Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/208

 jç)o A History of Art in Sardinia and Judaea. CHAPTER III. ENUMERATION OF DOCUMENTS CONSULTED — METHOD USED IN THE RESTORATION — THE TEMPLE DESCRIBED. The site and the foundations of the monument which we propose to set up having been obtained, we must turn to ancient-written documents to demand of them the requisite materials for such a restoration. In the first rank should be placed the books of the Old Testament — notably chapters v. to viii. of i Kings, often quoted in the preceding pages. This book, as stated» received its present form during the Babylonian exile, about 550. 1 Many por- tions, however — the hiefatic furniture, and the description of the temple, 2 for instance — -if not coeval with, were Written when the edifice was still standing. To the time of exile must be placed the dream and speech of Solomon at the dedication of the same. 3 Unfortunately for us, the terminology in the passage which enumerates the various objects are met here, mostly, for the 1 Stade, l oc. cit., Th. Noldeke, Histoire littéraire de f Ancien Testament, pp. 75-78, 1873- 2 Stade is inclined to place this description some two hundred years after Solomon, i.e. towards the end of the ninth or the beginning of the eighth century, The fact that the temple occupies more space, and is described with much greater precision than the palace, leads him to infer as much — for indications in the text itself show that the area covered by the palace was considerably greater. If the palace is thrown in the background, this may have arisen from two causes : (1) the decay of the Jewish monarchy, and (2) the pillage of Jerusalem by the Egyptians and a king of Samaria (1 Kings xiv. 25; 2 Kings xiv. ti, 14), resulting in the destruction of a great part of Solomon's stately halls. Moreover, when this passage was written, the temple had assumed more importance than the palace ; which the compiler, doubtless a Lévite, could not fail to notice. That he wrote before the Assyrian invasion is proved by the fact that the melting down of the brazen sea, and such bronze pieces as had been saved, is recorded as having occurred in his time (2 Kings xvi. 17, 18). 3 1 Kings viii. 14-61 ; Ibid., ix. 1-9.