All
three Gospels tell us that Jesus warned His disciples about
the impending invasion
of Judaea, and the destruction
and desolationof
Jerusalem,
just prior to His crucifixion:
But when
you
seeJerusalem surrounded by armies, then know
that its desolation
is near. Then let those
who are in Judaea flee to the mountains, let those who are
in the midst of her
depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her.
For these are the days
of vengeance, that all things which are
written may be fulfilled.
(Luke
21:20–21;
Cf. Matt. 24:15–16; Mark 13:14)
First
and foremost, it should be
recognised that Jesus’ urgent warnings—about foreign armies, complicit with the desolation of
the holy city—were intended for
the generation living there during that era: i.e., Jesus’
disciples, the people
who followed Him and anyone else who paid attention to His
teaching. This fact
is emphasised by His words—when you see—recorded
in all three Gospel texts
(above and on page 133).
They
were to flee from Jerusalem
and Judaea when they saw an army advancing on the
city. This looming
threat would become a disastrous personal experience for
Jesus’ followers if
they did not heed His warnings to flee!
A
similar scenario was observed by
Daniel when, as a youth, he saw the Babylonian army
approaching Jerusalem in
597 BC! However, Jesus’ references to Daniel
and the ‘abomination of
desolation’ in
Matthew and Mark do not refer
to the historic Babylonian invasions, nor to the period when
the Jewish exiles
returned from Babylon to Judaea under Persian authority; but
these ‘specific
words’ are used by Daniel when describing his prophetic
visions about a Greek
ruler who would rise to power in greater Syria in the future.
This would not
occur until Persia had been defeated by Alexander the Great
and his kingdom had
been divided up by his four generals!
When
recording his prophetic
visions Daniel used the words: transgression
of desolation
(firstrecorded
in Daniel 8:13), and abomination of
desolation (used
in 11:31; 12:11), which
specifically refer to the cessation of the daily sacrifice
and offering
in the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Incredibly, Daniel
wrote these
‘memorable words’ down in 550 BC: 27 years before the
rebuilding of the Second
Temple was started, and 34 years before it was finally
completed in 516 BC.
·Thus,
in the first prophetic
passage in Daniel 8:5–14, a future Greek ruler is identified
as a descendant
from one of the four generals who divided up the former Greek
empire (Dan.
8:21–22). The question is asked: How long will the
vision be, concerning the daily
sacrifices and the
transgression of
desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the
host to be trampled
underfoot? (Dan. 9:13b)
This
Greek ruler opposes the daily
sacrifices and stops the rituals in the Jerusalem Temple!
Mount of Olives
·In
the second passage, Daniel
11:3–4, the four divisions of Alexander’s Macedon-Greek Empire
are again
described, and in Daniel 11:5–19 the enduring
intergenerational battles between
descendants from two of the Greek dynasties are reviewed:
these being the
Ptolemaic ‘King/s of the South’ (Egypt, 305–30 BC), whose rule
coincided with
the Seleucid ‘King/s of the North’ (greater Syria, 312–63 BC).
·A
third passage in Daniel 11:21–28
describes a ‘King of the North’ who has been recognised as a
Greek Seleucid
ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, largely because of the
intriguing details given
about the deceitful confrontations and reciprocal battles he
would conduct with
a Ptolemaic ‘King of the South’ who ruled Egypt, plus some
prophetic verses
about Antiochus’ return to Judaea to do damage to the holy
covenant.
·A
fourth passage (Daniel 11:29–35),
tells us that the ‘King of the North’ will lead an
unsuccessful raid south: and
afterward—in an enraged state—he would return to Judaea to
inflict damage on
the Jewish people and the Jerusalem Temple by taking away the
daily
sacrifices, and
placing there the
abomination of desolation (cf. Daniel 11:30–31
below).[1]
Four
hundred years later, in 167
BC, Daniel’s vision about the abomination
of
desolation
came true! The scenarios above confirm that the perpetrator of
these events was
Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BC), and history informs us
that the daily
offerings in the Jerusalem Temple were deliberately stopped by
him, in an
effort to Hellenize the Jewish people and destroy Judaism when
he ruled over
greater Syria (i.e., today’s Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria
and Palestine).[2]
Thus,
the phrase the abomination of
desolation refers
to the desecration of the
Temple sanctuary perpetrated by the ‘King of the North’ i.e.,
Antiochus IV
Epiphanes, in 167 BC, just as Daniel had prophesied hundreds
of years before:
For ships from Cyprus shall come
against him; therefore he shall be grieved, and return in
rage against the holy
covenant, and do damage. So he shall return and show regard
for those who
forsake the holy covenant.
And
forces shall
be mustered by him, and they shall defile
the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place
there the abomination
of desolation.(Daniel 11:30–31)
After
he returned in a rage to
Palestine in 169 BC, Antiochus Epiphanes committed the
original abomination of
desolation, when
on the Sabbath in 167 BC he
attacked Jerusalem, entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple,
and carried off
some of the gold and silver vessels.[3]
According to the Jewish historian, Josephus, Antiochus
desecrated the Temple by
offering a pig as a sacrifice on a Greek altar he erected,
which was dedicated
to Zeus. He forbade all Jewish religious practices and
commanded that copies of
the Law be burned.[4]
Three years later, after a Jewish uprising led by Mattathias
and his sons (Gr.
Maccabees), the altar was rededicated on December 25, 164 BC,
in an event that
is still memorialised annually by Jews during the Festival of
Hanukah on Kislev
25.[5]
First,
it was the Babylonian army
that destroyed Solomon’s Temple, then the Persian kings
allowed the Second
Temple to be built, and afterward the Greek Seleucid ruler
desecrated the
Second Temple by setting up the abomination
of
desolation;
but, as Daniel warned in his Prophecy of Seventy
Weeks, it
appeared that a similar event
would occur yet again, after Messiah had confirmed
Jeremiah’s long-awaited New
covenant.
Then he[cf.
Messiah the Prince,
v. 25; Messiah shall be
cut off v. 26] shall
confirm a
covenant with many for one week…
And on the wing of abominations shall
be one who makes
desolate, even
until the consummation… (Daniel 9:27)[6]
As it
turned out, this final
affront to Jewish independence befell the people of Judah and
Jerusalem during
the Roman era, and so Jesus’ timely warning given in 30
AD—which was derived
from Daniel’s ancient prophecy about an invasion and an abomination
of
desolation—would
undoubtedly have informed His disciples that yet another
foreign army would
besiege Jerusalem and the Second Temple would suffer desolation
once
again, in a similar manner to
that committed by Antiochus IV Epiphanes two hundred years
earlier.
It
would seem that by urgently warning
his disciples about the armiesthat
would—in their lifetime—surroundand engulf Jerusalem,
(causing an abomination to be
standing [either]
in the holy place, [or] where
it ought
not to be), shows
that Jesus
knew the window of opportunity for them to escape from what
lay ahead, would be
of a very brief duration. He simply warned them: foreign
armies around
Jerusalem meant certain desolation, so flee!
So when you see the ‘abomination of
desolation,’ spoken of
by Daniel the prophet, standing where
it ought not (let the reader understand), then
let those who are in Judaea
flee to the mountain. (Mark 13:14)
Therefore
when
you see the ‘abomination of desolation’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet,
[Daniel 9:27b]standing in the holy place
(whoever reads, let him
understand), then let those who are in Judaea flee to the
mountains. Let him
who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of
his house. And let
him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes…
(Matt.
24:15–18), cf.
Mark 13:14, above.
For then
there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since
the beginning of
the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless
those days were
shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake
those days will be
shortened.
(Matt.
24:21–22), cf.
Joel 2:2 and Daniel 12:1b.
We
should note that the remark (let the reader
understand) with
regard to the location of the abomination
of
desolation—which
has been inserted into Jesus’ warning by both Matthew and
Mark—implies either a
private understanding, or some wide-spread
knowledge about the
actual place where the abomination would
be seen; apparently this
special location did not need to be named and recorded![7]
Because of the two different phrases used in the Gospels for
its position
(i.e., standing in the holy
place, orstandingwhere
it ought not), modern
scholars’ opinions differ
over exactly whatabominationJesus
was referring to, and where
it would be seen.
Jesus may have simply
been referring to the destruction
that would be inflicted on Jerusalem’s infrastructure and
Temple precincts by
the rebellious Jewish zealots in AD 66, or to the damage
inflicted
during the siege of Jerusalem, or perhaps to the desecrations
committed
by the Roman soldiers whose activities would also make the
ravaged Temple site
desolate! We should note that one of the first actions taken
by Roman soldiers,
when gaining a victory, was to make sacrifices to their
insignias and their
gods; this involved a procession, the slaughtering of animals
by an altar
(mainly pigs, sheep and goats), libations, prayers and
incense, and the
examining of the entrails.[8]
However, the words
used by Jesus suggest that the abomination would be a
stationary object, standing in a ‘holy
place’ or in an ‘unusual place’ that was visible
to the populace of
Jerusalem. There
is also a
strong implication in Jesus’ prior words that He
was the cause
of the Temple’s initial
desolation by departing from it himself (never to return
during almost two millennia),
thus leaving a spiritual vacuum within the Holy Temple and
Jerusalem’s
precincts for any pagan abominations to be placed there.
See!Your houseis left to you desolate;
for
I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say,
‘Blessed is He who comes
in the name of the LORD!’ Then Jesus went out and departed
from the temple… (Matt.
23:38–24:1a)
In
fact, it might not be too great a stretch of the imagination
to consider that
when Jesus spoke to His disciples about ‘seeing’
the
abomination standing in the holy place, He wasn’t referring
to the Temple at all—particularly in view of what He said
about the Temple both
at the beginning and at the end of His mission—when He said
that the Jews of
His day had made God’s house of prayer into a house of merchandise, and turned it into
a den of thieves!
Seemingly, the
Temple was not a holy place in Jesus’ opinion!
(Cf. John 2:13–17; Mark 11:15–17; 13:1–2; Luke 19:45–46.)
Also
(to make an important observation), when Jesus gave His
discourse about the abomination of desolation to His disciples,
He was actually sitting on the Mount
of Olives, opposite the temple! (Cf. Matt. 24:3, 15;
Mark 13:3, 14). Even during the nights preceding His Passion
Week Jesus stayed
outside on Olivet
(Luke
21:37), and it was in the Garden of
Gethsemane (across the Kidron Valley, and half-way up
the Mount of Olives),
where He
travailed in prayer on the night He was betrayed
(Matt.26:36–46; Luke 22:39–46).
Therefore, it is quite feasible that Jesus was referring to the Mount of Olives
as the holy place and not to the
Temple at all! [9]
This
interpretation, of the abomination being seenstandingon the Mount of Olives, as Jerusalem was
being surrounded by
Roman Legions carrying
theirstandards
and ensigns, would certainly have spurred the followers
of The Way and the citizens of
Jerusalem to flee from the
imminent danger they could see approaching when they looked up
in that
direction. Consequently, some scholars believe the abomination actually refers:
either to a Roman cohort’s individual ‘standard or draco’
(i.e., a serpent or dragon image,
embroidered on square cloth), which was attached by a gilded
cross-tree to a
staff; or to a Roman ‘ensign’ or ’acquila’(i.e.,bronze
or silver eagles,
with outstretched wings), which were carried aloft by each
legion.[10]
These
standards and ensigns would have glinted in the sunlight while
the Roman 10th
Legion, Fretensis,
camped on the Mount
of Olives during the siege of
Jerusalem in AD 70.[11]
Their camp fires on that elevated site would also have been
visible from
Jerusalem at night, thus reminding any followers of Jesus of
the abomination…standing where it ought noti.e., standing in the holy place sacred to Jesus’
memory.[12]
Furthermore,
in support of the
above interpretation: if the abomination (in
Jesus’ warning) was seen to be
standing on
the
Mount of Olives
that
is the precise location where Jesus (Messiah) will return to
earth again,
according to Zechariah 14:3–4
(cf. Rev. 14:1). Therefore, the abomination should
certainly not be standing
right
there—where
it ought not
to
be—because the Mount of Olives is the holy place reserved
for Christ’s Second
Coming! Some Christians believe the Second Coming will occur
at that holy place during
a future Sukkot, Feast of
Tabernacles, at the ingathering of the harvest.
Because
Daniel’s pre-recorded
prophecy relating to Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Seleucid Emperor,
(cf. Daniel
8:9–12, 23–25; 11:29–33) had already come true in historical
facts—and because
of Jesus’ own warnings about a similar abomination in
the future—any Jewish followers
of The Way, who were still living
in Judaea during the alternative
week (AD
66‒73)
and enduring thedays of vengeance, would
certainly have known what
this warning was all about: particularly since the previous
horror that
occurred in 169 BC began with the Greek/Seleucid invasion,
followed by intense
religious persecution.
Jesus’
disciples knew exactly what
to watch out for: pagan armies surrounding Jerusalem, emperor
worship, and the
adulation of symbols and pagan gods on Jewish territory, to be
followed by an
intensive siege and persecution of the Jewish people! Since
Jesus had
previously told His disciples that they would not only be
witnesses to Him in
Jerusalem, Judaea and Samaria, but go to the uttermost part of
the earth (Acts
1:8), they would certainly have known (by such signs) that
their days of
preaching the Gospel in Jerusalem were numbered.
History
would soon prove that
Jesus’ dire predictions about the Temple were true, and after
AD 70 the Temple
site remained in a desolate state. Unfortunately, for
the Jews, the days
of vengeance and
the original curses
that
were pronounced by Moses,
which fell on Judaea and Jerusalem during the alternative and consequential
week (AD
66–73), only ‘commenced’ the desolation
of the Temple mount site that became increasingly ravaged
during later
centuries by successive invading forces.
Although
the prophetic words
(quoted below) were written in 750–626 BC, prior to
Nebuchadnezzar’s first
invasion of Judaea and referred primarily to the destruction
of Solomon’s
Temple and Jerusalem in 586 BC, they also proved prescient for
the devastating
events that occurred in Judaea and Jerusalem after Herod’s
Temple was destroyed
in AD 70.
As
the prophets had written:
And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an
astonishment. (Jere.
25:11)
Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed
like a field,
Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, and the mountain of
the temple like the
bare hills of the forest. (Micah 3:12)
These
words were literally
fulfilled during ensuing decades while Judaea suffered Roman
occupation. After
Hadrian became Emperor (AD 117–136), he erected a permanent
physical
abomination on the razed and barren Temple site—purportedly
during a visit to Judaea
in AD 129–130—when he had a huge statue constructed of
himself, to stand in
front of a new Roman Temple that housed a gigantic statue of
Jupiter.[13]
Whether
Hadrian’s pagan edifices
were established before, during, or after an accompanying
short-lived Jewish
revolt led by Simon Bar Kochba (AD 132-136), is not known for
sure, but the
Roman practice of sacrificing pigs to their deity, and
Hadrian’s decree banning
the Jewish practice of circumcision, united the Jews against
the Roman forces.[14]
To suppress this Bar Kochba Revolt, the Romans brought six
full legions and
auxiliaries against the rebels and after two years of
fighting, Jews were
forbidden to enter the city on pain of death. Emperor Hadrian
responded by
having the precincts of Jerusalem and the temple site
completely ploughed over,
so a new Roman city—named after himself—‘Aelia’
Capitolina could be built, and Judaea was renamed the
Roman province of Syria
Palestina.
Consequently,
Judaea ceased to be a
Jewish land, but the name Jew remained synonymous with the
dispersed who kept
the Mosaic Law. At that time, wherever they gathered:
Prayer replaced the
temple sacrifice, and worship in the synagogue and study of
the Torah became
the central characteristics of the Jewish faith.[15]
Centuries
later, after Islamic
forces took Jerusalem from Eastern Rome/Byzantine control in
AD 637, the Greek
Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, saw Caliph Omar
(AD 579–644)
standing on the desolate Temple Mount at the entrance to the
Church of the Holy
Sepulchre! Reportedly, Sophronius said:
This is the Abomination of
Desolation announced by the
Prophet Daniel, and now stands from this point on holy ground.[16] (Emphasis added)
Muslim
Caliphs eventually built the
Dome of the Rock
(AD 687–691) on the
derelict foundations of an earlier Byzantine Church located on
the Temple Mount
platform, believing it was the site of the Temple, and
afterward (in AD 705)
the Al-Aqsa Mosque
was built on the
site of the original small prayer house built by Caliph Omar.
As Daniel had
written:
And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes
desolate, even
until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out
on the desolate.
(Dan. 9:27b)
Jesus also said:
And Jerusalem will be trampled by
Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
(Luke 21:24b)
Accordingly,
until God commands the
events decreed for the consummation, and the times of the
Gentiles are
fulfilled, the holy mountain will remain largely off limits to
the Jews (Dan.
9:27; Matt. 23:38). Even after the modern nation of Israel was
established in
1948, followed by the unification of Jerusalem in 1967, the
purported Temple
site has remained under the control of the Jerusalem Islamic
Waqf, making
it ‘desolate’ and inaccessible to most of the Jewish
population.
Apparently, as long
as foreignabominations
exist on the Temple Mount, the
original ‘ground’ and earthly base from which their faith was
destined to
operate will remain irretrievable and desolate to the
Jews.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyone
who
thinks Jesus’ words are redundant, and anyone
(American
Dispensationalists included), who encourages the Jews to
build a third temple
are working in opposition
to the will of God!
See!Your houseis left to you desolate;
for
I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say,
‘Blessed is He who comes
in the name of the LORD!’ Then Jesus
went out and departed from the temple [Grk.
2411 ‘heiron’ = sanctuary]… (Matt.
23:38–24:1a)
Thus, since the Messiah
fulfilled the New
Covenant in His blood, (Jere. 31:31‒34; Dan.
9:26a, 27a; Matt.
26:28‒29), is it ‘at all likely’ that Jesus-God-Holy
Spirit would allow a
Jewish temple to be built on the Temple Mount and ‘let’
unsanctified ‘animal
sacrifices’ to be offered again on that Holy Mountain;
the very place where
God put His name, and where He died for the Jew’s salvation?Nah, the last
representation of the abomination
that makes desolate has already been sitting there
(preventing that from
happening) for 13 Centuries; waiting
for
the end-time King of the North (aka ‘man of sin’) to
complete the
prophecies: (Dan. 11:36‒45) when he invades the Glorious Land
during the consummation,
thinking his 7th Century moon-god Allah
has won! As per
(2 Thess. 2:3‒4) when he sits in the
‘temple’ [Grk. No. 3485 ‘naos’ = building],i.e.,
the Al-Aqsa Mosque,or
the Dome
of the Rock that is full of blasphemies
written on its walls, to
glorify and honour a foreign god
which his fathers did
not know! (Dan. 11:37‒38) Allah was only
chosen by Muhammad in
the 7th Century from 360 idols in the Ka’aba,
as the chief god!
Paul says the Church is now the ‘temple’
‘naos’ =
building of God
(cf. 1 Cor. 3:17; 2 Cor. 6:19); while Revelation 21:22 says
there is no
‘temple’ ‘naos’ in New Jerusalem because the Lord
God Almighty and the
Lamb are its ‘temple.’ As for the Temple Mount:
The end
of it [the city and the
sanctuary] shall be with
a flood, and
till the end of the war [
Jewish-Roman
war AD 66‒73] desolations are determined...
And on
the wing of abominations shall be one [Islam] who
makes desolate,
even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured
out on the desolate
(or desolator, marg.)
(Dan.
9:26b; 27b)
God Bless you in your search for the truth.
EAR
End
Notes:
[1]It
is widely accepted that
the remainder of this prophecy, i.e., Daniel 11:36–45
refers to a future King of the North (of a similar nature
to Antiochus), who
invades the Glorious Land (Israel) and surrounding
countries in the end time,
and he dies there after a great battle with an opposing
force.
[3]Extracted
from the New Bible Dictionary about
the Maccabees:
The original
abomination was perpetrated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a
Seleucid Grecian ruler
(175–164 BC), described as “mad, bad, and dangerous” who
in 169 BC (Cf. Daniel
8:11 and 11:31–33), visited Jerusalem and insisted on
entering the Holy of
Holies, from whence he carried off some of the gold and
silver vessels.
Pressure from [Greek] Egypt caused him to try to Hellenize
the Judeans. He
subsequently stopped the Temple sacrifices and erected a
Greek altar on the
site of the old one on 25 December 167 BC. He then
instituted a religious
persecution disallowing Sabbath-keeping and circumcision,
while subjecting the
law-loving Jews to every degradation and brutality.
In retaliation for
those events the Jewish populace were roused by the
Hasmonean family (Grk.
Maccabees), led by Judas ben Mattathias and his five sons,
John, Simon, Judas,
Eleazar and Jonathan, who conducted a prolonged guerrilla
war from the
mountains until they won a victory three years later.
Distracted by a
larger war with the Parthians, the Greeks had no option
but to make peace with
Judas and withdrew the abominable decrees in 165 BC, after
which the Temple was
cleansed and the worship of God was restored. (This great
victory is still celebrated
in the Jewish festival Hanukah.) Subsequently, by 104 BC,
the Jewish realm was
at its greatest extent since the time of Solomon.
However, during the
next four decades, although bouts of jealousy and periods
of intrigue among the
succeeding rulers of Judaea and surrounding areas were
followed by times of
peace and prosperity, eventually the strength of the
Jewish state was eroded away.
This allowed the conquest of Palestine by Pompey of Rome
in 63 BC, when all of
Judaea fell under the yoke of the heathen once more. This
eventually led to the
Roman Senate appointing Herod the Great, King of the Jews
who ruled over Judaea
from 37 BC until 3 BC.
New Bible Dictionary – London
Inter-varsity Fellowship. 1962. Editors J. D.
Douglas, F. F. Bruce, R. V. G. Tasker, J. I. Packer, D. J.
Wiseman.
[5]In Daniel 8:14 the length of time that the
Temple would suffer the
absence of the daily sacrifices and the presence of the
transgression of
desolation, is given as 2,300 days, but two words
are used here,
(Strong’s Hebrew words No. 1242 + 6153—Boqer and Ereb) meaning evening and morning, so the
actual time period is
1,150, 24-hour days = 3.14
solar years. Elsewhere in Daniel the word used for day
is (Strong’s Hebrew word No. 3117 Yom), meaning a 24-hour day.
[6]During
several millennia BC,
Judaea and Jerusalem suffered invasions by Assyrian,
Babylonian, Persian,
Macedonian, Egyptian, Seleucid/Grecian, and Roman armies!
There were many more
to come AD, led by Byzantine Emperors, Muslim Caliphs,
Catholic Crusaders, and
Ottoman armies that were driven out by the British during
WWI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Jerusalem#Hellenistic_period
[7]The
interpolation of the
words (let the reader understand) is an indication that
the Roman siege of
Jerusalem had not yet happened. It is believed that Mark’s
Gospel was written
for Gentiles, between AD 40–75, with some favouring AD 50–55 as a position
midway between extremes. The principal source of
this Gospel is the preaching and teaching of Peter. New
Bible Commentary–
London Inter-varsity Fellowship, 1961. Editors F.
Davidson, A. M.
Stibbs, and E .F. Kevan. Commentary on Mark, Page 806.
Scholars believe
that Mark was the
first written record of the Gospel, and that its substance
was widely used in
Matthew’s record that—in its present
form—existed in the second half of the
first century. Matthew was specifically written for Hebrew
Christians living in
Palestine who constituted the earliest Christian
communities. However, the
Gospel of Matthew was eventually placed first among the
four because it forms a
connecting link with the Old Testament.
New Bible
Commentary–London
Inter-varsity Fellowship, 1961.
Editors F. Davidson, A. M. Stibbs, and E .F. Kevan.
Commentary on Matthew, Page 771.
[9]Quote
from Wikipedia:The
religious ceremony marking the start of a
new month was held on the Mount of Olives in the days of
the Second Temple.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews
celebrated the festival of
Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles/Feast of Ingathering) on the
Mount of Olives. They
made pilgrimages to the Mount of Olives because it was 80
meters higher than
the Temple Mount and offered a panoramic view of the
Temple site. It became a
traditional place for lamenting the Temple’s destruction,
on Tisha B’Av.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_of_Olives
[12]This
site may have been
understood by Jesus’ disciples to be the Holy Place, where
many incidents
occurred during the Ministry of Jesus; it was from there
that He ascended into
heaven, and it is to the Mount of Olives that He is
expected to return. See
quote from Wikipedia… ‘From Biblical times until the
present, Jews have been
buried on the Mount of Olives. The necropolis on the
southern ridge, the
location of the modern village of Silwan, was the burial
place of Jerusalem’s
most important citizens in the period of the Biblical
kings. The Mount of
Olives has been a ‘site’ of Christian worship since
ancient times and is today
a major site of pilgrimage for Catholics, the Eastern
Orthodox, and
Protestants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_of_Olives
[14]‘The
Bar
Kochba Revolt (132–136 CE) was the third and final
war between the
Jewish people and the Roman Empire…
In its
initial stages, the revolt was
surprisingly successful and may have resulted in the
destruction of an entire
Roman legion. It is possible that the rebels regained
control of the city of
Jerusalem, and they must have held large portions of
ancient Judea. The Romans,
however, regrouped and adopted a scorched-earth strategy
that ultimately
extirpated the rebels and laid waste to the country. The
war shattered Judean
society and led to far-reaching demographic and political
changes, with the
majority of the Jewish population of the province killed,
enslaved, or exiled,
and their national hopes definitively crushed. The Jewish
people would not
regain their political independence until the Zionist era
and the establishment
of the State of Israel in 1948 CE…
From
the
little that can be gleaned, a general picture of Bar
Kochba emerges of a
charismatic, physically courageous, somewhat brutal, and
at times tyrannical
leader who led his followers and perhaps himself to
believe that he was a
messianic king born to free his people. His failure to do
precisely this led to
horrendous consequences for the Jews and his later
excoriation as a false
messiah.’ https://www.worldhistory.org/The_Bar-Kochba_Revolt