TIME MAGAZINE PANDERS TO THE JEWISH-TEMPLE DENIERS:

Here is the first paragraph of an article on the Temple Mount in the current issue, with my emphasis in bold font:

The Peacemaker
An Israeli colonel tries to keep Jerusalem's Temple Mount, sacred to Muslim and Jew, from exploding

By ROMESH RATNESAR | JERUSALEM


REUTERS
HALLOWED GROUND: At the site of al-Aqsa Mosque Shacham is tasked with preventing violent incidents

The shouting echoed across the Temple Mount, a roar of anger in a holy place. On a brilliant fall morning, a group of devout Jewish men strolled slowly along the site's ancient stone walls, escorted by armed Israeli police, toward the base of the gleaming Dome of the Rock, where Jews believe Solomon and Herod built the First and Second Temples. To Muslims, the Temple Mount is known as Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), home to al-Aqsa Mosque and the place where Muhammad is said to have been carried to heaven by the angel Gabriel. The Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount are managed by the Wakf, an Islamic trust, and for the last three years Jews had not been allowed here.

I did a double-take when I read this in the print edition today. Jews believe? Jews believe? I've been trying to parse this sentence somehow to say something different from what it says. Could it be saying that Jews believe the temple was under the Dome of the Rock while others think it was elsewhere on the Temple Mount? No, that doesn�t work. The only thing I can make it say is that Jews believe there were temples on the Temple Mount and someone or everyone else believes they didn't exist or only existed elsewhere. In reality, Jews, Christians, Muslims who know the Qur'an (17.4-7) and their own traditions, and historians all "believe" that these temples existed on this site. This is not a contested view among historians, because the evidence for it is overwhelming. Who doesn't believe? Only the Jewish-temple deniers, known from the now defunct Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-Up and elsewhere, whose beliefs have recently been ably refuted by Ronald Hendel in his article "Was There a Temple in Jerusalem?" in which he summarizes the evidence. To see more about the deniers, keep following these two links as far back as they go.

This sentence is on the level of saying "Muhammad, the Prophet of Muslims, whom they believe to have lived in the early seventh century . . ." or "George Washington, whom Americans believe to have been their first President . . ." If historical evidence means anything, there was a Jewish temple on this site in antiquity. I'm all for being open minded about differing opinions held by historians who use credible methods, but this is bogus historical revisionism for a political purpose. I'm not judging the political issue here, which is a complex one outside the scope of this blog, but I will say that to use this kind of propaganda only weakens the case of the users.

The media's pandering to this view seems to be on the increase (David Nishimura of Cronaca noted another case from the BBC recently). They need to be called on it.

The same sentence in the Time article has another egregious error, but this one is probably merely careless rather than pandering: the Second Temple was built by the returning exiles in the late sixth century B.C.E. Herod, five centuries later, only restored and expanded it.

UPDATE: Seth Sanders e-mails:

Hendel's much-needed refutation of Temple-deniers has one defect, which is that it refers to an "iron-age inscription" mentioning the "Temple of YHWH" that may well actually date from the 90's (the Pardee/Bordreuil/Israel ostracton), and unfortunately Hendel doesn't mention that it's unprovenienced, let alone that its authenticity has been called into question by good epigraphers. No need to pile tiny bits of unreliable evidence on top of mountains of good evidence in order to add an inch to the mountain.

The inscription is an ostracon pub in Semitica by Pardee et al; it's probably a prime example of the smart forgeries Naaman shrewdly analyzes in your entry. There is a fiery and much-needed Jeremiad by Alex Joffee in the latest JNES against Mousaieff and those who sail with him. He puts the issues as sharply and clearly as they can be put. On a more analytical front, Chris Rollston has recently written the definitive article on methodology for dealing with forged inscriptions for the latest Cross Fs. (what is this, number 4?).

Fair enough, and thanks for pointing this out, Seth. I don't pretend to keep on top of Iron Age epigraphy any more, although I do try to dabble a bit in it. I've blogged before on the problem of forged unprovenanced inscriptions, the entry Seth refers to above (and note correction here in Cronaca), so I try to be cautious about accepting evidence from them.

But the mountain of evidence remains and denial that there was a temple on the Temple Mount simply isn't a viable position.