Just before the Passover festival (apparently in the year 30), Jesus and his disciples made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. According to New Testament accounts, Jesus was aware of what was about to befall him and went knowingly toward his destiny. His final days in Jerusalem were replete with symbolic acts: he entered the city riding on an ass and spent his time on the Mount of Olives and within the Temple court. Because of the festival, Jerusalem was packed with pilgrims, and the vicinity of the Temple teemed with people. Fulfillment of the various religious obligations associated with the festival generated a great deal of business, and the streets and the Temple courts were thus filled with peddlers and moneychangers. One of Jesus’ most famous acts was expelling the merchants and moneychangers from the Temple, who represented the defilement of the house of prayer. He overturned their tables, which may have also been a symbol of the destruction of the Temple that was soon to come.

"And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons." (Matthew 21:12)

Prohibition of Entry to the Temple

Greek inscription on a stone slab
Jerusalem, 1st century CE,
Israel Antiquities Authority, 36.989
Photo: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

This inscribed stone fragment belonged to one of a series of stone slabs that stood in the court of the Temple in Jerusalem and served as a divider between the area permitted to both Jews and Gentiles and the area permitted only to Jews. The fragment was discovered outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. A similar inscription, found intact in Jerusalem some one hundred years ago and housed today in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul, has made it possible to complete the missing sections of the inscription shown here.

The existence of such a divider in the Temple court is attested by Josephus: "in this (balustrade) at regular intervals stood slabs giving warning, some in Greek, others in Latin characters, of the law of purification, to wit that no foreigner was permitted to enter the holy place..." (Jewish War, V, 193-198)

This stone fragment is one of the few remains of the Second Temple to have come down to us. It is yet another example of an archaeological finds that corroborates an historical source.

Reconstruction of the inscription on the basis of the complete inscription in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum

"No foreigner shall enter within the balustrade of the Temple, or within the precint, and whosoever shall be caught shall be responsible for (his) death that will follow in consequence (of his trespassing)"

Back to the top

To the Place of Trumpeting

Inscribed stone from the excavations of the southern
wall of the Temple Mount
1st century BCE
Israel Antiquities Authority, 78-1439
Photo: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

This incised stone block is one of the most fascinating remains of Herod's Temple. It apparently fell from the southwest corner of the Temple Mount to the street below, where it was discovered by excavators. According to Josephus, this was the location of "the roof of the priests' chambers, where one of the priests invariably stood to proclaim by trumpet blast, in the late afternoon the approach of every seventh day, and on the next evening its close..." (Josephus, The Jewish War, 4, 9)

The monumental inscription "to the place of trumpeting..." and the shape of the stone suggest that this find was once part of a parapet that ran along the wall of the Temple complex, indicating where the priests should stand to blow the trumpets. Presumably, the trumpet blasts could be heard throughout Jerusalem - in the City of David to the south and in Upper City to the west.
The inscription ends by part of a third word, which can be interpreted in either of two ways: "to declare [the Sabbath]" or "to distinguish [between the sacred and the profane]."

Back to the top

In the Days of Jesus |In the Early Church |Pilgrimage |Images & Symbols |Monasticism in the Holy Land