Herod Renovates the Second Temple

In the 18th year of his reign, −20/−19, according to Josephus (Antiquities 15.380–425), Herod the Great began rebuilding the Second Temple. To reassure the people he gathered materials in advance and trained 1,000 priests as masons and carpenters, so that no layman would enter the sacred areas. Josephus says the sanctuary took a year and a half and the courts and porticoes eight years, though work went on until about 63. Herod doubled the Temple Mount by building massive retaining walls around the hill and filling them, creating a platform of about 144,000 square meters, crowned on the south by the Royal Stoa.

The Western Wall, the holiest place of Jewish prayer today, is part of Herod's retaining wall; one stone in the Western Wall Tunnels is about 13.6 meters long. Excavations have uncovered Robinson's Arch, the southern steps used by pilgrims, and a Greek inscription warning gentiles not to pass into the inner courts on pain of death. The rabbis, no admirers of Herod, still said, "Whoever has not seen Herod's building has never seen a beautiful building" (Bava Batra 4a). The Temple was destroyed in 70, only a few years after the work ended.