a war. Few Israelis advocate razing the shrines, but many feel that the tablet, if real, could strengthen their claim to the disputed compound.
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