How Many Temples in the Old Testament?

QUESTION: Mary asked: How many Temples were there in the Old Testament?

I am presuming that she is asking: How many Temples did the Jewish people have in their story in the Old Testament?

The concept of Temple started with tabernacle. Walter Brueggemann says that “hosting the Holy One is not a small, trivial, or casual undertaking. And therefore the practice of symmetry, order, discipline, and beauty is essential to the reality of God’s presence in Israel.” (An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination. 46.). In chapters 25-31 God shows Moses the plan, material, and the designs for building the tabernacle. Moses carries out his assignment in minutest detail. The tabernacle performed double duty: It was a visible symbol that God’s presence was with them and that each person had equal access to him and it provided Israel a place to worship and make atonement for their breaking of the covenant stipulations. (Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament. 76.).

During the reign of David, he decided that the tabernacle need a permanent place and Jerusalem was chosen. The building of that Temple occurred during the reign of Solomon. The people of the ancient world believed that deities were attached to specific locations, so they built Temples to house their gods. Because the God of Israel did not need a place to be housed which Solomon realized, he built a Temple with a different purpose. The Temple of Solomon was a meeting place between man and God. His Temple was the first of the Jewish Temples. Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians and lay in ruins until Ezra and Nehemiah returned to the land in the Restoration Period to rebuild it. When it was built, it was approximately twice the size of the portable Tabernacle which was constructed by the Jews under the guidance of Moses. About 180,000 workers were needed to complete the task of building the Temple. In today’s economy it would have cost several billion dollars.

The Temple was destroyed in the invasion of the Southern Kingdom by the Babylonians. After Cyrus defeated the Babylonians, he allowed Ezra and Nehemiah to return and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. This period of time is referred to in scholarly writing as Second Temple Judaism. The mindset of this period was still prevalent during the life of Jesus.

During Jesus’ day, Herod had taken on a beatification project which included the Temple in Jerusalem. In A.D. 70, the Temple was again destroyed and has never been rebuilt.