There was not any one entity more central to the Yahwistic Judean religion during the monarchy than the temple of Solomon. It symbolized the presence of YHWH in the nation, as well as his enduring protection of the nation and the Davidic royal throne. Judean worshippers directed their prayers toward the Solomonic temple, and eventually, the Judean prophets and theologians declared that this was the only legitimate location where priests could perform sacrifices and other religious rites for YHWH. Its significance can be seen most clearly in the dramatic cognitive dissonance experienced by the Judeans in Babylonian captivity after the destruction of the temple, which had been so central to their religious conception that they had great difficulty reconciling its destruction with their continued belief in YHWH at all.
Jerusalem was uninhabited for much of the 6th century B.C., and this period is known as the exile to Babylon, and Bible scholars believe that it was during those years that the Jewish people came into contact with several stories and legends that would later be incorporated into their sacred writings. A generation later, Achaemenid Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews who so wished to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and reestablish their nation.
The Temple Mount remains the holiest place in Judaism and among the holiest in Islam, and due in part to that religious sensitivity and the current placement of the Al-Aqsa Mosque there, archaeological work is almost nonexistent. As a result, some have continued to question whether Solomon’s Temple ever actually existed, pointing not only to lack of physical evidence but also the fact that contemporary Jewish literature aside from the Bible makes no mention of it. The political tensions between the modern state of Israel and the Palestinians have also made the temple and all of Jerusalem contentious issues.
