Thank you for your responses. Very helpful.

The original Temple of Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians, and then rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah. The Temple of Herod was a major renovation, on an expanded scale, of Ezra’s temple, on the same location. The platform of Herod’s temple completely covered the previous smaller site. The interregnum between Solomon’s temple and the reconstruction was only one generation, about forty years, within the lifetime of some who had seen Solomon’s temple. There is no question of the reality of Herod’s temple, which was contiguous with Ezra’s temple, which had its impetus in the restoration of what was then a recently destroyed Temple of Solomon. The Dead Sea Scrolls date from circa 100 BC and seem to support the reality of Solomon’s Temple.

The fact is that Biblical history is far better attested than most events in non-Judaic histiry, where the earliest accounts are often several hundred years after the events they describe. The Dead Sea Scrolls attest the accuracy of the much newer texts that were a thousand years younger. It is silly to think that Solomon’s temple was figurative when its successors on the site were indisputably real.

In John 4:19-24, Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman, and the woman says to him:

“Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain [Gerazim], but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

Jesus replies:

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

So, Jesus Christ’s word to the Samaritans of his time is that the object of their worship is unknown to them, and that Judah’s version of things is the one which points to God and leads to salvation.

The woman said to him:

“I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

If you don’t believe Jesus knows what he’s talking about, you have bigger problems theologically than whether the Jews smeared the Samaritans.

“Not a single shred of archaeological evidence has ever been found to confirm the existence of Solomon’s Temple.”

This is misleading in the extreme.

To begin with, many readers will not understand how thoroughly the Romans laid waste to Jerusalem when they sacked it in 70 A.D. They burned it, urinated in the ashes, stirred the ashes, and then scraped the ashes away to the bedrock. Archaeological remains of Jerusalem are scarce from the time of JESUS, let alone Solomon!

Nevertheless, some readers may be surprised to learn that there is in fact direct archaeological evidence for Solomon’s Temple:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071023-jerusalem-artifacts.html

Now, the author can reasonably point out that Solomon’s Temple itself has not been excavated. But how about a little context? You can’t dig on the Temple Mount!

“Because of the religious and political sensitivities involved, no archaeological excavations and only limited surface surveys of the Temple Mount have been conducted.” [Wikipedia]

That’s putting it mildly. Solomon’s Temple is buried under the Dome of the Rock! Do you suppose that the Mullahs are going to allow any excavation that might provide evidence of Israel’s prior claim to the Temple Mount?

Note, however, that you can dig all you want on Mount Gerazim. Despite this fact, how long did it take them to find this palace? They just found it! And yet Schulz can call Solomon’s Temple “total nonsense”! It is laughable.

1. Schulz’s language is prejudicial toward Judah, referring to their “smears,” “ruses” and “frauds.” A review of the author’s treatment of other religious subjects in Der Spiegel reveals a similar approach to other traditionally revered religious figures. Luther is a liar, per Schulz. Tischendorf, a thief.

2. The author uncritically presents Samaritan traditions as fact, and Judean traditions as revisionist. “[The Samaritans] were once the guardians of the Ark of the Covenant and the keepers of the Mosaic tradition. But then they became the victims of a smear campaign.” Says who?

3. No opposing views are presented or engaged with, except for that of the ancient historian Josephus, and his viewpoint is presented so weakly that you might miss the fact that he completely contradicts the author’s narrative. Ah, well. Josephus can hardly be trusted anyway, Schulz suggests, as Josephus is “himself a Jew”.

4. If you notice, there are very few actual facts presented in the article. Most of the prose is used to frame the Samaritans sympathetically on an emotional level. The few facts which are presented seem to have obvious alternative interpretations.

For instance, the presence of a grand palace on Mount Gerazim in 1000 B.C. would not, in itself, exclude the possibility of an even grander temple in Jerusalem. According to I Kings 10:27, when Solomon reigned over a unified Israel, “silver was as common as stone”; that is, the whole kingdom was amazingly prosperous, including “Samaria.”

Schulz asserts that Jerusalem was very small before the Assyrians destroyed Samaria. However, this is contradicted by the historical records of the Assyrians themselves. The Assyrian prisms and especially the Lachish Reliefs describe the southern kingdom of Judah as rich and powerful at the time of Samaria’s fall. Here is Sennacherib boasting of his military exploits in Judah:

“As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered (them) by means of well-stamped (earth-) ramps, and battering-rams brought (thus) near (to the walls) (combined with) the attack by foot soldiers, (using) mines, breeches as well as sapper work. I drove out (of them) 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered (them) booty. Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage.”

Doesn’t sound much like a poorly populated village, does it? Samaria fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C. and King Hezekiah reigned 728–699, so this passage is contemporaneous with the dates in question.

“Perilously”? More like “actually”.

If the thesis described in the article is correct, and the dominant Jews had begun to erase the legacies of their Samaritan competitors, are there any methods of analysis that could weight the likelihood of one denomination’s text or another being accurate?

(A third possibility is that neither the Jewish nor the Samaritan versions are authoritative, and that a third shoot from an Abrahamic root may have existed and retained accurate texts.)

The study of the transmission of the Pentateuch indicates that Samaritans and other early Jews shared an early stage of traditions and Scripture. We should keep in focus the possibility that a manuscript with a reading found in the Samaritan Pentateuch may not be the result of editing by Samaritans; it may represent the original reading. Thus, the MT and other related text types may represent redaction by others, notably Jews in Judea, especially after the burning of the Samaritan “altar” by John Hyrcanus in the late second century BCE.

It’s an interesting hypothesis, although it obviously falls far short of proof. In the first place, it seems to accord rather too easily with the contemporary postmodern assumption that texts are shaped to support the powerful against the powerless. In the second place, and although this may come perilously close to ad hominem argumentation, I find something vaguely disquieting about a German publication writing about a supposed Jewish conspiracy.

Also, aren’t there Babylonian records of Nebuchadnezzar boasting of destroying the temple? That’s archaeology.