QUESTION: Marty; Does Socrates show anything with regard to the status quo of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem? I recently visited the site and I was shocked to hear that the temple plateau that once held two ancient is just a tad over 37 acres. That is one of your key numbers in the Economic Confidence Model 8.615 x 4.307 = 37.1 which is a strange coincidence. But then taking 365 days × 24 hours = 3600 hours and that amounts to virtually Pi 31536000 seconds in a year.
Do you have anything on Israel long-term?
Thank you
Jeff
ANSWER: What I can say from personal experience, is that I traveled all around Israel. I even climbed Masada as they did in ancient times rather than take to lift up. I climbed Masada which sits on the Dead Sea. I had hair then. By the time I reached the top, I had looked like Moses. The wind carries the salt off the seas and my hair was pure white but in an Afro wind-blown combination of Moses met Einstein. Probably the best movie of all time was the Mini-Series – Masada of 1981.
What I will say after touring all of Israel, I found that absolutely every site that was holy to the Jews and Christians except for Calvary seems to have been the same site that the Muslims also claimed was holy to them for different reasons. The Mount of Olives in Jerusalem marks at its foot the place of Jesus’ arrest, in the Garden of Gethsemane. On the top of Mount of Olives, is where tradition places the Risen Christ ascended into heaven. Tradition says he left a footprint on the rock.
Before Christianity was legalized in 313 AD by Constantine the Great, whose mother Helena was an avid Christian who scoured the Holy Land to mark every place related to Jesus, Jerusalem’s Christians used a cave near the summit of the Mount of Olives for gatherings and Mass. That cave was remembered reported as where Jesus taught the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, and it is still revered as such in the Paternoster monastery complex. I just found it curious how almost every spot was claimed by all three religions
The Temple Mount is what the Jews refer to it and the Muslims call it the Dome of the Rock. It contains a huge rock that the Jewish tradition says is that this is where Abraham was told to sacrifice his son. To the Muslims, the rock is the spot from which the Prophet Muhammad was taken up into heaven for an encounter with God (an event known as the Miʿrāj). Thus, it is the same rock and this symbolizes the clash between the two religions. At least Jesus did not do anything there for in his time, the Jewish Temple stood there until 70AD.
The Hebrew tribes settled in Canaan around c. 1200 BC. Add Pi, 3145 years, and you come to 1945. Israel’s declaration of independence took place on May 14th, 1948 (1948.367). The United States, the Soviet Union, and many other governments quickly recognized it. Then came 1967 in June when Israel was once again thus into war for the third time – but it was the shortest.
Israel succeeded against all odds and prevailed over the armies of three of its neighbors. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He also ordered the mobilization of the Egyptian military along the border with Israel. However, he further ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel a clear sign that war was about to start.
On June 5th, 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of pre-emptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities. It effectively destroyed the entire Egyptian airpower. By June 10th (1967.441), the Six-Day War was over. Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem, was reunited. For the first time in 19 years, the Old City was open to believers of all faiths and Jews could access their holiest sites. I was fortunate to have visited everywhere in the lat 1970s.
Tensions are once again rising since Israel allowed Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. The Jews have been praying at the base of the Temple Mount where the old Temple Wall still remained. Jordan was the custodian of the Dome of the Rock and is now demanding that the government cease Jewish prayer on the mount which began about five years ago. The Israeli government avoids addressing these silent prayers formally. They are taking place on the eastern side of the Dome of the Rock/Temple Mount, albeit without traditional Jewish prayer items such as tallit, tefillin, or siddur.
Meanwhile, Israel is in a constitutional crisis where there is an attempt to reduce the power of the judiciary. Allowing the prayer on the Dome of the Rock/Temple Mount is an encroachment that will eventually lead to a major confrontation. Our computer is projecting rising confrontation and looking to 2024 and beyond.
