Herod the baby-butcher destroyed the Temple!

According to the documentary Ancient Jerusalem: A Journey Back in Time (Cromwell Productions' Lost Treasures of the Ancient World video series), Herod "the Great" (?!) actually destroyed the Jerusalem Temple built by Zerubabel and the returning exiles in the late 6th century BCE, and completed c. 519 BCE.

One of the scholars consulted said that "Herod's Temple should really be considered 'Temple 2-A'" and went on to say that Herod actually built his temple as a shell over the original Second Temple. When his outer temple was completed, then he ordered his workmen to begin dismantling the original Second Temple. Apparently, this conformed with Jewish Law at the time -- seemingly having something to do with never having the temple cease operations, and ensuring that there was a "seemless handoff" (my words) from 'Temple 2' to 'Temple 2-A'. (This is also recorded at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple .)

Never-the-less, the fact remains: Herod "the Great" (?!) dismantled the Second Temple built by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.

And, interestingly, just as Herod "the Great" (?!) -- who was a non-Jew, an Idumean, and a pagan Roman puppet king -- finished tearing down the legitimate Second Temple, John the Baptist and Yeshua the Messiah were born... and Herod died. Moreover, Christians recognized that the Messiah embodies the true "Spiritual Temple" (John 2:21). Thus, no sooner did a pagan and God-denying butcher destroy the legitimate Second Temple, then Almighty God sent His firstborn son, Yeshua the Messiah, and began raising up the true "Spiritual Temple" (3rd Temple?) in its place!

 

When Herod "the Great" (?!) died, the outer precincts were as yet incomplete. They were not completed for nearly 50 years, only being finished in the 40s CE. As the aforesaid video points out, the Romans began administering Judah more harshly in 44 CE. And recall that Jews were expelled from Rome in c. 49 CE by Emperor Claudius. Thus, around the time that Herod's "Temple 2-A" was completed, the Jews began uprisings against Rome that provoked Roman crack-downs.

Because of the central importance of the Temple to the Messianic prophecies so prevalent in 1st century Judea, I suspect that Herod's temple was an attempt to distract, with grandiose physical splendor, from the greater but invisible spiritual temple God was raising in its stead.

Saying 113 of the Gospel of Thomas happens to capture this point:

[T]he Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it​