Product Description

The grandeur of Herod's temple is brought to life in complete detail and full color in this best-selling book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #905561 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

Customer Reviews

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I have found this book to be useful to help my son get a better understanding of the old testament. Temples, priest, and sacrifices. When you have a better understanding of this, than you have a better understanding of how this was a shadow to what was to come......Jesus

Certainly not a Jewish perspective on History
I was excited to get this guide because I thought it was going to tell me, or at least show me all about "The Temple".

I was wrong.

This book was authored by an Episcopalian Minister, and I doubt that many scholarly types, will find it particularly enlightening. The few pages contain several anecdotes about Jesus and the money changers, but overall it is not very scholarly. It simply affixes a few quotations from the Tanakh and the New Testament beside pictures of an impressive scaled down reproduction of Herod's Temple. I would have appreciated a discussion of the significance of The (several) Temple(s) to pre-Christian Judaism.

The illustrations seem to me to depict Jewish Priests as practioners of a bizarre cult. One picture of an archealogical find, an oil lamp full of silver shekels, has a caption that reads something like "a hoard of silver shekels, hidden by Jews during the unsuccessful revolt against Rome."

A hoard?

In another part I found that the author's description of Rome's massacre expressed something of a "the Jews deserved it" sentiment, though a reasonable person may disagree.

-MW

errata!
In my comment below, I must have been sleeping when I said that the Hippodrome (the oblong stadium that Herod used for chariot racing) was thought to be located just southeast of the Temple Mount. That would place it in the Kidron Valley! I meant to say just southwest of the Temple Mount. In any case it is a rather trivial matter, but one that jumped out at me. The book is chock full of useful information and awesome pictures of Alec Garrard's model of the 2nd Temple. You will have a very good understanding of the history of the Temple after reading this book. Get it, it's worth it.