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could history be so stunningly wrong

that the temples built by King Solomon and King Herod

were never on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Jews and Christians alike believe without any doubt

that these temples were located on the Temple Mount for

hundreds of years hidden away in the temples Holy of Holies

rested the Ark of the Covenant

and so for Jews the Temple Mount is the most holy place on earth

a billion Muslims hold this to be the most holy place as well

believing it to be where Muhammad ascended into Heaven

from the area of the dome of the rock

this presents a huge problem for several faiths

that all clash at ground zero

at a place in Jerusalem that we know

as the Temple Mount

it should be no surprise that this is the most volatile piece

of real estate where more blood has been spilt over the last

three thousand years than any other place on earth

many believe this will be the site

of World War Three

but what if the Temple Mount is not the true location of

the temples will tradition even allow a closer look

do we find anywhere in the Bible ancient history or physical

evidence that the temples were located somewhere else

on the other side of this wall stood

the first temple and the second temple

they were destroyed

and the third temple when the Messiah comes

will come here on the other side of the wall

and we're told that God to reveal present never left these stones

from the time of the temple till now and that's what we feel

it when we come here God revealed present

this the holiest place that we have right now

the third temple is gonna come right here

so without a doubt you believe there's no doubt there's no doubt

although most people today are convinced that the temples were

located on the Temple Mount that wasn't the case sixteen

hundred years ago if I told you in the fourth century there were

four places that rabbis were suggesting for the temple four

different locations in the fourth century would you believe me no I wouldn't

our tradition is that of authhoritative tradition

wins out and we go with what we have

we don't we don't we don't do our own thing

we don't try to make our own assumptions we have what we have

if we don't have what our parents and rabbis gave us then we have nothing

before somebody can come along and change what's already been

established their gonna have to be greater than the one's who established it

challenging a long held tradition

is not easy but it's mandatory in our quest to find the truth

having a tradition challenged

is never never never comfortable

and yet essential if we're gonna really get at the truth and

what really happened and what really is going to happen

you are Jew no I have no time to lose with you okay [Laughing]

could it even be possible that the greatest archaeological

mistake of all times has occurred in locating

the temples of Herod and Solomon on the Temple Mount

and if so where is the true location of the temple today

the prophetic implications are absolutely astounding and

the political repercussions from it could alter the entire

complexion of the Middle East

hi my name is Bob Cornuke and we're in Old Jerusalem

and I'm about to take you on an expedition like you've

never been on before we're gonna look for the lost

location of Solomon's and Herold's Temples

I believe that archaeology has really missed this one

I think that history is stunningly wrong saying that

the Temple Mount is the place of where Herold's Temples and

Solomon's Temples were located

so we're gonna take out the Bible and we're gonna use it

as a road map and as a compass to solve this most ancient mystery

in around 957 BC

God had king Solomon build the temple for worship sacrifice

and to house the Ark of the Covenant this magnificent

facility stood until 586 BC

when the Babylonians destroyed it

and took the Israelites captive

in around 515 BC

Zerubbabel and other Israeli exiles were able to return to

Jerusalem in order to rebuild the temple on top of

the demolished first temple this second temple wasn't

as spectacular as Solomon's

but served its purpose until 20 BC when king Herod

initiated a significant renovation and expansion project

this is the temple that stood in Jesus's day

where He taught on several occasions

and where He confronted the money changers

in 70 AD

four years after the Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire

military commander Titus and the Roman Army

utterly destroyed the temple

today many Jews and Christians are anticipating the day when

a third temple will be rebuilt as foretold in the book of Ezekiel

tradition says it needs to be rebuilt on the same spot where

Solomon and Herod's temple stood will that be the Muslim

controlled Temple Mount or

is it somewhere else

this makes the search for the temples actual location

that much more imperative

Biblical explorer Bob Cornuke

has spent the past few decades searching for the real Mount Sinai

the Ark of the Covenant Noah's Ark

and the apostle Paul's shipwreck in Malta

his search for the location of Solomon and Herod's temple's

really began several years ago when he was reading Matthew 24

the Bible tells us

in Matthew 24

where Jesus is speaking

and He's speaking to His disciples and He's walking away

from the temple

and He is looking up at the temple and He tells

the disciples He said truly I tell you

not one stone here will be left on another

everyone will be thrown down

not one stone total annihilation

and that's what we hear from history that the temple was totally destroyed

the hill called Zion

at Jerusalem the building there that is to say the temple has

been utterly removed or shaken

it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that

dug it up to the foundation that there was left nothing to

make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited

but if Herod's Temple was utterly removed how can

the Western Wall of the Temple exist today either Jesus was

inaccurate in Matthew 24

or perhaps the Western Wall wasn't part of the temple at all

about 63 BC

the Romans took this city

General Pompey had the gates opened up to him

and from that point on the Romans had control here for over three

hundred years the big question is where did they stay

no one has ever found one

brick that they know of that's from the Roman fortress

I believe it's because

it's been on the Temple Mount

that was the Roman fortress

that huge complex if you look at it today it is in the same

dimensions as many Roman fortresses

so where did the Roman's stay they stayed on the Temple Mount

locating the Roman Fort on the Temple Mount explains how

the temple could be utterly destroyed yet still have

remains existing to this day the Western Wall

instead of being the remains of Herod's Temple

may actually be a part of the Roman Fort

Eleazar Ben Yair the commander of the Israelites taking refuge at Masada said

Jerusalem is now demolished to the very foundations and have nothing left

but that monument of it preserved I mean the camp of

those Romans that hath destroyed it which still dwells upon its ruins

the traditional view places the Roman Fort called the Tower of

Antonia at the northwest corner of the Temple Mount this three

acre plot supposedly housed the entire Tenth Roman Legion

but how large a legion history tells us that a legion is approximately six thousand

soldiers with the support personel it could reach as

high as ten thousand people

if I was in coming unto the tenth heavy Roman legion

sent to Jerusalem to keep the peace

I would have occupied the high ground I would have put

my soldiers

on the Temple Mount

and as I look at the little bitty building that is called

Fort Antonia today

it's almost laughable

to believe that six thousand soldiers and some four thousand

camp followers occupied that tiny building

would Rome the proud rulers of Europe and the Middle East be

content to locate their fort as an appendage to the Jewish Temple

or would they be more likely to commandeer the entire Temple

Mount to build the regional military headquarters again we

turn to historian Josephus

now as to the Tower of the Antonia

it might seem to be composed of several cities

for if we go up to this Tower of Antonia we gain the city

since we shall then be upon the top of the hill

the only location that is on top of a hill

and is large enough to house ten thousand soldiers and

support staff is the thirty-six acre Temple Mount

in 333 AD the so called Bordeaux pilgrim

travel to Jerusalem and describes what he found

I'm in a high tower about a hundred feet high right next to

the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and it's

a fascinating place because from this position

the Bordeaux pilgrim said that he looked due east and all

thry could see was a long wall of a Roman fort

when I look due east of here all I see is the long wall of

the Temple Mount

so what I think the Bordeaux pilgrim was

describing was looking at the Roman fort from this spot

in fact that's pretty conclusive that's what he was looking at

was the Temple Mount complex certainly I believe was a Roman

fortress that housed the Tenth Roman Legion

so if historical evidence places the Roman fort on

the Temple Mount why do the majority of people believe that

this is where the temple was located when it was over with

and the temple was destroyed by Titus in 70 AD

that there was just like a field

with blowing grass

you wouldn't even know that was there and so the Jews that

were quarantined from Israel for so long

it's hard for them to determine where the temple was so this has

been the place that everybody settled on in fact in the

fourth century

there was many places

that people were trying to figure out where is the temple

really located people were not sure

one important event that promoted the idea of the Temple

Mount being the location of the temple was the invasion of

Jerusalem by the crusaders and in 1099

there was thousands of crusaders and they came and they conquered

this Temple Mount complex and when they went on top of it

there was great carnage

a lot of Jews a lot of Muslims were killed

and they crawled up on the dome wasn't gold then

but they called up on that dome area up there

and they ripped off the crescent moon and they replaced it

with the cross and they called it Templum Domini which means

the temple of God

that I think started

a tradition

seventy years after the crusaders conquered Jerusalem

and eleven hundred years after Herod's Temple was destroyed

a Jew from Spain named Benjamin of Tudela

visited Jerusalem

and wrote that the Temple Mount was the location of the former

temples his emphatic statements seem to seal the tradition and

from that point on

it has been virtually unchallenged well I believe

that this is not the place of Solomon's Temple's

and Herold's Temples but it's actually in the city of David a few

thousand feet south of here and we're gonna go the city of

David right now and we're gonna try and see

if that is the true place

where God tells us these temples were located

the city of David is a twelve acre plot of land just south of

the Temple Mount

we're here in the city of David

and it was back in the eighteen hundreds where they established

that this was the city of David with the discovery of the Gihon

springs and Hezekiah's tunnel

when king David arrived in Jerusalem the city of David was

inhabited by the Jebusites David's men captured their

fortress

and 2 Samuel 5:9 says

so David lived in the fortress and called it the city of David

and then the scriptures in

2 Samuel 24:18

it is revealed that David was after he conquered the Jebusite

city which is right under the city of David

he was required by the Lord to purchase the threshing floor from

Ornan the Jebusite

and then 2 Chronicles 3:1 we see

that Solomon it says that Solomon first began to build the house of the Lord

by the threshing floor that was purchased from Ornan

the Jebusite Solomon's Temple was in the city of David the Jebusite fortress

I can't see how you can argue with 2 Chronicles 3:1

if we're gonna take the Bible at face value that's where

Solomon's Temple was

the city of David is also referred to as Zion

2 Samuel 5:7 says

David captured the fortress of Zion

that is the city of David

Eusebius a third century historian and curator of

the library in Caesarea

wrote that the temple was in Zion

the hill called Zion and Jerusalem

the building there that is to say the temple

King David took

the Zion

to the custom

and changed

his name to the city of David

so the Mount of Zion is the city of David

so the love of his I only the city of David

we're standing in the area of the city of David here's

an archaeological site and there's the south wall of

the traditional Temple Mount so we're in the general area of the Temple Mount and

this area we have seen in photographs in the 1930's

and we see these terraced farms you can even

see the people out there tilling the ground and it's

very interesting

that the Bible says this

in a prophecy the minor prophet Micah says in 3:12

Zion shall be plowed like a field

Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins and the mountains of

the temple like the bare hills of the forest

the temples gonna be like a plowed field

well there's no plowed field up there those walls have been up

there you know a couple thousand years if that is

really the temple Micah says there should be a plowed field

it never was this area was

so we can be assured that in the city of David

it matches with what the prophet says

and what the Bible says

in history you know there's not a theory

that it doesn't have a long list of critics that line up

especially the temple theory it's so shocking to a lot of

people they say wait a second the temple in

the city of David and the stronghold of Zion

and then they say wait wait we have a great verse here that

tells you that you're wrong about the temple being in the city of David

then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of

the tribes to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from

the city of David which is Zion

so what was brought up out of the city of David thus it was

brought where they surmise to the Temple Mount the Bible doesn't

say where it was taken

it was placed into the Holy of Holies after that

underneath the wings of the cherubim

now where was it taken when it was taken out of the city of David

there was a huge festival

where all the priest of Israel came where they slaughtered so

many animals that they couldn't even count them the Bible says

the city of David's just a twelve acre area

very very small confines

so they couldn't have done that in the city did they went and had

this big festival like a state fair

is not gonna be done in city hall and then they brought it back

into the temple which was in the city of David

a little known historical account describes two covered

bridges or colonnades that spanned some six hundred feet

between Ford Antonia on the north and

Herod's Temple to the south

Josephus describes them

now as to the tower of Antonia

it was situated at the corner of two colonies of the court of

the temple of that on the west and that on the north

he then describes Fort Antonia as a guard to the temple and

mentions that it is located on a higher hill

and that it hindered this side of the temple on the north

these descriptions confirm that the Fort was on the higher

Temple Mount while the temple was six hundred feet to

the south and at a lower elevation

there's a story in the book of Acts that also confirms this

it describes the time that the commander of the Roman soldiers

quickly deployed troops from the fort down to the temple to

rescue the apostle Paul from a riotous situation

at once the commander took along some soldiers and centurions

and ran down to them

then verse forty describes how Paul addressed the crowd

Paul standing on the stairs spoke to them

these were the stairs leading back up to the Fortress Antonia

another clue to the location of the temple is the Gihon springs

the fresh water source is mentioned in the Bible in

1 kings 1:38 where Solomon was brought to the Gihon

to anoint him as king

fresh running water is also necessary for worship

and to perform animal sacrifices which took place in the temple

1 kings 8:62 tells us

on the day of the temple dedication

Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the Lord

twenty two thousand cattle

and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats

cleaning up after the sacrifice of that many animals would

require a huge amount of running water Roman historian

Tacitus tells us the temple contained an inexhaustible spring

you have to have running water from a spring

to wash and purify the priest before they go into the temple

to worship here we have clear clean running water coming from

the Gihon springs

which travels through Hezekiah's tunnel

and comes here to this

pool of water

before the priests would go into the temple weither it be Solomon's

Temple or Herold's Temple they needed to be bathed in spring

water the only spring water in all of Jerusalem is right here in

the Gihon springs

there's absolutely no spring water on theTemple of the Mount

there's no way that they would have washed themselves in the Gihon

springs and then walked a quarter mile to a half a mile to

the Temple Mount

before they were allowed to go into the temple precincts

considered to be purified

tradition when valued higher than evidence can be

a stumbling block to finding the truth

but tradition can also provide valuable clues

when accompanied by scriptural historical or physical evidence

so local traditions need to be considered in our search for

the temple location I've been it's a tour guide here for more

than thirteen years and there's some amazing things that we're

discovering now that is

that are to the south

of the Temple Mount area

where we believe we've found

the Temple of Solomon which is gonna be to the southern part

and Solomon's Temple

is possibly really in this area close to the city of David

we know from all my life that the temple it's in this

area nobody say that the temple it's under the mosque nobody

say that the temple here in the corner and nobody say that

they've

temple here but all the people who understand

in these things they say that

the temple it's under the city of David this is the city of David

the city of David okay

they say the Jewish say some of the Jews say that

the temple its been here right on the Temple Mount yes on the Temple Mount

there is another people from Jewish

they say the temple it's

in the mosque under the mosque so from my

opinion from my what I see over here

most of the people say that it's

under the city of David

so you're saying that the Bible is telling you an archaeologist is telling you

the Bible say this is the place the city of David the city of David

the Bible say

yeah the Bible say that this but like if I speak nobody will hear

another people nobody will hear but it's is something politic

beyond politics and tradition is there any archaeological

data to support the idea of the temple being in the city of

David a couple years ago I was

going on a tour of the city of David which is an underground

labyrinth of tunnels and caves

a lot of these stones are believed to be from the time of Abraham

the Jebusite Fortress and things mentioned in the Bible but as

I'm walking along I saw this flicker of light way up in

a shaft where men were working I heard metal on metal

and I saw the flicker of light

and up inside where they were working I found out later on

was a place that we believe could be part of

Solomon's Temple

and we're gonna be going there

but it all started for me

right up there

through that shaft where I saw that light two years ago

this area was excavated recently

by Eli Shukron who was this director of archaeology in

the city of David I think he stumbled across

an area that was within

part of the structure of Solomon's Temple

this is from the first temple period even be before that

we're going to back to the middle Bronze period and that is before King David

eight hundred years before king David would place this around

the time of Abraham and Melchizedek we use this place as a worship

area and then still use it

till the end of this area it's like

the end of the eighth century beginning seventh century BC

and this is the only place that we know in the city of David

that we can say here it was some worship with standing stone

with the which was for

sacrifice all what we have around you

and this is a place for worship this is a place for praying

this is place for a sacrifice and this is a place

people connect with their God

we're here in this incredible archaeological site right below

my feet here

is an olive press you can see where the

the wood beam went in here and they ground the olives

olives are very important for anointing

someone going into the temple

right close by within thirty feet

we have the Gihon springs

and you needed that rushing water to anoint

the priest before they went into the temple we also read in scripture

where Solomon was brought down by a mule

to the Gihon Springs right here

and he was anointed with the oil

when he was a crowned king at the Gihon Springs which is right where we are

and amazingly archaeologists have recently uncovered this

area that is dated to the first temple period

and it has within it channels

if you look here this is a channel where the blood ran

the blood ran here

they would kill the animals and then blood would go through here

we could see where the animals were actually tied up

this is where

the rings went through

and this tethered the animal

when archaeologists came here they found just piles of bones

all through here evidence of animal sacrifices and they

found these unique grooves

in the ground

and these are believed to be Eli Shukron

told me the archaeologists here that these were stands

like wooden stands or metal stands

so this area here going well over there in here

is an old ancient

sanctuary which I believe

is a part of Solomon's Temple itself

you got the blood channel you got the

olive press right there

you've got little hooks

stone hocks in the side of the wall where you could tie

off animals and it's probably ten yards from the Gihon

Springs a perfect place

to have water

because if your doing a lot of sacrifices

you need water for that is this Solomon's Temple

I don't know is it Herod's Temple I don't know but

according to a top Israeli archaeologist

it is a temple and he is not ready to say it was the Temple

of Solomon or the Temple of Herold

but he said it was a temple and it's in the same place

that 2 Chronicles 3:1

says Solomon

set up or built the temple to the Lord it's in the city of

David right near the Gihon Springs

could it be that this ancient sanctuary is what remains of

Solomon's temple Herod's Temple which was built above Solomon's

was completely destroyed in 70 AD

but these remains covered over by the Babylonians in 586 BC

fit perfectly with 2 Chronicles 3:1 this stuff is blowing

my mind we think

that these rocks around us are telling us that this is

the exact place of Solomon's Temple

and everything is pointing to this place and no other

it's not on the Temple Mount it's in the city of David

by the Gihon Springs

which is a gurgling just a few feet away

from my standing right now

well I think one of the things we need to tread carefully

because it's so emotional we need to realize we're dealing

with deeply held beliefs so we need to do that

with some compassion on the one hand

but at the same time I see it as a healthy thing

because it should draw us in the direction

of re-examining our scholarship

there are certain places where your big challenge

isn't finding new evidence per se the biggest challenge is to

set aside your presuppositions so they don't

get in the way of discovery I think that

the position of the temple being in the city of David has merit of course

it raises all kinds of other questions the fact that

the scriptures say

that the temple was in the city of David

and it had to be near the Gihon Spring

and I look at the Temple Mount and there's no spring up on

the Temple Mount so I have become a firm believer in the fact

that the temple was not up on the Temple Mount

I'm convinced it was right there in the city of David

if indeed the temple was located in the city of David

what implication does it have for today

obviously a lot of Christians are saying well if the temples

ever gonna be rebuilt

it's got to be rebuilt right where the dome of the rock is

wow

that's not gonna set of World War Three is it

but if if the real temple

was in the city of David which is to the south

of where the dome of the rock is significantly to the south

outside the current city walls of the city

then the temple can be rebuilt in the city of David and not

touch the dome of the rock that has

incredible political implications quite obviously

in Luke 8:17 there is a fascinating verse

for nothing is hidden that will not be revealed and nothing

concealed that will not be made known and come to light

could it be that the temple is one of those things that it's hidden

that will be revealed that is concealed that will come to light

if we're ever gonna to find the temple I think we need to use

the Bible and the Bible is telling me

that the temple has to be in the city of David

in the stronghold of Zion

and the luring poll of oral traditions needs to be ignored

that's where we'll find truth is in the word of God

and not what man is guessing

but what God is telling us