Biblical Archaeology Review

For a catalogue of 16 different interpretations see W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), vol. 1, pp. 331–334.

Whether “like a dove [hos peristeran]” qualifies “Spirit” and so means that we are to envisage the Spirit as actually having the form of a dove, or whether the words are adverbial and refer instead to the manner of the Spirit’s descent, is unclear, and commentators disagree.

Additional support for this location can be derived from the position of the underground cisterns, as surveyed by Warren. All of the cisterns, apart from cistern 12, fall outside the sanctuary, as I have located the Temple. (One would hardly expect to find people drawing water within the sanctuary itself.) As I have located the Temple, the large cistern 5 would be situated next to the Water Gate, which was near the altar, thus providing a convenient source of water for the service of the Temple.

Josephus, The Jewish War 5.51: “At first the plain at the top was hardly sufficient for the holy house and the altar, for the ground about it was very uneven, and like a precipice.”

Warren, Plans, Elevations, Sections, etc., Pl. XXXII.

Father Pierre Benoit, O.P. “The Archaeological Reconstruction of the Antonia Fortress,” in Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, pp. 87–89.

Although the underground passageway originally leading to it from the inside was still used by the priests (see further, endnote 30).

In his recently published book, Mamluk Jerusalem, Michael Burgoyne has identified a 4-meter wide Herodian wall running east-west along the southern edge of the Antonia rock plateau. This wall, the southern wall of the Antonia fortress, is in line with the preserved northeast corner of the Temple Mount.