historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

80 LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN
is clear from the explanation that he (or his source, Nicolaus of
Damascus) puts into Herod's mouth as a reason for his decision to
build the Temple (Ant. 15.385). Herod is made to say that whereas
Solomon's Temple was 120 cubits high, the Temple built by the
returning exiles was limited by the Persian authorities to sixty cubits.
This notion must be derived from Ezra 6:3, which, as we already
noted, speaks of a Temple sixty cubits high.
The command in 11QT 4:8-12 to build the portico specifies the
size of the portico as twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide. The
"length" of twenty cubits is actually the width and the "width" actually
refers here to the depth of the portico. Put simply, one who
entered the Temple and proceeded inwards would traverse a distance
of ten cubits as he crossed the portico.
The scroll specifically informs us that the height of the portico
structure was to be sixty cubits. 34 Earlier, the text mentions that
the height of the sanctuary and the holy of holies is thirty cubits.
There is no height given in Kings for the Solomonic portico; however,
2 Chron. 3:4 gives the probably exaggerated figure of 120 cubits. 35
On the other hand, Herod's architects understood the Ezra passage
to indicate the height of the sanctuary (their interpretation of
but took the Chronicles passage to refer to the height of the
portico. Hence, the total height of the building comes to 120 cubits.
The Temple Scroll must have understood the height of sixty cubits
given in Ezra as referring to the entire structure, understanding
in that wider sense—not just referring to the sanctuary. The author
of the plan in the Temple Scroll assumed that this was a sufficient
height. On the one hand, he shares with the Herodian Temple the
notion that the Temple building should be half the height of the
portico and, therefore, emerges with a full height of thirty cubits.
On the other hand, it is possible that he expects the upper chamber
to be surrounded by side rooms, for which reason he expected
six levels of storied structures, whereas the other traditions speak of
only three.
34 On the height, see the detailed notes of Yadin, Temple Scroll, 2.14-15.
35 While the Septuagint agrees with this reading, the Codex Alexandrinus and
the Syriac read "twenty." This reading may originally derive from a scribal error,
or more likely is dependent on the height of the Tabernacle. In any case, it cannot
apply to the Solomonic Temple.