Image Details

The Golden Gate, the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of the Tablets. Scholars have long supposed that the impressive golden domed mosque called the Dome of the Rock stands on the site where the Temple once stood, and that as-Sakhra—the bedrock sheltered beneath the dome—is the Foundation Stone of the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Yet if one were to enter the Temple Mount by the Golden Gate, as could be done in antiquity, continuing straight ahead would not lead directly to the Temple, assuming it stood on the site of the Dome of the Rock. This can be seen clearly in the photograph of the Temple Mount behind the Old City’s east wall: walking through the Golden Gate directly west onto the Temple Mount would lead not to the Dome of the Rock but to a small cupola Moslems call the Dome of the Tablets. (See photograph of Golden Gate.) The author suggests that the Dome of the Tablets, not the Dome of the Rock, marks the location of the Holy of Holies of the Temple.