“In fact, in Josippon ben Gorion’s version of War, he says that
from the top of the temple’s east wall, the water in the Kidron Brook
could be seen running at one cubit’s distance from the wall”.
Marilyn Sams
Taken from:
https://www.academia.edu/14532171/The_Temple_Mount_in_the_City_of_David_Ancient_Authenticating_Descriptions
with a few comments added:
The Temple Mount in the City of David: Ancient Authenticating Descriptions
by Marilyn Sams
Ancient descriptions of the Jerusalem Temple Mount are incompatible with the current identification and location of it in Jerusalem, which is a long-standing tradition only, entirely dependent on the undocumented proposition that during the time of David or Solomon the northern walls of the City of David/Jerusalem were broken down to append a large northerly extension for the temple and acropolis. Instead, ancient descriptions of the boundaries of the City of David/Jerusalem delimit it to the southeastern hill, with no northerly extension added. ….
In 1909-1910, Parker and Vincent discovered archaeological remains dated to 3000 B.C. in the Gihon Spring area, affirming the southeastern hill was the original site of the ancient habitations chronicled in the Bible and history (Reich, 2011). In War VI, 10, 438, Josephus mentions an early king of Jerusalem, a contemporary of Abraham:
But he who first built it was a potent man among the Canaanites, and is in our own tongue called [Melchizedek], the Righteous King, for such he really was; on which account he was [there] the first priest of God, and first built a temple [there], and called the city Jerusalem, which was formerly called Salem.
Mackey’s comment: I suspect that Melchizedek’s Salem was in the north, near Shechem, a long way from Jerusalem.
Another reference in Josephus states the city “was called Solyma, but afterwards they named it Hiersolyma, calling the temple (hieron) Solyma, which, in the Hebrew tongue means “security” (Antiquities VII, 3, 67, Loeb translation). The translation of this passage indicates an amalgamation of the city’s former name (Salem) and the word for “temple” to create the new name “Hierosolyma” or “Jerusalem,” because of the temple there.
Mackey’s comment: Melchizedek, like his contemporary, Abram (Abraham), belonged to the Late Chalcolithic, much earlier than Middle Bronze II.
These include the Spring Tower surrounding the Gihon Spring, the Pool Wall guarding the Rock-cut Pool adjacent to it, and the Fortified Passage, which consists of two massive walls forming a path from the Spring and Rock-cut Pool and heading toward the ridge at the top of the slope. These fortifications protected citizens while accessing their major water supply. Reich surmised there was an important fortress at the top of the ridge (Reich, 2011). Since this will be shown to be where Solomon’s temple stood, it also qualifies as the likeliest place for Melchizedek’s temple [sic].
The Uru Salem of Abdi-Heba, in the 14th century B.C. and the later city of Jebus also occupied the southeastern hill (Van der Veen, 2013). In the 10th century B.C., after David conquered Jebus, he renamed it the City of David.
Mackey’s comment: As Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had proposed, in Ages in Chaos I (1952), Abdi-Hiba of Urusalim actually belonged to the approximate time of King Ahab of Israel, even later than kings David and Solomon.
Abdi-hiba was, in fact, King Jehoram of Judah (Peter James).
The northern boundary of the City of David is generally located at Area H of Kathleen Kenyon’s excavations at the bottleneck of the southeastern hill. After Solomon had built the temple and his own house (1 Kings 3:1), “…he made a breach in the wall of the city of David: thus the daughter of Pharoa went up out of the city of David to her house which he built for her” (3 Kings 2:35, Septuagint version). Hence, it is not until after the construction of the temple and Solomon’s palace that an enlargement of the City of David is mentioned, creating what I call the “City of David/Jerusalem.” In Antiquities VII, 3, 66, Josephus states that David made buildings around the “lower city,” which becomes a synonym for the City of David, after the northerly expansion. The northeastern corner of the City of David/Jerusalem (or the Sheep Gate) probably stood where the southeastern corner of the traditional temple mount stands, or possibly 105 feet north, at the “seam” on the east wall.
Fig. 2. Boundaries for the City of David/Jerusalem
Fig. 2. The City of David is the lower half of the southeastern hill, with its northern boundary at the bottleneck (Area H). The City of David/Jerusalem occupied the whole crescent-shaped southeastern hill. The map outlines the ridge area, but the walls were further down the slopes. A northerly extension of the southeastern hill did not begin, as illustrated here, until about 134 B.C.E. when John Hyrcanus built the Baris, which was expanded to become the 36-acre Haram.
To understand there was no northerly appendage added to the southeastern hill, one must start with later descriptions of the City of David/Jerusalem and work back. Although the city had spread to the western hill in Hezekiah’s reign, it shrunk back to the southeastern hill during the Persian era. Even in the Greek era and later, the City of David/Jerusalem is described in the Letter of Aristeas as having its towers arranged “in the manner of a theater;” Tacitus describes its walls as “bending inwards” (Histories 5.11, as cited in Dissertation 3); Josephus said it had “the shape of the moon when she is horned” (War V, 5, 137); and the Venerable Bede compared it to “an arc,” each description of the city referring to the crescent shape of the southeastern hill, without any northerly extension appended. In Antiquities XV, 11, 410, Josephus again uses “in the manner of a theater” to describe the temple lying near to the city, adding that its southern quarter was bounded by a deep valley, both descriptions which refer to the southeastern hill lying against the western hill in the lower Tyropoeon Valley, with the Hinnom and Kidron Valleys on the south and southeast. In addition, Antiquities XV, 11, 397 says: "The hill [of the temple plaza foundations] was a rocky ascent, that declined by degrees towards the east parts of the city, until it came to an elevated level.” This eliminates the traditional site of the temple mount, since there never has been a city built on its east side, as was the case with the temple mount described by Josephus. Several descriptions locating the temple on the southeastern hill derive from its being the lowest mountain in Jerusalem.
The Venerable Bede noted the temple [ruins] were located in the “lower part of the city” in the vicinity of the “wall from the east,” Eudocia’s 5th century city wall on the east of the southeastern hill. In Special Laws I.XIII.73, Philo of Alexandria gave a similar topographical description that the temple “…being very large and very lofty, although built in a very low situation…is not inferior to any of the greatest mountains around.” In his letter to Faustus, Eucherius (5th Century C.E.), the Bishop of Lyons, said: “The Temple, which was situated in the lower city near the eastern wall, was once a world wonder, but of its ruins there stands today only the pinnacle of one wall, and the rest are destroyed down to their foundations.”
Fig. 4. The Curve of the Southeastern Crescent-Shaped Hill
Fig. 4. The photo shows how the southeastern hill is curved or “bending back,” like “a moon when she is horned” or would have had its towers arranged in “the manner of a theater.” The Gihon Spring is where buildings begin south of the very steep slopes. Note that the traditional temple mount’s east wall cannot be considered “within the valley,” as described by Josephus. [Courtesy of Ferrell Jenkins]
Further, the Cairo Geniza documents explain that when Omar granted permission to seventy households of Jews to return to Jerusalem, they requested to be near the site of the temple and the water of Shiloah, in the southern section of the city.
Mackey’s comment: On (Omar and) the Ummayad caliphate, though, see my article:
Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology
(6) Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
The accounts of the temple ruins standing in the lower city or the temple being built in a low situation or in the south are consistent with Josephus’s descriptions of the temple foundations of the east wall being built deep within the Kidron Valley, not upslope as is the case with the traditional temple mount. In fact, in Josippon ben Gorion’s version of War, he says that from the top of the temple’s east wall, the water in the Kidron Brook could be seen running at one cubit’s distance from the wall.
The southeastern hill location of the City of David/Jerusalem is also affirmed by descriptions of both the Gihon Spring and the temple being in the middle of the city. In Contra Apion I, 22, 198, Hecateus of Abdera (4th Century B.C.) mentioned the temple measured 150 feet by 500 feet in the middle of the city. This being the case, a location for the temple on a northerly extension is not possible. Coincidentally, the Jerusalem Talmud says Shiloah was also in the middle of the city (Hagigah 76a). In the Letter of Aristeas, from his standpoint on the citadel, looking down into the temple, he describes upper and lower crossroads, implying the city was bifurcated by the temple.
This is also implied by the injunction in the Mishnah (Berachot 9:5) that the temple should not be used as a shortcut. Several scriptures refer to the temple in the “midst” of the city, including Psalm 46:4-5: “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High God is in the midst of her….” (the river being derived from the waters of the Gihon Spring); Psalm 116:18-19: “I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people, In the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem;” Zechariah 8:3: “Thus saith the Lord; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain.” Hence, these ancient descriptions verify the city associated with the temple occupied only the southeastern hill.
