Continuity and innovation in architectural depictions of the Jerusalem Temple

Abstract

Architectural depictions of the Israelite or Jewish sanctuaries are found throughout ancient Jewish literature, from the tabernacle account in Exodus to the Mishnah. This article examines how and to what extent the attempt to create architectural continuity has influenced some of the depictions of both the First and the Second Temple composed during the Second Temple period. It turns out that similar exegetical challenges underlie the Temple accounts of Chronicles, Josephus and the Mishnah, and their depictions were influenced not only by their historical sources but also by their exegetical and ideological views. The discourse on continuity and innovation in the architecture of the Temple is part of the larger question of the relation to the biblical past, which has preoccupied Jewish authors in the Second Temple period and in the first centuries after the destruction.