Replicas of the Jewish Temple are scale models or authentic buildings that attempt to replicate either the Temple of Solomon or the Second Temple (Herod's Temple) in Jerusalem.

Sources for the description of the Temple are found primarily in the works of Josephus, tractate Middot and the Temple Scroll; however, these sources are not consistent.

Scale models Judah Leon model In the seventeenth century, Rabbi Jacob Judah Leon of Amsterdam (1602–1675) built a widely exhibited model of the Temple based on his understanding of the biblical specifications.Al L. Shane, Jacob Judah Leon of Amsterdam (1602–1675) and his models of the Temple of Solomon and the Tabernacle, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 96, 1983, pp. 145-169

Schott model

Another notable model was constructed by Gerhard Schott (1641–1702), follows an interpretation made by the Spanish Jesuit Juan Bautista Villalpando. Schott's model, known as the Hamburg temple model, is still displayed in the Museum for Hamburg History.The Temple of Jerusalem by Simon Goldhill, Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 140

Conrad Schick models

Conrad Schick constructed a series of replicas of the Jewish Temple. His replica of the Biblical Tabernacle was visited in Jerusalem by several crowned heads of state, toured the United Kingdom, and was exhibited at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. It was purchased by the King of Württemberg, who awarded Schick a knighthood in recognition of his work. Schick built a replica of the contemporary Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock for the Ottoman Sultan. His final model, in four sections, each representing the Temple Mount as it appeared in a particular era, was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904.Simon Goldhill, The Temple of Jerusalem, Harvard University Press, 129H. Goren and R. Rubin, "Conrad Schick's Models of Jerusalem and its Monuments", PEQ 128 (1996), pp. 103-124

A scale model existed at the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva, but was destroyed during World War II. Two of Schick's models are located in the basement of the Schmidt school for girls in east Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate.

Another of Schick's models is at the Bijbels Museum ("Biblical Museum") in Amsterdam.

Avi-Yonah model

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem houses the Holyland Model of Jerusalem, a model of Jerusalem in the Late 2nd Temple Period originally constructed by archeologist Michael Avi-Yonah at the Holyland hotel.

Other models Yeshiva University Museum in Manhattan has models by archaeological architect Leen Ritmeyer. The North Visitors' Center at Temple Square, in Salt Lake City, Utah, has a scale model of Jerusalem as it may have looked at the time of Christ. Alec Garrard of Norfolk, UK, worked for 30 years creating a 1:100 scale model of Herod's Temple. The Holy Land Experience, an Evangelical amusement park in Orlando, Florida featured a large replica of Herod's Temple inside the walls of a replica of the Jerusalem of Jesus' day.

Building-sized replicas of the Temple

In 2009, Jews in the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Yeriho in the West Bank began building a life-size replica of the Temple of Jerusalem.

In 2010 the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God started the construction of a replica of Solomon's temple in São Paulo, Brazil. According to local press reports, the building would be an "exact replica" of the ancient Temple of Solomon,Réplica do Templo de Salomão deve custar R$ 200 milhões Eduardo Reina, 22 de julho de 2010, O Estado de S.Paulo. but with increased dimensions, despite resembling considerably more Herod's Temple. The temple was inaugurated in July 2014. The mega-church seats 10,000 worshipers and stands 180 feet tall, the height of an 18-story building.

Buildings evoking the Temple

Several churches and synagogues have been designed to evoke the Temple. The most famous of them is el Escorial, the royal residence of Spain (1563–1584) by architect Juan Bautista de Toledo under the order of Philip II of Spain. The central axis reveals a pattern of an courtyard, a sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies.Simbology [sic] and projective genesis in architecture: El Escorial and the Temple of Solomon, by Juan Rafael de la Cuadra Blanco, Ph. Dr. Architect.

The Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor, New York was built in 1844 by architect Minard Lafever as a replica of the Temple."The Rise of Eclecticism in New York, Talbot Hamlin, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 11, No. 2 (May 1952), pp. 3-8.The Architecture of Minard Lafever, Jacob Landy New York, Columbia University Press, 1970, pp. 230, 287.

The 1906 building of Temple Israel in Boston was intended to be a replica of the Temple.The Jews of Boston, Sarna, Jonathan D., and Smith, Ellen, editors, Boston, 1995, p. 177 The Church of St. Polyeuctus in Constantinople was built with the precise proportions given in the Bible for the Temple.Hamblin, William J. and Seely, David Rolph, Solomon's Temple; Myth and History, Thames and Hudson, 2007, p. 109

The 1909 building of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, designed by Joseph Barsky, was intended to evoke the Temple following a widely-circulated reconstruction of the temple by Charles Chipiez.Sergey R. Kravtsov, "Reconstruction of the Temple by Charles Chipiez and Its Application in Architecture", Ars Judaica, Vol. 4, 2008

A handful of temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are evocations of the Temple. The Cardston Alberta Temple, Laie Hawaii Temple, and Mesa Arizona Temple are all designed after the style of Herod's Temple. Others, such as the Salt Lake Temple pay more indirectly homage, by orienting towards Jerusalem and having a large basin used as a baptismal font is mounted on the backs of twelve oxen, as was the Molten Sea of the Temple.Hamblin, William J. and Seeely, David Rolph, Solomon's Temple; Myth and History, Thames and Hudson, 2007, p. 191–3

Masonic Temples in Freemasonry bear a similar symbolism. Solomon's Temple is a central symbol in Freemasonry, which holds that the first three Grand Masters were Solomon, Hiram I of Phoenicia, and Hiram Abiff, the fictitious craftsman and architect who built the temple. Masonic initiation rites include the reenactment of a scene set on the Temple Mount while it was under construction. Every Masonic lodge, therefore, is symbolically the Temple for the duration of the degree, and possesses ritual objects representing the architecture of the Temple. These may either be built into the hall or be portable. Among the most prominent are replicas of the pillars Boaz and Jachin through which every initiate has to pass.James Stevens Curl, The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry, Overlook Press, New York, 1991, 56 -62

Replicas in the form of the Dome of the Rock

During and after the Christian conquest of Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock was renamed the Templum Domini. The nearby al-Aqsa Mosque was renamed the "Temple of Solomon", the latter of which was where the Knights Templar had their headquarters in Jerusalem. The two buildings were sometimes conflated, and several buildings were designed as replicas of Solomon's Temple in the shape of the Dome of the Rock.

These replicas include the octagonal, fifteenth-century Church of St. Giacomo in Italy, and the octagonal, nineteenth-century Moorish Revival style Rumbach Street Synagogue in the Pest section of Budapest.

Palestine Park on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York has a small replica of the temple, depicted as the Dome of the Rock, part of a living topographical map of the Holy Land, complete with the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea. Chautauqua Lake stands in for the Mediterranean Sea.Imagining the Holy Land: maps, models, and fantasy travels by Burke O. Long, Indiana University Press, 2002, pp. 28 ff.

In art, both Perugino's Marriage of the Virgin and Raphael's The Marriage of the Virgin both show the Temple as a Renaissance version of the Dome of the Rock.The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance, Jacob Burckhardt, Peter Murray, James C. Palmes, University of Chicago Press, 1986, p. 81

Replicas of the tabernacle

The Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania has a replica of the biblical tabernacle dating from 1922. The Mennonite Information Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania had a replica dating from the 1940s."Rising up; Tabernacle replica in Gordonville fixed after storm", Lancaster New Era, Lancaster, June 15, 2002,: Joan Kern

The Mishkan Shiloh synagogue in Shilo, Mateh Binyamin is designed as a replica of the Tabernacle.ON THE ROAD TO SHILO by Yocheved Aron

In Israel, Timna Valley Park and Kibbutz Almog feature full-scale replicas.Jewish Journal, July 14, 2005, "Hit Biblical Jackpot at Timna's Mines", Lisa Alcalay KlugThe Tabernacle – Shadows of the Messiah: Its Sacrifices, Services, and Priesthood, David M. Levy, Kregel Publications, 2003, p. 91

Bibliography

References