What was the Holy of Holies? | GotQuestions.org See Ritmeyer, Quest, 77400, for a complete description of the temple according to the Mishnah. 25:10-16 ). During the ritual, the High Priest would pronounce the Tetragrammaton, the only point according to traditional Judaism that it was pronounced out loud. The interior was covered with plates of beaten gold. At Passover, which celebrated the exodus from Egypt, the Passover lambs were sacrificed at the temple and then taken to the homes, where the festival was celebrated by families. This festival was held on the tenth day of the seventh month, which began with Rosh Hashanah initiating the fall new year, four days before the Feast of Tabernacles. Each week the tribes of Israel offered twelve loaves of bread to the Lord on the table, and at the end of the week the priests ate them on the Sabbath. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? Josephus, who was an eyewitness of the temple, reported, The exterior of the building lacked nothing that could astound either mind or eye. 515 BC (Ezra 56); that temple would stand until ca. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which is presumed to have been built at the same location before its destruction by the Neo-Babylonian Empire during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in c. 587 BCE. The Altar of Incense: Where Was It Located? - Christian Courier Josephus wrote that the Temple was a furlong by a furlong, approx 600' x 600' square. The Temple curtain was suspended vertically, not horizontally. To the north of the mount was the Roman Antonia Fortress, and to the west and south was the city of Jerusalem. According to Maimonides ("Yad," Bet ha-Beirah, iv. Bible. When the Temple was rebuilt after the Babylonian captivity, the Ark was no longer present in the Holy of Holies; instead, a portion of the floor was raised slightly to indicate the place where it had stood. The Holy of Holies was the innermost chamber in the wilderness tabernacle, a room so sacred only one person could enter it, and then only one day out of the entire year. TEMPLE OF HEROD - JewishEncyclopedia.com The exact location of the Holy of Holies is a contentious issue, as elements of questioning the exact placement of the Temple are often associated with Temple denial. Seventh-Day Adventism (SDA) believes that the Holy of Holies on Earth was a copy of the true tabernacle in heaven,[25] and this view can also be seen in other Christian denominations.