The Mystic Connections of the Knights Templar

The Mystic Connections of the Knights Templar

The Temple of Solomon

Construction of Solomon's Temple

"Solomon succeeded his father David as king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah around 965 BC, though some scholars think it was lightly later, around 960 BC; he began work on the Temple in the fourth year of his reign, and the structure took seven and a half years to complete (I Kings 6)." - Magnus Magnusson, BC - The Archaeology of the Bible Lands

"In the Canaanites' view, a god actually dwelt in each sanctuary. But since the Israelites' god had no physical form, it needed not such earthly home. King Solomon erected his temple as a house for the sacred Ark of the Covenant, and thus reaffirmed Jerusalem as the spiritual - and political - focus of Israelite life." - The Israelites

"We are informed in I Kings (chapter 3) that Solomon proceeded to organize the construction project (it involved, among others in the workforce, 80,000 stone quarriers and 70,000 porters) only after Yahweh had appeared unto Solomon in Gibeon 'in a nightly vision'. The construction, lasting seven years, began with laying the foundation stone in the fourth year of Solomon's reign and 'in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul which is the eighth month the Temple was competed in all its stipulations and exactly according to its plans'." - Zecharia Sitchin, When Time Began
The prototype for the Temple of Solomon was the Canaanite temple of Baal-Hadad in the Lower City of Hazor (c.1500-1200 BC). "The Hazor temple was build of three elements - a porch, a main hall and a Holy of Holies - situated one behind the other, on a north-south axis. The Holy of Holies lay to the north; it was a large room, measuring about thirteen by nine meters, with a deep niche in its northern wall. In the porch, or vestibule, were found two basalt pillar bases just in front of the entrance to the main hall. They had no structural function, and reminded Dr Yadin of the two enigmatic cultic pillars outside the porch of Solomon's temple, called 'Jachin' and 'Boaz' in the Bible. Of course there were significant differences, too. Solomon's Temple was oriented east-west, for instance; and Solomon's Temple would not have contained effigies on the gods such as were found at Hazor - only the Ark of the Covenant symbolizing the presence of the deity." - Magnus Magnusson, BC - The Archaeology of the Bible Lands

"The temple was designed with a large measure of uniformity over the whole of the Near East now recognizable as a microcosm of the womb. It was divided into three parts; the Porch, representing the lower end of the vagina up to the hymen, or Veil, the Hall, or vagina itself; and the inner sanctum, or Holy of Holies, the uterus. The priest, dressed as a penis, anointed with various saps and resins as representing the divine semen, enters through the doors of the Porch, the 'labia' of the womb, past the Veil or 'hymen' and so into the Hall." - John M. Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross

"There were three buildings specifically for sacrifice in Jerusalem. The one facing west was called 'the Holy'. Another facing south was called 'the Holy of the Holy'. The third facing east was called 'the Holy of the Holies', the place were only the high priest enters. Baptism is 'the Holy' building. Redemption is 'the Holy of the Holy'. 'The Holy of the Holies' is the bridal chamber. Baptism includes the resurrection and the redemption; the redemption takes place in the bridal chamber. But the bridal chamber is in that which is superior to it and the others, because you will not find anything like it." - The Gospel of Philip

"The detailed architectural and construction information in the Bible in respect to Solomon's Temple calls its anteroom Ulam, its ritual hall Hekhal, and its holiest part Dvir. The latter, meaning 'Where the speaking takes place', no doubt reflected the fact that Yahweh spoke to Moses from the Ark of the Covenant, the voice coming from where the wings of the Cherubim were touching, and the Ark was placed in the Temple as the only artifact in the innermost enclosure, the Holy of Holies or Dvir. The terminology used for the two foreparts, scholars have recognized, comes from the Sumerian (via Akkadian): E-gal and Ulammu." - Zecharia Sitchin, When Time Began

Solomon's "temple was divided into two parts, the holy of holies (adytum) and the temple proper. Curtains were hung of fine linen cloth brightly colored in hyacinth blue, purple and scarlet. "Before the temple, on the right hand and the left, were placed two massive hollow pillars of brass eighteen cubits in height each surmounted by a capital five cubits high. These may have been modeled after the two pillars in the famous temple of Melkart at Tyre, one of which was overlaid with god. For this and other metal work in the temple Solomon sent to Tyre for a skilled bronze worker called Hiram. "An altar of brass was made for the burnt offerings; a brazen 'sea' in hemispherical form was cast and set up on twelve brazen oxen that faced toward the four directions of the compass. Brazen bases for ten lavers were made ornamented with figures of lions, oxen and cherubim." - Nina Jidejian, Byblos Through the Ages

"...The Sea of cast metal, ten cubits from rim to rim, circular in shape and five cubits high; a cord thirty cubits long gave the measurement of its girth...It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was shaped like the rim of a cup, like a flower. It held two thousand baths." - 1 Kings 7:23, 26
"This 'Sea'...had stood in the courtyard of the Temple. It had been a hug bronze basin, fifteen feet in diameter and seven and a half feet high. It had weighted around thirty tons when empty but had normally been kept full with and estimated 10,0000 gallons of water. Most authorities admitted frankly that they did not know what its function had been -although some thought that it had symbolized the 'primordial waters' referred to in the book of Genesis and others believed that it had been used by the priests for their ritual ablutions....[However] the Bible state quite plainly that Hiram had made ten smaller bronze basis for precisely this purpose..." - Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal

"Is it not possible that the bronze 'Sea' which Hiram made for the courtyard of Solomon's Temple was a throwback to the ancient Egyptian rituals on which the ceremonies of the Ark appear to have been closely modeled? In the festival of Apet at Luxor the 'Arks' containing effigies of the gods were always carried to water. And this, too, is precisely what happens in Ethiopia today: at Timkat in Gondar the tabotat are carried to the edge of a 'sacred lake' at the rear of the castle. So perhaps the bronze Sea was a also a kind of sacred lake?" - Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal

Note that the tradition of sacred lakes/pools may date back to Sumerian times: "Most ancient, pagan, Mesopotamian Urfa had worshipped gods of the sun and moon and stars, a faith that survived in the surrounding countryside until the Middle Ages, when the Crusaders found a remnant priesthood still at their rituals in ancient ruined temples. The cult had come to Urfa [Turkey] and it neighboring cities from southern Mesopotamia. In those days several cities had sacred pools like those at Urfa; some of them with stone altars that stood out of the water and the priest who would swim to their daily devotions were surrounded, it is said, by leaping, by sacred fish, so tame that they would come to you if you called their names. One especially celebrated carp, and ancient author says, carried a golden jewel upon its upper fin." - John Romer, Testament
The Holy of Holies

"Into the Holy of Holies none might pass save the High Priest, and he only at certain prescribed times. The room contained no furnishings save the Ark of the Covenant, which stood against the western wall, opposite the entrance. " - Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy

"Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel...And the priests brought in the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to its place in the Temple...in the Holy of Holies...And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so the that priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord. Then spake Solomon, 'The Lord said that he would swell in the thick darkness. I have surely built thee a house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in forever...But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?'" - 1 Kings 8: 1, 6, 10-11, 27

"There was...a real sense in which the Temple appeared to have been built less as an earthly palace for a dearly beloved but incorporeal deity than as a kind of prison for the Ark of the Covenant. Within the Holy of Holies, above the two cherubim that faced each other across the relic's golden lid, Solomon had installed two additional cherubim of giant size - grim guardians indeed, with wingspans of fifteen feet or more, all covered in gold." - Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal

"There in the Holy of Holies (a curtained inner chamber) were kept the Ark of the Covenant containing the Tablets of the Law and other tokens of the deliverance from Egypt and the sojourn in the wilderness of Sinai. There Solomon reinstituted all of the cultic acts commanded to Moses on Sinai, the daily sacrifices, the feasts of the New Moon and the New Year, the Day of Atonement, and the three great pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Weeks, and Tabernacles. A body of Aaronite priests and ministering Levites served in the Temple." - An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism

"It follows that the place of the Holy of Holies was ten cubits square, and there were put the ark, and the pot of manna, and the pan of anointing oil, and Aaron's rod with its almonds and flowers...." - The Talmud, Chapter VI

"...The Holy of Holies itself...had been a perfect cube, foursquare and immensely strong. Measuring thirty feet long, by thirty feet wide, by thirty feet high, its floor, its four walls and its ceiling had been lined with pure gold, weighing as estimated 45,000 pounds, and riveted with golden mails." - Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Egyptian Temple Service

In the New Kingdom of Egypt, "the service performed about the image [of the god] takes place in private. In theory at least, it is the privilege of the priest of the highest rank. It takes place at that point in the temple furthest removed from the entrance and the court, in a chamber where there is no room for the general public, in pitch darkness. For the structure of the temple, including the sanctuary, was completely roofed over; light penetrated the ante-room only sparingly through apertures in the ceiling and walls. The Egyptian gods would have shared Yahweh's wish 'that he would dwell in thick darkness' (I Kings 8:12). Consequently it is said of the divine image that it is 'less accessible than that which is in heaven, more secret than the affairs of the nether world, more (hidden) than the inhabitants of the primeval ocean'....We are told, although only briefly: God, the Distant One, is made present in the image by he daily service. Therefore he is really present in the temple, which is also visualized as an image of the world, combining heaven and earth; it is in fact a representation of the world, combining heaven and earth. In particular the shrine of the deity is simply called 'heaven', or with an eye to its doors 'the doors of heaven'." - Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion

"The dwelling of god - its abomination is clamor. Pray thou with a loving heart, all the words of which are hidden, and he will do what thou needest, he will hear what thou sayest, and he will accept thy offering..." - Ani II 2f (supplement to Hymn of Thoth)

"At the entrance to the sanctuary in the Horus temple at Edfu we find, in varying phraseology, an inscription to the effect that the god, as a winged sun-disk, takes a delight in his temple and his images". - Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion

He "comes daily from Naunet [the underworld] to see his image at his great seat. He descends to his image and joins his falcon idols'." - Inscription at Edfu