Hey everybody, it's Pastor Shelley for a special episode of the Baptist Bias and
I'm really excited to
talk about the whaling wall and we're gonna have some people joining us in here for
live discussion as well.
If you have a question, you can always drop it into the chat and
we'll put it in there. And so very excited to do a live stream. Talk about the whaling wall.
And just hopefully you like the new setup and everything like that, but
we'll go ahead and get started and
It's just kind of just free free fall just kind of going to go through it a little bit
but the wailing wall is something that I personally didn't really know much about and
I've kind of just looked into a little bit
We can look at some of the geography Google Maps and things like that as well, but
One of the questions I asked, especially when we think about scripture being fulfilled is,
was the wailing wall a part of the temple?
And I think I asked that question because of course, in the Bible in Matthew chapter 24,
the Bible says there should not be one stone left upon another, and
we know that Jesus Christ was giving a prophecy about
specifically
the buildings of the temple.
And I want to see if I can, maybe I can bring this up on the screen just for a second and we'll make this a little bit bigger.
But in Matthew 24, the Bible says in verse 1,
And Jesus went out and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple.
And Jesus said unto them, See not all these things, verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another.
that shall not be thrown down." And so the Bible makes it clear, and Jesus made it clear that
these things would be thrown down. So I just kind of asked ChatGBT just to get some basic information, but...
I asked them, was the Wailing Wall part of the temple?
And then it says, yes, the Western Wall, often called the Wailing Wall, was a part of the
Second Temple in Jerusalem specifically.
It is a remnant of the retaining wall that supported the expanded Temple Mount platform
built by Herod the Great in the first century BCE.
The Western Wall itself was not part of the temple building, but rather one of the outer
walls that surrounded the temple complex.
or AD, but this section of the wall survived and remains one of the holiest sites in Judaism today.
Jews consider it sacred because it is the closest accessible place to where the Holy of Holies,
the most sacred part of the temple, once stood. So ChatGBT is telling us that the Western Wailing
Wall is part of a retaining wall of the Temple Mount platform, but it was not a part of the
And, you know, if you understand the timeline, this would be kind of a silly question, just
simply because of the fact that the Wailing Wall was a part of an expansion way later
with the Second Temple.
So the first temple of Solomon's, it would not even have existed at that time.
So it says, no, the Wailing Wall also known as the Western Wall is not part of Solomon's.
Temple is actually a remnant of the retaining wall that supported the platform in which
Herod's Temple, the Second Temple stood.
Key points Solomon's temple first temple built in the 10th century BCE by King Solomon. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE
No visible remains of this temple exists today second temple rebuilt after the Babylonian exile and later expanded by King Herod around 19
BCE and then Western wall part of the retaining wall of the expanded temple Mount during Herod's renovation not the temple structure itself and so
Let's go ahead and just get a little information about this. If you go to Jerusalem,
this temple mount exists today. This is kind of a modern picture of what the temple mount looks
like today. And you'll kind of notice that the western wailing wall is right here, kind of trying
to highlight it on my screen for you. It's down here in the bottom, you can kind of see. And we
The Dome of the Rock is situated where it is believed that the temple was, and then you have just other shrubs and vegetation out here.
You have some Muslim buildings that are also built up on top of this.
This was the original Temple Mount location where the Dome of the Rock is.
Essentially, they're just saying when Jews want to get as close to that spot as possible,
this is kind of the closest spot that they have accessibility to.
Because of jurisdiction, because of the fact that there's still a controversy
who over-owns parts of this land and this structure,
and so Muslims get to go to some parts, Jews get to go to other parts,
This section is kind of the closest section that they can get to this spot,
so that's what it was bringing up. So this is what's known as that famous western wailing wall,
part of the stump mount structure. If we kind of look at some diagrams of what the temple would
And, you know, I'm just seeing, I guess we have a few people in here.
If you have a question, you can put it in the chat and I'll try to get to that if you
have any live chat questions that you want to ask me.
But we have this diagram and I kind of want to walk through this a little bit.
Illustration, this is someone who illustrated what they believe this would have looked like. A here is what's known as the Antonia Fortress
B is known as the colonnades. C is the inner pranks precincts
D is the stone balustrade
It says E is the court of the Gentiles. It's this kind of outward area
Then you have a viaduct here with F, G, or some steps meeting into this meeting hall, a meeting hall right here.
And so, if you were to try to understand where the wailing wall would be on this diagram, it would be approximately right down here.
This would be that western wailing wall.
And this specifically, this would be the temple, and then this is like the temple complex.
So, when Jesus Christ is saying that the buildings of the temple are going to be...
you know, thrown down and not one stone is left upon another.
It seems very obvious that what Jesus Christ was referring to
is what was built on top of this Temple Mount platform
and not necessarily this retaining wall area.
And of course, it makes sense because first of all, they had to be thrown down.
That's what the text says.
And you have to ask the question thrown down from what?
So again, if we look at the text, it says in Jesus.
said unto them, see, not all these things, verily, I say unto you, there shall not be left
here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. So they were thrown down.
Whenever they were looking at it, he said they were showing them the buildings of the temple. And so
This actually fits that the Western willow wall it still potentially exists because this is the buildings of the temple and
You know, you could argue this too, but these things were thrown down off of the temple mount not the retaining wall over here
Now here's another picture and again, this kind of gives you another like more zoomed out view of this particular structure
It says, you know, kind of the same things number 10 is the Antonia Fortress number one is the temple
Number two is that temple complex. You can kind of see the the labeling over here three again is the courtyard of the gin tiles
Four is the colonnades again
Five is that viaduct.
You have the six, the steps leading to the meeting hall, you have the meeting hall, you
have viaduct over the Kidron Valley over here in the Mount of Olives.
So again, that Western whaling wall would have been about right here.
and you have these buildings of the temple up here.
So there are two different things completely
when we talk about fulfilling scripture.
Now to kind of give an idea
of what this actually looks like,
there's a great video by Todd Fink.
Holy land site where he talks about the temple mount and everything, but he has actually shown a lot of the
archaeological evidence
for that first temple then the
Hasmonean
expansion and then the quote Herodian expansion now this yellow box here that you can kind of see outlined
That is like the first temple
Mount so this would be like Solomon's temple and arguably the one that Nehemiah and them
Rebuilt on you kind of have this retaining wall
The Hasmonean is talking about the period of the Maccabees, so it's about a hundred or so years prior to Christ coming.
It's several hundred years after they had rebuilt the Second Temple.
And then the Herodian expansion is, again, this is Herod.
It's estimated to be maybe some time around.
19 BCE I think is what chat GPT it suggested to us again if you understand kind of where we're at this right here would be that
Western
Wailing wall portion again, which is a quote retaining wall
The whole point of a retaining wall is to create a level surface
So they would build essentially a box and then they would fill in the rest with dirt
so that it would be a flat level surface to then build on top of. And again, you have this expansion
and another expansion so you could build more and more on it. But you need these retaining walls
to keep the dirt in these sections. Here's kind of another diagram. So again, the Western Wailing
Wall would be somewhere, and forgive me, my drawing is not perfect here, but somewhere in this area
You notice that the original temple platform would have been kind of this box right here,
which is a perfect square.
And then you have the Hasmonean expansion right here.
You have the Herodian expansion, which kind of goes in a bigger outline over here.
Now, the Eastern Wall never had an expansion because it's just so close to the cliff of
the Kidron Valley.
And so there's not really anywhere for it to go.
never really expand that. It's just they kind of expanded in the other directions around here.
This...
Peak right here is kind of the high point of
Mount Mariah and the Bible tells us that the temple was built on Mount Mariah
And so they kind of needed to build this retaining wall and fill in dirt all around it to meet this or match the height of
This mountain peak so they could have a flat surface again to build upon
So and again, if you have any questions or anything, you know, feel free to throw them in our live chat
And, uh, I'd love to answer some questions.
We got several people watching the show.
I'll scroll down.
You know, some people don't understand like what are attaining all this.
I just kind of put this on the screen, just give you an idea of what
are attaining all is, you know, in areas where you build a lot of houses, even.
you have a retaining wall so then you can fill in with dirt and grass and everything and then you
can have a flat surface for your house because maybe your house is built on an angled hill or
it's just not a good surface and so you have this particular structure here this retaining wall
and someone could say like this is my house but when they say their house they're not really meaning.
This is literally your house. This is just kind of the part of their property and so obviously the house itself
The structure is built over here on top of so it's possible and it's plausible that you know
When people would be up here somewhere that they would just refer to all this loosely as the temple
But you know, that's not necessarily
always accurate as far as what the Bible is describing when it says the temple.
I believe when it's talking about the temple, it's talking about this and it's talking about
this temple complex. And you know, it could be also in sometimes reference to someone walking
into this area, but when we see Jesus bringing up this quote in Matthew 24 that the buildings of
the temple, we're not going to be talking about this quote retaining wall that's down here. That
would be obviously something that's separate and that it's not, it really isn't part of the temple.
it's just a retaining wall to fill in dirt and then you could build a temple on top of it.
So just so that people kind of understand what these structures even are.
Here's kind of like an idea of what a retaining wall does, you have the wall,
then you fill in with dirt, gravel, whatever, so that you can then
basically create a new structure on top of this. Here's kind of a bird's eye view.
of what this would look like and again this is essentially where the dome of
the rock is where this little T idea is and you have this green square is that
original Solomon's temple structure and this this kind of more odd shaped red is
really the Herodian.
specifically expansion. The purple's kind of that temple complex and then you
have the temple itself. And then this blue down here, this is where, this is
that area where the Jews would come, this is that wailing wall place where
you'd see, you know, all the presidents and all these people just kind of going
up against the wall. That is this area over here and again, it's kind of the
closest place they have to get to this spot just because it's under Muslim
have control over it. Here's a couple other pictures. These are just artistic illustrations
of what they think these things might have looked like. Again, here is that temple,
temple complex. Here's the entire temple mount. And then down below, this would be that
Um, in this picture, you can't even see the western wailing wall at all.
So this is the temple complex.
This is the temple.
The wailing wall will be like somewhere way over here, but you, and then down below you
couldn't even see it.
Here's part of a retaining wall on the east side, but on the other side would be the western
wailing wall.
Here again is that picture.
Here's the western wailing wall section down here somewhere.
Uh, again, this picture doesn't really show it.
and kind of an idea of what the city would have looked like over there is
gonna be kind of where that Western whaling wall is again and notice it's
up against this cliff this eastern side and this is that Kidron Valley so this
is really steeped down Kidron Valley area and again it makes it for a pretty
strategic
Building instruction, you know, from enemy invaders or attackers or different things like that. They have this geographical
Situation where it makes it very difficult to attack from that particular side. So it's kind of advantageous
Here's another map, and this kind of just shows some different pictures. Here's kind of that
Antonio Fortress up here. Kind of drew too big, just right there. Here's that temple,
then you have the temple complex, then you have kind of that original temple mount,
then you have what we can see now with the Herodian expansion. And then the Western Wailing
What's kind of interesting is the pool of Siloam.
They ended up finding, signing this like little pathway where people could walk all the way
up here and then they kind of come in the temple.
So they would kind of wash themselves and then they could walk all the way up and come
up to this temple mount.
You have, again, the Gijuan Valley and then over on this side you have the Mount of Olives.
Was against the Mount of Olives. I'm gonna see if I can pull that verse up
Yeah, so and zoom out, okay, there we go
Mark 13.3 and as he sat upon the Mount of Olives over against the temple Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately
so the Bible tells us that the
Temple is over
Against the Mount of Olives, which we can see that Mount of Olives is right here
This would have been the pathway or the journey that the Lord Jesus Christ used to come into the temple and so
It's kind of interesting when you see this kind of can see like, oh, there's that Kidrun Valley.
You can see it's very low spot. And then the tip of Mount was set up here really high on Mount
Mariah. And then again, over here would be that western wailing wall.
I'm going to keep, keep going with some of these pictures. Yep. Here's another, this is,
this is a really good one too. Here's again the east. This is the east.
side and you can see it goes down into the Kid Drone Valley here. Here is that a original 500
qubit original Solomon temple platform as well as here's the Hasmonean expansion
and then you have the larger temple mount expansion and then the western wailing wall
again is right there so it's part of the Herodian expansion and so
We'll keep going. Here's Herod's Temple. This is just kind of an idea. Again, the Western Wailing Wall will be down here back
down below. That's the wrong spot. It'd be down below here, but you have the Temple of the Temple Complex.
Here's again the Temple and the Temple Complex, which have been built on top of the Temple Mount.
Here's another great picture. So again, this is kind of a current idea. So you have this dome of the rock that's up here
Then you have down below this western wailing wall again
That's the spot where Jews come and they kind of do their thing up against that wall
And that's just because they don't have access to come into this spot right now
You'll notice a lot of vegetation notice all the vegetation the trees and everything because this is just a retaining wall
and then this is filled in with dirt. So then because this is filled in with dirt and top
soil and everything like that, then you can of course put gardens and grass and trees and all
this kind of different stuff, you know, in all these different areas. Because again, this is not
like just a building. This is a retaining wall. And then it's filled in with dirt. So whenever Jesus
Temple and the temple buildings. This was the buildings that were built on here
They were then thrown off of the temple mount structure
And I I want to show a video. I
Think I have I think I have a video pulled up. Yeah
Now, what's interesting is when they were coming to this portion of the western wall
near that area, they actually found a ton, a ton of stones.
And I want to play some of this video and listen to a guy named Joel Kramer.
He's someone that has been studying this and archeologist in Israel and Jerusalem.
Let's see what he has there.
First archaeology, hopefully you'll hear this okay.
Barrowed his way down through the pile of stones out there.
There at the tunnel.
Little area.
Through the pile of stones.
Hello.
This is where you come out of the sewage tunnel that runs all the way down to near the pool
of slum.
It's into this tunnel that I tried to take you that it was locked through.
At that end, so it must be closed.
Okay, I'm gonna stop if you if you notice they have like all of these giant rocks here
Not all of them are still there
They've actually excavated a large portion of these and and removed tons of these and got them out of the way
but there's all these giant stones that were thrown down off of the Temple Mount and
If I kind of go back
I believe they're just they're just somewhere in this area is where they're looking, you know
They're noticing not the actual Western Wall, but I think it's like it's over in this area
But they have all these stones that you can see
I think just on the other side of this is where that Western Wailing Wall is and so you kind of see these rocks
No, it was an intentional destruction it was you can just destroy something or you can destroy something
I think it was
You can just destroy something or you can destroy something
Well they don't let you get over to the rocks anymore but
Let me get out my book and just read that scripture one more time
Yeah, let's go back to this sign for a second
Notice again collapsed on paved stone or I'm sorry collapsed on the paved street are stones of the western wall of the temple Mount
Enclosure they were hurled down by the soldiers of Roman Legion after the destruction of the temple on the ninth day of the month of
of
70 CE
so
Again, they, they say western wall, but like they're just talking about, again, um, if
we go back, we're just talking about this entire wall is considered the western wall.
We typically notice this as the wailing wall or the western wailing wall because of this
section, but they're just saying the, the stones were thrown off of this wailing wall.
Notice they're saying specifically in 70 CE.
Just just kind of interesting they have those stones there
There's this teaching going around America, and Bob Cornuke is a name that comes up often,
but there's many others that are also teaching this, and it's the teaching that
that the temple was not on the Temple Mount. It was somewhere else, either the city of David or the Western
Hill. How many have heard that teaching?
Just out of curiosity. I'm trying to figure out. Yeah
Okay, so now this is what they tell you, in that teaching this is what they tell you.
They say, Jesus said, and we're about to read the scripture, but Jesus said that there is
not one stone on top of another, and then they say to everybody, look, do you see there's
one stone on top of another, just can't be.
If this is where the temple was, then Jesus is a false prophet.
So now let's read the actual scripture.
It's Matthew 24, 1-2. I'm reading out of my book here.
It says this,
Rewind your mind, time line wise, to the time of Jesus,
where the temple building is up there.
The royal stoa is above us, which we'll see in the model later on.
and so they're up on the temple mount and it says this Jesus left the temple
and was walking away so he's walking away from the temple when his disciples
came up to him to call his attention to what it's buildings what specifically
are they drawing the attention to you the the magnificent buildings that are
Do you see all these things he asked? Truly, I tell you
Not one stone here will be left on another
Everyone will be thrown down
What so he's talking specifically and it says the buildings is what he's talking about
Not one stone will be left on another. They all will be thrown down. Where how would they be thrown down off of what?
Off of the Temple Mount which is the holes in the wall in the streets that you just passed
Okay, so
This is
Yeah, so I just wanted to show this a little bit because again, we're not over there
We can't see that
I'm wondering let's see if we can just pull it up on Google Maps and
Just kind of look at this real quick
Someone asked in the chat. What is the steelman argument or
So again here
If you kind of zoom in see all these rocks down here in this spot right here
This is exactly where that this video is being filmed somewhere right here
And again, this area is that Western whaling wall so we could drop a drop a guy down here and look
Yeah, so here's what here's that iconic picture of just what you would see and assume like here's the western wailing wall
Here's that scaffolding and then on the other side of this scaffolding
You have this section right here, and I don't know let's see if we can drop down into there or not
I don't know. I haven't tried this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's exactly where we were
In that particular video and we see all these stones and the whole ground is just like
destroyed and mangled and everything like that they had excavated a large
portion of all of these stones at at one point so we're just kind of getting an
idea you know from my understanding the the absolute best argument
Or the idea that the temple wasn't really on the temple mount is simply just saying one stone should not be left upon another
But I mean really if you look at the evidence here, this is not part of the temple
It's never been part of the temple
It was an expansion around the temple complex and when Jesus, you know talks in Matthew 24
he specifically brings up the idea that
There should not be one stone left upon another that should not be thrown down
When he's talking about the buildings of the temple. So again, you have him talking about
Here
the buildings of the temple and then they're thrown down you have to ask this question like what were they thrown down from and
Another another thing you got to think about is like where did the stones go?
You know stones are just magically disappear or something like that
So it makes sense that we could still find like a bunch of stones and rocks down here
If there was just tons and tons of debris and everything falling down
Whereas people who suggest another theory don't seem to have a pile of rocks or a pile of buildings that
You know, we really can look at and observe and say this is where that was located
There is other arguments for you know, saying that they think that the temple
Was not on the temple mount
And I do want to address that and I will address a lot of those things. We're gonna probably have another live stream
I'm gonna have a couple more live streams where I talk about these things
but I just want to do one specific video about the Western whaling wall and
Just kind of identifying what that is. It's definitely not part of the temple
When Jews go there, you know, and they're worshiping they're just trying to get as close to this spot as possible
I don't think that any of them really truly believe that it was, that Western Wall was part of the temple or the temple complex.
But obviously you could argue at the time of Christ that retaining wall was there and people were walking around in this area and they loosely referred to that as the temple.
So I understand that point, but it's definitely not a part of the temple. It's definitely not part of the temple buildings.
you know, sometimes words can be used in different ways, like the word Christian could have multiple
contexts, the word wine can have multiple contexts, Israel can have multiple contexts,
Zion can have multiple contexts. And so we want to make sure that when we're
describing these things that we're being specific as to what we're kind of describing,
what we're talking about.
If anybody has another quick question, you throw it in the chat and I'll address it.
But otherwise, I think this is a pretty straightforward video.
I just wanted to give you an idea of, again, what the Western whaling wall is, what it
Fulfilled by Jesus Christ and yet you can still have this quote
Expansion there. I think that some people maybe get confused about what a retaining wall is
Again, here would be where that's at wasn't a part of the temple. Here's where that Western Wailing Wall was at again
you have it down here again, not part of the temple or the temple complex,
but rather down here is just a retaining wall to be able to fill in the dirt so that you could have a place to build the temple,
which makes total sense. I mean,
you have to understand that if you were going to build something like a house, you can't build it just on top of a mountain.
Your architecture would be
vein. You need a flat level surface in order to build something on. So they have
to first put, you know, this platform together so that you can then build the
temples on it. It makes total sense that, you know, this would structure would
last for the centuries and that we would have it still today and it hasn't been
lost. It's just obviously been new construction was built upon it, but
We'll talk about that in a later video someone asked where's been? I don't know. I don't know where it's been
This is a, this is actually just a stream I'm doing from home and so I figured I would do some educational videos a little different style and of course we'll have our show in the podcast studio and everything like that too.
But this is just kind of a special episode to talk about the whaling wall.
I'm really looking forward to some of our other live streams we'll have been in there and we'll have some other guests and everything like that but make sure to put in your comments in the chat.
later or just a comment down below and we'll also uh we'll also answer i'll try to answer them
later so if you didn't think of your question or you watched this stream later just put your
comments in the chat down below or in the comments and i'll try to go ahead and answer them uh
wrla tx says it makes total sense also to destroy the temple but not the retaining wall
Well, I don't think people understand how a retaining wall works because let's say I just just ripped up this wall
All that would do is just make all of this ground
unstable. It would make the dirt not have anything to hold it in. And so the dirt could
kind of slowly erode over time and dissipate. And then it would essentially just become
kind of like useless or wouldn't really benefit anything. So you're not going to really want
to get rid of a retaining wall that's filled in with dirt. And I mean, in order to get rid
of all of this, I mean, you would have to have a major, major project of getting rid
and landscaping to try and go back down to whatever in theory that mountain looked like.
It really is kind of absurd if you think about it, but it's clear that they had the temple mount
structure and they had the platform. The platform is not the temple, it's what the temple was built
on. And the Bible is very clear that the temple was built on Mount Moriah. I'm going to pull up this
Zoom out just a hair for you. Okay
Yeah
So the Bible says in 2nd Chronicles chapter 3 verse 1
Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Mariah
Where the Lord appeared and David his father in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornon the Jebusite
Additionally, that's this that's the place
Approximately, maybe even exactly where Abraham took Isaac to offer him upon the altar. So pretty significant spiritual place
Um, when it comes to the temple, it's meaningless for us Christians today, you know, the temple
that was really important was the temple of Jesus Christ's body that was sacrificed for
us and did not stay dead, but rose again and salvations by simply believing in him.
We don't need that temple.
Um, in fact, I believe the next temple that's going to be built there is the anti-Christ
temple.
Definitely not something I'm in support of somebody else asked. Where did they get the idea of wailing at a wall?
I think the wailing is just this they're lamenting
The fact that their temple is destroyed and so they're sad and they're they're upset that they can't worship in the temple right now that they
Just have this retaining wall
That's the closest spot they can get to and that the Muslims have control of it
So I think it's just called the wailing wall because you just see a lot of people crying and wailing at that wall
And so that's where it kind of get the nickname the wailing wall
but
Great question enlightened
91 I
Think I can know it's not working
let me see. Yeah, there we go. So someone was asking, where's Ben? But thanks again guys
for tuning in. This is a special episode of the Baptist bias, where we talked about the
And I hope that, you know, if you're interested in this subject, you stick with us
because we're going to have a couple more live streams about this topic.
But I'm looking forward to having another season three in the fall
and really appreciate our support and our fans.
And like 91 says, I think Project Stargate will have something to do with the mark of the beast.
You might be right.
I don't know.
Someone is asking us to do a show about that and I don't even know.
I don't know anything about it yet.
I need to probably research that more
before I talk about Stargate.
But thanks, guys, for tuning in.
God bless.
Don't get stuck on.
Don't go to the wall and wail.
Just recognize that Jesus Christ is our savior.
We don't need the Western Wailing Wall,
but I do want people to be educated on what it is.
So God bless.
Have a great day.