Israeli Archaeologists Admit that: There is No Temple of Solomon
Israeli Archaeologists Admit that: There is No Temple of Solomon

Israeli Archaeologists Admit that: There is No Temple of Solomon

Israeli Archaeologists Admit that: There is No Temple of Solomon
After 50 years of excavations: The Masada legend crumbled

By: Doaa El Shereef Researcher Specializing in Israeli Affairs

The Israeli media recently broadcasted several videos and statements by extremist Israeli and Jewish leaders both on TV and in the Israeli newspapers, talking about demolishing the holy Aqsa Mosque and building the proposed temple in its place. For instance, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot (i), that the Israeli Foreign Ministry has produced a documentary film showing the demolition of the Dome of the Rock and its replacement with the proposed temple.

The political affairs correspondent in the newspaper Itamar Eichner noted that the Israeli TV channels broadcasted parts of the mentioned film(ii) at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The correspondent asserted that the star of the film is the deputy Israeli foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, in a propaganda film to promote the relationship between the Jews and the city of Jerusalem. As shown in the photos published by the newspaper, he appears against the background of the demolition of the Dome of the Rock while he talks about the relationship between the Jews and Jerusalem and the site of the Holy shrine.

The Israeli channel 2 also showed a film(iii) about how the extremist Jews are preparing to build the Temple of Solomon on the ruins of the Aqsa Mosque.

There is also called Minister Israeli Minister of Construction and Housing Uri Ariel for building what he calls the alleged Third Temple in place of the holy Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

That came from a statement reported by the “Israel my home” website which reads:

“The First Temple was destroyed in 586 BC, while the Second Temple was demolished in 70 AD. Since then, the Jewish people are without a temple.”

He also noted that:

“The Jewish people have been distressed since that date, and live on the ruins of the Temple.” He continued, claiming that “Israel today is the land of the Jewish people, and there are calls for the rebuilding of the Third Temple.”

“The place of the temple is located under the Aqsa Mosque, even though the Temple is much more sacred, as the Aqsa is the third mosque in Islam,” so he said.

Therefore, we dedicate this study as a response to these allegations and fabrications. Our reference will be proof of the falsity of these allegations as shown by Israeli and Jewish archaeologists themselves. In the last third of the twentieth century, a group of Israeli and Jewish archaeologists who were working in the field of exploration and archaeological research felt that all they previously learned about the ancient glories of Israel in Palestine has lost credibility. This was due to the lack of tangible and conclusive archaeological evidence, as there are no traces of the monuments of the unified kingdom of David and Solomon, nor are there any traces of the Temple of Solomon, or many other monuments.

As a result, these researchers favored scientific facts and objectivity, moving away from false Zionist claims. They have since published their research findings based on archaeological scientific facts, which led to the expose of allegations of Zionism and the Biblical school. Later they came under attack by the Israeli Zionist institutions and were criticized by the Israeli religious schools and biblical archaeological circles.

The aim of their research is to reveal scientific facts, and not validate the Zionist and Israeli Biblical theories. As a result they clashed with Zionist policies seeking to Judaize all monuments in Israel, even if it is Canaanite. They also clashed with the Biblical and Talmudic narratives. We will start with the Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog (iv).Herzog provided a conclusive Israeli testimony and document recognizing the falsity of the biblical narrative about the origins of the Israelis in ancient times, and everything related to staying in Egypt, wandering in the desert, the invasion of the land of Canaan by armed forces, and the establishment of a unified Israeli kingdom in Palestine between the great civilizations in the region.

This testimony proves false of all the Zionist allegations concerning the religious and
historical right in Palestine, and about the Kingdom of David, Jerusalem … etc.

Herzog published these shocking findings in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on October 29, 1999. We will publish a brief part of what was included. The document is entitled:

“The Biblical Period did not occur at all and there is no Evidence to Confirm the Biblical Narratives”

http://www.hofesh.org.il/articles/science/archeology.html

Cover image of Haaretz on 29-10-1999

The cover bears the title, “The Truth from the Holy Land”

The Biblical Period did not occur at all and there is no Evidence to Confirm the Biblical Narratives

Ze’ev Herzog

Here are some excerpts from the article:

“We believe that not only the Israelis and Jews but all peoples of the world will be shocked when they know the facts that have become well known to archaeologists in charge of excavations in the land of Israel in recent times. Over the last twenty years, a real change took place in how Israeli archaeologists view the Torah as a historical source. Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people—and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story—now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people’s emergence are radically different from what that story tells.”

It appears here that the researchers are suffering from the effects of all they have learned before from the biblical archaeological school, which is why they are hostile to this school. Let’s follow his words:
“There is a mistake in the Torah narratives of ancient history, revealed by research and archaeological excavations. Modern science as you know does not support the written narratives, but mainly antiquities. Archaeology has become a separate science. But in Israel, we do not want it to be a separate science, we want the antiquities to validate the Biblical historical narratives, and this is contrary not only to science, but also to historical truth. If we want to have a respectable status in international academia, we have to abide by the provisions of science rather than politics and ideology.”

This researcher rejects the narrative of the Hebrews‟ immigration and their presence in Egypt. He also completely denies the book of Joshua which tells the story of false wars to enter the land of Canaan. In a decisive step to deny the first five books of the Torah he says:

“The intensive archaeological excavations in the land of Israel during the past century (the twentieth) have brought us to frustrating results. Everything is fabricated. We did not find anything consistent with the biblical narrative. The stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac in the book of Genesis are just legends.

We did not go to Egypt, and thus we did not get out of it. We were not lost in the desert of Sinai.
We did not invade Palestine with a military campaign.

The kingdom of David and Solomon which is described in the Torah as a superpower, was at best a small tribal kingdom.”

He emphasized:

“As I am Jew and a student of the Biblical school, I am aware of the extreme frustration caused by the gap between our hopes to validate the historical facts of the Torah and the archeological facts unfolding on the ground.”

Let’s leave Herzog and move on to the great Israeli archaeologist professor Israel Finkelstein who questioned the existence of any connection of the Jews to occupied Jerusalem, contrary to Israeli claims of their historical presence in the city.

Israel Finkelstein, the head of the archaeological institute at the University of Tel Aviv, known as “the father of biblical archaeology,” told the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post:

“Archaeological research in recent years proved that there was not a category of the Jews who knew how to read and write. Whoever claims today the dependence on documents is deluding himself, as there are no written materials from this period of ancient history. The events which happened there in the twelfth century BC (the Hebrews’ advent to the land of Canaan) were written 500 years after it happened and included many delusional stories… the Jewish archaeologists did not find historical or archaeological evidence supporting some stories contained in the Bible, including the Exodus, wandering in Sinai, or Joshua’s conquest of Canaan.”

Finkelstein continued:

“The ancient Israelis developed from the Canaanite civilization in the Late Bronze Age in the region, and there was no large-scale military invasion”.

The researcher moved to an advanced point and said to the New York Times:

“Based on my understanding, there is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of a unified kingdom which ruled from Jerusalem over super large territories. King David’s Jerusalem was no more than a poor village at the time”.

In a confrontation between the new scientific thought he represents versus Biblical conservatism, he said:

“Not long ago, Biblical history was dictating the course of research and excavation which was used to validate the traditional narrative. Consequently, archeology has taken the back seat as a scientific specialization. I think time has come to put archaeology in the foreground. Excavations have shown that ancient Israel has originated from the local population of the Bronze Canaanite Age. Excavations did not show any trace validating the Bible’s narrative about the Exodus, or the Israelis wandering in the Sinai desert”.

Here, Finkelstein denies the Biblical narratives of the Exodus and the book of Joshua.

Finkelstein takes a firm and clear stance of considering the Torah a historical novel, especially the first five books. He said:

“The Torah has lost its importance as a historical source, especially with respect to the origins of Israel and the issue of the unified kingdom. This book is a very late document whose first chapters were written in the 7th century according to the earliest estimates, and through theological, ideological, and political perspectives. Here, searching for the historical basis behind the biblical narrative is a very difficult task, if not impossible.”

All of this is revealed in the book The Bible Unearthed(v): Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts published by Touch Stone

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

As stated in the book:

“In the tenth century BC, Jerusalem was in a modest condition. The number of villages did not exceed twenty small villages with a population of no more than few thousand people, most of whom were shepherds. Hence, there is a very weak probability that the small village of Jerusalem, and behind it the territory of Judah almost completely void of population, became the center of an empire stretching from the Red Sea in the south to the Syrian valley in the north”.

Various passages of scripture are compared with archaeological evidence. The historian Neil Asher Silberman is a co-author of this book.

The authors in this book depended on the most recent discoveries and the most relevant evidence in order to be able to develop our theories about what the Bible represents in the context of the ancient world. They called it the “revolutionary book.”

Historian “Neil Silberman”vi participated with professor Israel Finkelstein in another study published in 2006. The book is entitled:

David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition

Through this study, Finkelstein confirmed regarding the alleged Temple of Solomon that:

“There is not any archaeological evidence that it existed.”

Here, the most important archaeologist in Israel completely denied the existence of the Temple of Solomon with evidence. This is the Temple that the Israeli government and leaders are rushing to build on the ruins of the Aqsa Mosque.

In 2005, two channels French channel 5 and French-German ART collaborated to make a movie that is considered one of the most important movies and caused an uproar in Israel recently. It is a documentary film entitled “Le Bible Devoilee” (the

Bible unearthed), based on the book The Bible Unearthed written by archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and historian Neil Silberman which we talked about previously.

Screenshots from the documentary The Bible unearthed, “Le Bible Devoilee”

A distinct stone segment of seven thousand years of history from the stone base to the top, dating back to the fifth century, BC

The film raises important scientific questions such as Why was the Old Testament written? And who wrote it?

Finkelstein and Silberman will participate in the film, as well as professor Jacques Briend, and Thomas Romer, professor of the Old Testament.

At the beginning of the film and the book an important question is raised: Why was the Old Testament written? And who wrote it?
The answer is: modern science is shedding new light on these questions, creating a revolution in the scientific narrative, which has changed the scientists’ perception of the society who wrote the Bible. From here, the investigation will start: paleontologists try to find the meaning of these characters. Israel Finkelstein, researcher of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, has been supervising an excavation project at the site of Megiddo in northern Israel for over ten years. Hundreds of specialists and volunteers from all parts of the world have contributed to the adventure. The site is considered the gem of biblical paleontology. Megiddo’s history contains 7,000 years of interactions and conflicts between the major powers that dominated the region: Egypt, Syria, Babylon, and then the Persian Empire. The site is a high artificial hill that appeared as a result of the accumulation of houses, palaces, and structures built on the top of each other through the ages.
“Here we have a key to understand history of Megiddo,” Finkelstein said. He continued: “A new opportunity left to us by old archaeologists, a distinct stone segment of 7,000 years of history, starting from the stone base to the top, dating back to the fifth century, BC. We find 25 layers, each one built on the ruins of the other, which is unique and the only example in the country and the whole region. “This opens a window for us on the bottom of the hill.”
Megiddo‟s history stretches from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, and not only reveals the history of Megiddo but the whole country. It is an unrivaled location in the east, the cradle of biblical archaeology and an archaeological reference to the history of all other sites in the region, located at an economic and strategic crossroads between Egypt, Syria, and the Fertile Crescent.

Tel Megiddo will play an important role in the examination of the Old Testament. Although it describes many historical events, over the centuries it has been considered a religious book only. People believed it was futile and even dangerous to regard it in another way, and most carefully avoided examining its

content. This behavior would be changed by the Enlightenment Age (when will the light shine in the world, and we will have an age that we call “the Enlightenment Age” or will darkness prevail in all ages)? An age in which the holy book is re-read through science and reason (When will we read our holy books using science and reason?)

In mid-nineteenth century Germany, a movement began which critically interpreted the holy book. The world‟s reaction, especially in Britain, was to send scientist to the Holy Land to validate the historical accuracy of the holy book through archaeology.

People associating with European and American religious groups will comb the area searching for signals and signs demonstrating the historical accuracy of the holy book. Their books were the first geographical readings of the Holy Land related to the Holy Book.

Let’s move on to another archaeologist, Raphael Greenberg, who is a teacher and writer about antiquities, society, and politics in archaeology in ancient Jerusalem.

Raphael Greenberg, Lecturer in Tel Aviv University

Jerusalem Post quoted Raphael Greenburg, lecturer at Tel Aviv University, as saying:

“Israel was supposed to find something during a period of continuous digging for six months. However, the Israelis in the city of David, in the neighborhood of Silwan, Jerusalem, have been digging continuously for two years and they have found nothing.”

Professor Jonathan Mizrahi, an independent archaeologist who previously worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), agreed with Finkelstein’s opinion. He said:

“The right-wing Elad association did not find even a single sign saying “Welcome to the palace of David.” However, this was a foregone conclusion to them, as if they rely on sacred texts to guide them in their work”.

The logo of the Elad association

The Elad association is an extremist Jewish settler movement established in 1986 by a settler from the extremist movement Ateret Cohanim named David Barry and called it Elad, acronym for three Hebrew words meaning “Towards the city of David.” The “City of David” is what Israel calls “the Holy Basin” which includes Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Old City, and the surrounding areas, specifically the towns of Silwan and Al-Tur in Jerusalem. This association is working to establish a Jewish presence and promote tourism in the City of David in Silwan and the surrounding areas.

It is noteworthy that since 2008 the Israeli government has been secretly expanding and strengthening the settlers’ control of the Silwan neighborhood and the surrounding areas of the historic Old City occupied by Israel since the June 1967 war and annexed later in a step not recognized by international law or the United Nations. Israeli experts understand that the main objective behind the excavations is to force the Palestinians to leave the holy city, which would allow them to expand the Jewish settlements there.

Archaeology in Israel Contradicts the Myth of the Promised Land

Once again, archeological evidence in Israel has belied the myth of the “Promised Land” and reveals the error of applying the Torah’s geography to Palestine. After TIME magazine’s investigation on May 12, 1995 entitled “Is the Bible Fact or Fiction?” the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur published an investigation over ten pages entitled:
“Ce qu’il faut croire de la Bible après les nouvelles [sic] découvertes de l’archéologie” (issue no. 18 – 24/7/2002)

Another article entitled “The flood, Abraham, Moses: Facts and Myth, and New Discoveries of Archaeology” by Victor Siegelman, Jean-Luc Potier, and Sophia Laurent. Since 1998, an additional seven books were published in France about the same content. The summary of the research is:

“Archeological evidence in Palestine did not confirm what is written in the books of the Torah and therefore, the “Promised Canaanite Land” full of “milk and honey” is not in Palestine. Hence, the Zionist myth about the ancestral land is null and void.”

In this article, Victor Siegelman said: “As for the Palestinians, the issue is about the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel, not only the lands occupied in 1967. The new historians and archaeologists in Israel came to apply the biblical text to the land, especially regarding the historicity of ancestors and prophets, and the Temple of Solomon. Hence, the Zionist ideology according to which the Jews established their state on the land of their ancestors is no longer accurate. The archaeologists did not find any trace of temple ruins, of a powerful kingdom of Solomon, or anything else.

The biblical text does not have a real material base and is just a literary invention. However, this does not change the Jewish people’s bond with this location called the Land of Israel (Palestine in Arabic).

“Whether the ancestors were fact or fiction, the power of the national myth does not need to be proven in order to develop the dynamics of the people’s national emotions. Israel has international legitimacy recognized by the United Nations. Unlike the legitimacy of the coming State of Palestine, using archaeology to prove the absence of the historical bond between the Jews and the land of their ancestors in order to meet the aspirations of the Palestinian people would be pointless and dangerous.”

The editor of the investigation Jean Luc Pouthier claims that, “There are no footprints of Abraham. According to Israel Finkelstein, proving the presence of Abraham is futile, because the biblical text embeds the myth about the flood and the paradise into historical geography. It is possible to follow Abraham’s journey from Ur of the Chaldeans in Iraq to Egypt (actually in the Hebrew

text of the Torah, he left from Ur Qasidim, which is the area of Lower Yafea or Bani Qased in southern Yemen). Then from Egypt he returned to Hebron in the land of Canaan. Therefore, Abraham is the beginning in Israel’s history, and through the sacrifice of Isaac, he played a role in the promise of the “Promised Land” in continuing the series of descendants bonded to God. I have studied all the antiquities of the area of Ur (in Iraq) and Mary and Ugarit (in Syria) at the same period of the migration of Abraham, but found no trace of him!

The Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where the Muslims and the Jews fight today, has always been a traditionally festive place. Abraham is a decisive character. He was the one who rejected polytheism and was bonded to one God in the Torah, and the three religions today are founded on this issue.”

In an article titled, “A Dialogue between the Historian and the Believer: a Real Myth,” the same author believes that the Torah is not a historically accurate book. The flood is a legend, Abraham is a myth, Moses and Pharaoh were less realistic, and the Kingdom of Israel did not start with David and Solomon. So then, what is the Torah? It is a library whose structure has changed. Then, the author reviews the published criticism of the Torah during the three centuries leading up to the twentieth century in Europe. In 1890, a French priest who denied the Torah‟s historical accuracy, began antiquities work and did not reject the Zionist project built on the expulsion of the Palestinian people based on a “historical right.” He resorted to the French researcher Ernest Renan who claimed that “the Torah can include a history.”

Pouthier continues his investigation about the city of Jericho, whose walls fell at the hands of Joshua. “According to the biblical text, Moses’ successor „Joshua son of Nun,‟ attacked the kings and castles of Canaan. There were dozens, and nobody mentions the meaning of “king” in the text, including “Arima” in Syriac and Arejo in Hebrew. Jean-Luc Pouthier says:

“The walls and forts of Arima were shaken and destroyed by the sound of Joshua’s horns. It is the most dominant of the narratives of the Torah. Archaeologists searched for the traces of these forts but unfortunately found

nothing. In other words, this city (the city of Arima in the West Bank) did not exist in the eighth century BC!”

Israeli Archaeologist Meir Ben-Dov Admits that the Temple of Solomon does not exist under the Holy Shrine
The Israeli archaeologist Meir Ben-Dov recently shocked the region when he revealed that there were no traces of the Temple Mount under Al-Aqsa Mosque.

This claim is supported by the earlier revelations of Israeli archaeologists in the Department of History at the Hebrew University.

In an interview with Jerusalem newspaper, Meir Ben-Dov, one of the most prominent archaeologists in Israel, said:
“In the days of the prophet Solomon, the temple of the Roman king Herod was in this area, and the Romans demolished it. In the Islamic era, there was no trace of the temple. In the Umayyad age, the holy mosques of Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock were built in the place where prophet Mohamed (PBUH) ascended to heaven.” The Israeli archaeologist pointed out that two thousand years ago the area of the Holy Shrine was quite different than today, and that the area had different altitude level. For example, the temple of the Roman king Herod was at a higher sea level than the level of the holy rock today.

He continued:
“Through our research and close examination of the area, we know the calculations. The Herod Temple has nothing to do with the holy rock, where this temple was raised above the area about five meters.”

He went on to say:
“Muslims came to this land and built on that rock which had nothing to do with the temple. The Crusaders were the ones who named the holy rock “the Templum Domini”… if we conduct excavations under this area, we will find manifold water wells. We found canals during the course of the excavation and the study we conducted during the past twenty five years, and we concluded that there is no temple there (i.e. there are no remnants of that temple). If you dig, you will not be able to find any remnants of the temple indicating that period.” He stressed that it is possible to find writings or antiques if you dig outside the wall on the eastern side. But inside or under the area of the Holy Shrine, there are no archaeological remnants or other evidence.vii

The myth of the temple is not the only one that was used to create the Jewish State in Palestine by attempting to prove historical factuality of the “divine right” of the Jews in the holy land and was later proven false by Israeli and Western archaeologists.

Zionist archaeology tried relentlessly to find signs indicating that these claims to the land were true, or at least partly true. Among these is the myth of “Masada Castle,” which narrates the championship of Jewish warriors against the Roman conquest in year 73 AD.

Today, Jewish archaeologists reveal that the legendary story of Masada had never happened, but instead was fueled by Zionist ideology which aimed to use it as a story of nationalism to attach the Jews to the place.

While the historical narratives say that King Herod took the mountain overlooking the Dead Sea as a fortress for himself, a Jewish narrative says that Jewish rebels occupied the castle and used it as a fortress until the tenth Roman brigade retook it.

The Jewish narrative adds that the Jewish rebels were afraid of harassment and slavery so they decided to commit mass suicide and killed their women and children. In fact, the traditional Jewish narratives discarded this story and considered mass suicide contrary to religion, and said it did not happen.

Then came the Zionist movement during the early 1930s to revive and perpetuate the narrative. In the early 1960s, the Zionist state began the widest exploration process led by the Chief of Staff of the 1948 war, General Yigael Yadin as a part of a campaign to raise funds to promote the excavation works of Jewish Antiquities in Palestine.

A photo of Yigael Yadin and David Ben-Gurion in Masada “ʤʣʶʮʡ ʯʥʩʸʥʢ ʯʡ ʣʥʣʥ ʯʩʣʩ ʬʠʢʩ .”ʬʠʸʹʩ ʺʸʥʡʢʬ ʬʮס ʯʥʧʨʩʡʤ ʣʸʹʮ :ʭʥʬʩʶ
“Masada… A symbol of the championship of Israel,” Yigael Yadin and David Ben- Gurion in Masada. Photos: Ministry of Defense.

Then Masada became a symbol for the induction of combat, where members of the Israeli army swear that “Masada will not fall again.” Politicians and psychology experts rushed to approach the Israeli aggressive policy from the same perspective, considering it affected by the “Masada complex” which makes the fear of the future a dominant existential psychosis leaning towards the use of unlimited force.

Over the weekend, the Israeli doctor Sarah Liebovich published a supplemental paper on the website of the Israeli newspaper Maariv:viii

The investigation is entitled:

“After 50 years of excavations: the Masada legend crumbled:
Israeli researchers destroyed one of the tokens of Zionism and the state; the story of suicide is false and aims to raise funds to finance the excavations

According to the investigation, sociological researcher at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. Nachman Ben-Yehuda recently wrote a book entitled Archaeology and the myth of Masada, in which he addressed the issue and the role of Yigael Yadin in creating it.

In fact, the dispute in this regard dates back to 50 years ago, when the Masada excavations started with the participation of dozens of archaeologists and thousands of volunteers, and continued for two years after Yadin announced that “Masada is the symbol of Israel’s championship.” Yadin wrote in his book Masada in those Days at that Time” ix that:
“Instead of becoming slaves to the occupiers, the defenders; 960 men, women, and children, put an end to their own lives.”

But after 11 months of excavations, questions arose: Why there were not any traces of bodies in the place? Yadin, who searched in vain for the bodies all over the place and did not find anything, answered that the Roman soldiers burned the bodies and scattered the ashes in all directions. Many other researchers assert that the whole story of Masada did not happen.

Finally, the professor Nachman Ben-Yehuda concludes that Yadin,

“Misled, falsified, and concealed facts, and the story of the championship in Masada simply did not exist.”

In his view:
“The story is all about a rebellion doomed to fail, demonstrated in the destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem, the mass murder of the Jews by the Roman Armies, and the remarkably tragic suicide.”

Photos of the slopes of Mount Masada where the legend took place

ʤʣʶʮʡ ʸʥʷʩʡʡ ʨʸʮʬʥʠ ʣʥʤʠʥ ʹʥʡ ‘ʢʸʥ’ʢ ʩʷסʮʩʬʥʦʥʸʩ ʬʠʩʸʠ :ʭʥʬʩʶ
George Bush and Ehud Olmert on a visit to Masada (a photo of the Maariv investigation)

Archaeologist Meir Ben-David who took part in the excavations with Yadin, according to the Maariv newspaper said:

“During the excavations I told Yadin that there is no championship story here. Yadin has a problem. The situation crystallized for me quickly. There was a suicide in Masada, but it was meaningless. This is not a championship legend. People slaughtered each other. What does it mean to take children and kill them?… Those who talk about the championship of Masada do not know what they are talking about. It was not a championship.”

Throughout 50 years, some people have rejected the Masada legend, and said that there were no warriors in the place, and those who were there did not commit suicide. Others said that those who committed suicide were not champions, but just cowards who were afraid to fight the Roman troops, and that the blockade of the place lasted for a few weeks rather than three years. The American researcher Trude Weiss-Rosmarin was one of the most prominent people against the Masada legend. She asserted in a lecture in Jerusalem in 1973:
“That the story of Masada has never happened, and it is just an invention of a warrior who did not fight.”

She said that:

“The people who were trapped in the castle enjoyed tactical superiority over the Romans. They did not suffer from hunger or psychological breakdown, therefore, it is not logical that a few hundred people chose to commit suicide rather than fighting.”

Many Israeli experts agree with Rosmarin, including the professor Jerome Murphy O’Connorx from the Biblical School in Jerusalem, that:
“There was no mass suicide in Masada.”

It is worth mentioning that the priest Jerome Murphy is the author of the book An archaeological guide to the Holy Landxi, which is a guide including all archeological and tourism landmarks in Jerusalem.
At the end of the study, we can say the Torah is undoubtedly a divine book of religion and not a book of history. History is a science documenting things supported by facts that are agreed upon by many scholars of history and we too agree that the Torah is a divine book of religion. We add that the aim of religions is to promote virtues and coexistence between human beings. Hence, the attempts of some politicians to exploit divine religious books to achieve political goals failed. What we need in the Middle East is to adhere to the spirit of religions calling for coexistence, tolerance, love, and brotherhood among human beings. The solution is not to deny the existence of the Palestinian people with Canaanite origins.

The right way for all is a Palestinian State based on the borders of June 4, 1967, according to what is confirmed by international laws and the Arab Peace initiative.

i – Yediot Aharonot 31, 1. 2014
ii – The film can be viewed on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypslHFHMJaY

iii – The Israeli channel 2: how the Zionists are preparing to build the temple of Solomon on the ruins of the Aqsa Mosque
The film can be viewed on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qZcibf5vws

iv – Ze’ev Herzog : was born in 1941 and is an Israeli archaeologist at Tell Aviv University. His research focuses on the period of the First Temple. Herzog is a lecturer in the Department of Antiquities and ancient Near Eastern cultures at the University of Tel Aviv. He took part in the excavations of Tel Hazor and Tel Megiddo with Yigael Yadin and in excavations at Tel Arad and Tel Be’er Sheva with Yohanan Aharoni. He directed the excavations at Tel Michal and Tel Gerisa and in 1997 began a new exploration project at Tel Yafo (ancient Jaffa).
Herzog has published several books about the antiquities of the city in the land of Israel and its neighbors. He has also written about the excavations of Tel Be’er Sheva and Tel Michal and published a general book about the city’s archaeology.

v – The Bible Unearthed Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts By Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman publishing house in 2001.

vi – Neil Asher Silberman: Born on June 19, 1950 in Boston, Massachusetts, Silberman is an archaeologist and historian. His other books on the themes of history, heritage, and contemporary society include Archaeology and Society in the 21st Century (2001); Heavenly Powers (1998); The Message and the Kingdom (1997); The Archaeology of Israel (1995); Invisible America (1995); The Hidden Scrolls (1994); A Prophet from Amongst You: The Life of Yigael Yadin (1993); Between Past and Present (1989); and Digging for God and Country (1982).

vii – http://www.nrg.co.il/online/54/ART2/510/689.html

viii – http://www.nrg.co.il/online/54/ART2/495/370.html

ix – .;in;i 11Jn:i □;i;i □i1Ji:i :;ii:Y1J Masada in those Days at that Time: Printed and published at 1966

x – Father Jerome Murphy O’Connor became well known throughout the whole world as one of the greatest experts in the affairs of St. Paul. He died on November 11 at the age of 78. Among his most famous works is his book An archaeological guide to the Holy Land. He was born on 10/4/1935 and died on 11/11/2013.
xi – The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 Published June 25th 1998 by Oxford University Press, USA

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