Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,750-year-old temple near Jerusalem, along with pottery and clay figurines that suggest the site was the home base for a ritual cult, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.
The discovery was made during excavations at the Tel Motza archaeological site, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) west of Jerusalem, during preparations for work on a new section of Israeli’s Highway 1, the agency said in a statement.
“The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judaea at the time of the First Temple,” excavation directors Anna Eirikh, Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz were quoted as saying in the statement.
via Israelis find 2,750-year-old temple – Cosmic Log.
Not the first Temple, but also evidence that other Temples were in the area? Dang you Josiah… Dang you…
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- Davidic-era temple unearthed in dig near Jerusalem (timesofisrael.com)
- 3,000-year-old temple and sacred vessels unearthed near Jerusalem (jta.org)
- New Finds from First Temple Period at Motza (jewishpress.com)
- Archaeologists Find Ancient Temple, Ritual Cache Near Jerusalem – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
- Ancient Judaean temple found near Jerusalem (rt.com)
- ‘Davidic Era’? Come On Now: The Discovery at Tel Motza (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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