Through tours, lectures and other educational projects, LaMikdash is bringing the Temple Mount back into the national conciousness of the Jewish people. The organization seeks to educate and energize the Jewish masses to reconnect with their holiest site by bringing them up to the Temple Mount itself.
Stones of the Western Wall - Herodian or Hadrianic?
Submitted by Yoel on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 07:21
One of Sagiv's most outstanding claims is that the western wall of the Temple mount is not the retaining wall built by Herod, but a retaining wall for a pagan temple complex built by Hadrian after the revolt of 135 CE. This is untenable for several reasons, two of which I have posted below.
1. The walls of the Temple mount contain some of the largest cut stones in the world. It is a structure totally unequaled in the ancient world. Such a massive project would have involved an expense to Hadrian that he simply couldn't afford nor justify. In addition, one would assume that a project of such immense magnitude would merit some mention by Roman or other ancient sources. No such record exists.
2. When archeaologists Roni Reich and Yaakov Billig began to raise the massive western wall stones that were toppled onto the streets below, they revealed the ancient street beneath, thus enabling them to find many an ancient coins between the paving stones. Not one of those coins was dated after the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 CE. The wall could not have been built during Hadrian's time, which was some 70 years later than the latest coins found.
Yoel Keren