Bob Cornuke's Temple theory placing the Temple in the City of David
1. Location over the Gihon Springs
2. The water for the Temple was supplied from the Gihon Spring.
3. No stone would be left  upon another, including retaining walls.
4. The Temple Mount was Fort Antonia.
5. The Temple was within the City of David.
6. How many Roman soldiers stationed at Fort Antonia

1. Location over the Gihon Springs.

 You will recognize this drawing as Dr. Martin's theory, and is also what Bob Cornuke claims to be correct.
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I  rotated in it's proper proportions so the image will fit correctly over Charles Wilson's survey map.

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 Charles Wilson map with overlay of  archeology excavation map, and Martin's location map.

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Dr. Eilat Mazar uncovered a huge building in the area in red.  To view original map see  http://www.cityofdavid.org.il/en/archeology

I placed Dr. Martin's rotated drawing with his 600 x 600 feet Temple area  over the map of the City of David excavations. Again, take note of the location of Eilat Mazar's excavation area.  

You will find it directly under Herod's Temple in Martin's drawing.
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King David's Royal Palace............

The building has been proved to have existed in the time of King David according to the artifacts found in the layers of dirt of the excavation. As you can see it is in the same place that Dr. Martin and Bob Cornuke claim Herod's Temple House was located.  This royal building is definitely not ruins of the Temple and yet stood in this place before and after the Temple was built. They both couldn't have existed at the same time in the same place. In fact the altar, which was built on the threshing floor, is over the edge of the cliff! No threshing floor to be seen, just the Stepped Stone Structure.  Stepped Stone Structure

This proves that Ernest L Martin's and  Robert Cornuke's whole theory of placing the temple in the City of David as Completely Wrong and has been completely discredited.

The work of Dr. Eilat Mazar and her team has been published in several volumes and has been peer reviewed for years now. In fact, the archaeological, along with scriptural, evidence is so strong for it being David;s Palace that it really can’t be disputed. In comparison, Martin and Cornuke have ZERO archaeological evidence to support their THEORY. Archaeological facts vs Martin and Cornuke’s theory….Which would you rather believe?

Need I mention that not one wall of the Temple was left on top of another. Lots of walls left standing at the dig site of David's Palace, as you can see in the photographs below!
 David's Palace NW corner   Looking West at large wall.

These ruins do not resemble the Temple in any way.  In fact with the recent digs in this area we can easily see that there was no room for a Temple anywhere in the City of David.

2. The water for the Temple was supplied from the Gihon Spring.  

Bob Cornuke claims that the only water source for the Temple was the Gihon spring and yet Jewish literature tells us this is not so.  

The Temple was cleansed by the abundant never ending water of the spring of Etam (Ain Atan) located near Bethlehem, not the Gihon, and the water was transported to the Temple by means of an aqueduct. We have 3 sources telling us truth of the mater concerning the water source.   Many people try to claim that the aqueduct was not built until the time of Pontius Pilate, yet the Jews of the 2nd century claim the water came from Etam Springs, and was directly routed to the Temple Mount. 

(1)  The Jerusalem Talmud  says that "a conduit ran from Atan (Etam)  to the Temple".  If that is true then it has always been the aqueduct bringing water to wash the court from day one of the Temple being built.  Logic tells us this. The aqueduct was rebuilt in later times by the Hasmoneans, and lastly by Herod.    
* and in the Jer. Talmud (Yoma' 3 fol 41) Talmud (Zebhachim 54b),  http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/E/ETAM/

(2) "How is the Azara (Temple court) cleaned? Seal the area and let the water from the aqueduct enter till it becomes clean like milk."  
*Tosefta Pesachim, Ch. 3,12. *Tuvia Sagiv http://www.templemount.org/tuviatemple.pdf

(3) The Mishna also tells us that the water for filling the copper laver each day was "brought by a conduit from the pools of Bethlehem".
 

I have added a new short video called Water on the Temple Mount which covers the water system on the Mount and speaks of the Trumpeting Stone.

 

 Dr. Martin, and those that use his work, claim that the 10th legion was housed on the Temple Mount and claims Pontius Pilate built "THE" aqueduct to bring water to the fort,  however he combined two branches of the aqueduct system to come up with his theory, the Arrub aqueduct built by Pontius Pilate feeding the Solomon Pools and the Upper aqueduct which was built to bring water to the Upper City most likely filling “Hezekiah’s Pool”.  This was the Upper aqueduct not the Lower aqueduct. For more information on the upper aqueduct and Solomon's Pools, see Aqueducts map.

Of course, from the sources I quoted above, i.e. "Jerusalem Talmud (Yoma' 3 fol 41) says that *a conduit ran from Atan (Etam)  to the Temple" then the Temple court was cleansed by the water from spring Etam by means of the Lower Aqueduct, from the first day the Temple was completed . It is the oldest of all the aqueducts.

Some try to date the Lower aqueduct to the time of the Hasmoneans, 2nd century BC, having found plaster and some old coins that are Hasmonean, but I, and others, believe they merely repaired sections of this ancient aqueduct.  Logic, and the sources, tell us Solomon was the one that originally built the Lower aqueduct when he built the Temple.  Fact is if the Temple was always on the Temple Mount..... then the water for it always came from Etam Spring. The aqueduct after entering the temple mount runs down hill to the el Kas fountain.  Just south of the fountain are many water channels that fit the layout of the Temple. 


So don't be fooled by someone telling you that Gihon was the only spring that could supply water to the the Temple, or that the lower aqueduct was built by the Hasmonean, or Pontius Pilate or Herod. This aqueduct has been rebuilt over time but we are only interested in the original builder.


3. Not one stone would be left  upon another, including retaining walls?
The Retaining Walls of the Temple Mount
I am often asked the question, "How can you say the Temple was on the Temple Mount when Jesus said not one stone will be upon another?  Those walls sure are a lot of stones one upon another."  That was put into the minds of a lot of people by Dr. E Martin and now by Bob Cornuke repeating Martin's words. So, they claim the Temple Mount was all Fort Antonia.

I have a few things to say about that. Firstly, Jesus never said anything about the walls, just the buildings.  But, that aside, the huge rectangle Temple Mount, with 4 walls all the same height, that we see today, are not the walls that actually remained standing after the 70 AD destruction. What remained were the stones that were below ground level of the Mount in 70 AD. Only stones above ground could be thrown down.

Please take the time to learn the truth about the walls of the Temple Mount. In the link below I discuss all the walls of the Temple Mount. You will be very surprised about who built them and when.
http://templemountlocation.com/retainingwallsTempleMount.html

4. The Temple Mount was Fort Antonia. 

Was the Whole Temple Mount Fort Antonia? According to Josephus Fort Antonia was approxamatly 600 feet square and the Temple was immediately to the south of that, and connected to it, and was also 600 feet square.  He tells us that the two together measured 6 furlong around 600 x 1200 ft.  (Josephus "The Wars of the Jews", Book 5, Ch 5, 2.  ...while the entire compass of it was by measure six furlongs, including the tower of Antonia; those entire courts that were exposed to the air were laid with stones of all sorts.)

This tells us the Temple and Fort Antonia together only took up a small portion of the Temple Mount we see today. Not the whole Temple Mount. He also wrote that  Fort Antonia was on the highest part of the hill, which is the Dome of the Rock platform.  The Temple was not on the highest point of the hill, but was below it between Fort Antonia and the City of David. 

5. The Temple was within the City of David.

Bob claims the scriptures point only to a Temple within the City of David. All the Temple theorist use the same scripture to prove the Temple location.  In the beginning the ark of the Covenant was brought to the City of David so The city was called the strong hold, Zion. However when Solomon built the Temple we read;

In which they placed the ark in the Temple built by Solomon.

From that point on the Temple was included in the scripture when referring to Zion, the stronghold. Can anyone really believe that the place where the ark then dwelt, and so God dwelt, was not called Zion? 

Need I go on?  Bob Cornuke is not accounting for the growth of Zion to the north to include Mount Moriah when the Temple was built and the ark brought into it. So don't be fooled by one person claiming scriptures point only to their theory. It points to all the theories.

Concerning the (possible) place of sacrifice found in the City of David,  this would have been a low place within the City, (according to its location), and not a high place. The Temple was built on a high place, (the threshing floor). Because of this there is a possibility that this may have been a place of sacrificing to for the foreign wives to make sacrifices to their gods.  Threshing floors were never within a city because of the chaff that blew in the wind. And threshing floors, to catch the wind, were always on a high place.  

6. Fort Antonia had a Cohort of Romans, not a Legion

While overlooking Jerusalem, the Antonia Fortress was garrisoned with 480 Roman soldiers, who watched over the Temple courts in order to preserve order.

During the Roman imperial period, the full complement was 5,500 men split into 10 cohorts of 480 men each.

Fort Antonia housed a cohort of Roman soldiers, according to Josephus, to watch over the Temple.

  War of the Jews Book 2 chp 12 para 1...
"and the Jews' ruin came on; for when the multitude were come together to Jerusalem, to the feast of unleavened bread, and a Roman cohort stood over the cloisters of the temple, (for they always were armed, and kept guard at the festivals, to prevent any innovation which the multitude thus gathered together might make,)"

By the time Titus reached Jerusalem Fort Antonia was already in the hands of the rebel Jews.  The rebels could defeat 450 Roman's but logic tells us that they wouldn't have been able to defeat a Legion made up of 5,500 men. Titus then defeated the Rebels that occupied Fort Antonia, from there he was able to take the Temple.  For this reason I believe what Josephus says here about it being aa cohort stationed at Fort Antonia. 

In addition to these things, Bob Cornuke, Dr Martin and also Ken Klien, do NOT mention the place the Trumpeting stone, for good reason because it completly undoes the City of David theory altogether. According  to the Jews and Josephus the Place of the Trumpeting was located within the Temple.  A stone with the words "to the Place of the Trumpeting" with a nook cut into the huge stone for the priest to stand in while blowing the shofar was found below the southwest corner of the Temple Mount. At cracked the pavement when it was thrown down, to the first century street, which means it had not been moved.  This is indisputable proof  that the southwest corner of the Temple Mount was part of the Temple of Herod.
 See  Trumpeting Stone


NEW Locating Solomon’s Temple using only the Bible as the source of information by Samraj

Can all these sources be wrong?  These are historical facts the Jews know, but many Christians don't know. The Christians are more concerned with hoping for a place the Jews could build a third Temple without causing war than they are about these historical facts.  Dr Martin had an agenda to find a place where the Temple could be rebuilt without causing a war with the Muslims, and he either  ignores, or blatantly changes, what is said in both the scriptures, the Mishna, and by Josephus, to force his location. But the Jews will not be swayed by the Christians to build their Temple any other place than the threshing floor which they believe is on the Temple Mount according to all their historical sources. 

Robertson Theory

In my temple theory the Temple was located north of the City of David. This location supports not only the Solomon's Palace complex to be south of the Temple, where scripture tells us it was,  but also the north of the Akra but close enough for a person to be able to see into the Temple complex from the towers of the Akra Fort, as per Josephus and the Maccabees. And is, of course, north of David's palace, as describes in the scriptures.

 

My Temple Diagram showing both the Tempe complex and Fort Antonia compound, overlayed on both Warren's Temple Mount map and then overlaid on Wilson's topographical map.  So three layers altogether.