Project Arc's Solomon's Temple
Solomon’s Temple is one of the most studied structures in biblical history—yet Scripture never gives us a modern architectural drawing. It gives us measurements, chambers, walls, windows, stairs, materials, furnishings, and construction details. But have we assumed the geometry connecting them?
Project Arc returns to 1 Kings 6–7 and asks whether Solomon’s Temple should automatically be reconstructed through the rectangular architectural lens of the Second Temple, Herod’s Temple, and later tradition.
This is an investigation, not a declaration.
Start With the Measurements
“And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.” — 1 Kings 6:2
The traditional reconstruction interprets these measurements through rectangular geometry. Project Arc asks whether that geometry is required by the text. The proposed nonlinear reconstruction examines curved and circular architectural possibilities while preserving the biblical measurements and construction details.
Temple — 60 × 20 × 30 cubits — 1 Kings 6:2
Porch — 20 cubits wide × 10 cubits deep — 1 Kings 6:3
Windows of narrow lights — 1 Kings 6:4
Three levels of side chambers — 1 Kings 6:5–10
Chamber widths — 5, 6, and 7 cubits — 1 Kings 6:6
Winding stairs connecting the levels — 1 Kings 6:8
Two bronze pillars — 18 cubits high — 1 Kings 7:15
The great round molten sea — 1 Kings 7:23–26
The question is simple: What happens when these details are assembled without first requiring the finished structure to be a box?
The Bronze Pillars and Circumference
1 Kings 7:15 describes each bronze pillar as 18 cubits high, with a 12-cubit line going around it. The Hebrew יָסֹב (yāsōb), from סבב (sābab), means to go around, surround, or encircle. Thus, 12 cubits is the circumference, giving a diameter of approximately 3.82 cubits.
This matters to Project Arc because Scripture can communicate circumference through measurement + “going around,” without requiring a specialized geometric word. However, סבב does not itself prove a circle. The geometry must be determined by the measurements, language, and architectural context together.
The Molten Sea & π
The molten sea was 10 cubits across and 30 cubits around (1 Kings 7:23)—a clear diameter-to-circumference relationship approximating π. For Project Arc, this establishes an important biblical precedent: linear measurements can describe circular geometry. Measurements such as width, length, and height therefore describe dimensions—but do not, by themselves, determine the geometry of a structure.
Jeremiah 31:38–39
Jeremiah 31:38–39 is significant because the prophecy moves from building, to measurement, to directional movement. The Hebrew uses מִדָּה (middah), “measure,” and קָו (qav), “measuring line.” Then comes וְנָסַב (wenāsab), from סבב (sbb)—to turn, go around, surround, or compass about.
The text does not simply say, “a circular wall.” But it does describe a measured boundary that turns and goes around, rather than merely continuing in a straight line.
The Greek Septuagint is even more visually striking, describing Jerusalem as being encompassed all around in circular language.
This does not prove Project Arc’s Temple reconstruction. It does, however, strengthen an important principle: biblical measurement language is fully capable of describing architecture that turns, surrounds, and curves.
Jeremiah 31 therefore challenges the assumption that biblical measurements must always be applied through straight-line geometry.
Measure the line. Follow its movement. Let the text determine the shape.
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Isaac Newton and Solomon’s Temple
Isaac Newton devoted extraordinary attention to Solomon’s Temple, studying its measurements, proportions, chronology, and symbolism because he believed its design contained an important divinely ordered pattern. Like other interpreters, however, Newton worked with inherited architectural assumptions and later historical sources.
Project Arc asks what happens if we begin one step earlier: before Josephus, before Herod, before the Second Temple. Return to 1 Kings 6 and assemble the evidence again.
Henry Sulley and Ezekiel’s Temple
In 1887, Henry Sulley published one of history’s most ambitious reconstructions of Ezekiel’s Temple. His interpretation is important because Sulley was willing to reconsider inherited geometry, envisioning a vast circular architectural system rather than simply reproducing the conventional Temple form.
Project Arc does not adopt all of Sulley’s conclusions. His work demonstrates something more important: serious students of Scripture have long recognized that biblical architectural descriptions may permit possibilities traditional reconstructions overlook.
Could Solomon’s Temple and Ezekiel’s Temple help illuminate one another? Let Scripture interpret Scripture.
Hebrew, English & Context
Zechariah 2:5 provides an important interpretive clue for Project Arc. The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, and every English Bible is a translation of that original language and thought. The Hebrew word translated “wall” describes the barrier itself, while saviv, translated “round about,” describes something surrounding or encircling. English communicates the meaning, but Hebrew can preserve spatial nuances and architectural clues that translations may not fully convey. Yet saviv does not automatically mean “circular”—Ezekiel 42:20 uses similar language for a four-sided enclosure.
Words provide clues; measurements provide dimensions; context helps reveal architecture.
What architectural clues might we miss when we read only the English measurements without examining the Hebrew words and their context?
Is the Bible correcting our religious traditions again?
Solomon's Temple
vs
Second Temple
vs
Herod's Temple
The 2nd Temple: An Interpretive Turning Point?
The destruction of Solomon's Temple marked more than the loss of a building.
It may also have marked the end of an earlier architectural tradition.
After decades in Babylon, the Jewish exiles returned and built the 2nd Temple. Centuries later, Herod greatly expanded it into the magnificent Temple seen by Jesus and described by Josephus.
Yet the measurements preserved for these three Temples are different.
Solomon's Temple
vs.
2nd Temple
vs.
Herod's Temple
Solomon’s Temple
60 L × 20 W × 30 H cubits
1 Kings 6:2, 1 Chronicles 28:19
God
Second Temple
60 H × 60 W cubits
Length not stated
Ezra 6:3
Cyrus the Great
Herod’s Temple
Major rebuilding and expansion of the Second Temple
Front: 100 H × 100 W cubits
Main body behind the front: 60 W cubits
Josephus, War 5.5.4–5
King Herod
According to Mishnah Middot 4:6:
100 L × 100 W × 100 H cubits
Three Temples.
Three different sets of measurements. Yet many modern reconstructions depict them as essentially the same rectangular
structure, differing primarily in scale and architectural detail.
But is that what Scripture and history describe?
If the measurements changed, should we also reexamine the architectural assumptions behind those reconstructions?
An intriguing historical observation invites further study.
Have we been viewing biblical architecture through a 2nd Temple Babylonian-Greco-Roman-Modern
architectural lens rather than through the architectural context of scripture itself?
The 2024 PLOS ONE Archaeomagnetic Study of the Ishtar Gate, Babylon 569 BC.
The Babylonian Question
The destruction of Solomon’s Temple may represent an important architectural turning point. After Jerusalem fell, the Jewish people lived for decades within the Babylonian world. When Cyrus permitted the exiles to return, the Second Temple arose in a different historical environment.
When its foundation was laid, younger people celebrated, but many older priests, Levites, and fathers who remembered the former Temple wept (Ezra 3:10–13). Haggai later asked, “Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now?” (Haggai 2:3).
Why did they weep? Project Arc does not claim that the returning exiles copied Babylonian architecture or structures such as the Ishtar Gate. That would require evidence beyond Scripture. But the exile raises a legitimate historical question: Did Babylon change the architectural world through which later generations understood the Temple? If so, the Second Temple should not automatically become the blueprint for reconstructing the First.
Is this Babylonian architecture?
Possible → Plausible → Probable
Did Judean Exiles Help Build the Ishtar Gate?
Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt Babylon on a monumental scale, including the Ishtar Gate, commonly dated to around 569 BC. Judeans had already been deported to Babylonia during his reign, placing them there during this massive building period.
Babylonian evidence shows that some deported peoples were assigned to corvée labor and public building projects, although such use was apparently limited and hired labor was also important.
Did Judeans actually build the Ishtar Gate?
Possible: Judeans were present while Nebuchadnezzar’s building program was underway.
Plausible: Deportees could be used on royal public works, so Judean participation in Babylonian construction is historically reasonable.
Probable? Not yet. No known evidence specifically identifies Judean workers as builders of the Ishtar Gate.
What is much stronger is that exiled Judeans lived within the Babylonian world while its monumental architecture surrounded them. Whether that experience influenced later Jewish architectural expectations—including the Second Temple—is therefore a plausible historical question, not a proven conclusion.
Possible asks whether it could have happened. Plausible asks whether the historical evidence makes it reasonable. Probable requires evidence strong enough to favor it over competing explanations.
Four Steps of Biblical Interpretation
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Grammatical Meaning — What do the words actually say?
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Biblical Context — What do those words mean in context?
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Biblical Theology — How does this agree with the rest of Scripture?
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Biblical Doctrine — What truth should we believe and teach?
Neither tradition nor novelty gets the final word. Scripture does.
Which Reconstruction Best Fits the Evidence?
Project Arc is not asking you to believe Solomon’s Temple was round simply because a round reconstruction can be drawn. It is asking a more important question: Which geometry best explains the biblical evidence with the fewest assumptions?
Compare the traditional reconstruction with Project Arc’s nonlinear reconstruction. Check the measurements. Read 1 Kings 6–7. Compare the Tabernacle, Solomon’s Temple, Ezekiel’s Temple, and the New Jerusalem. Then reach your own conclusion.
The measurements have not changed.
The Scriptures have not changed.
Perhaps our picture should.
Return to the Text. Follow the Pattern. Examine the Evidence. Let Scripture Interpret Scripture.
Rediscovering Context
Some discoveries change our understanding without changing the evidence. The Rosetta Stone did not create ancient inscriptions; it provided a linguistic key that helped scholars understand writing that had existed for centuries. Martin Luther and the Reformation did not discover a new Bible; the Reformation called attention back to Scripture and challenged inherited traditions by asking whether they accurately reflected the biblical text. The Dead Sea Scrolls did not rewrite Scripture; they provided much earlier biblical manuscripts for comparison, demonstrating substantial textual continuity while also preserving variants that continue to be studied.
The evidence was ancient. Context brought greater clarity.
Project Arc asks whether biblical architecture deserves a similar reexamination. The measurements have been sitting in Scripture for thousands of years. Perhaps we do not need new measurements. Perhaps we need to examine the old measurements without inherited geometry determining the answer.
Could All but the Second Temple Have Been Nonlinear?
Project Arc asks whether Noah’s Ark, the Tabernacle, Solomon’s Temple, Ezekiel’s Temple, and the New Jerusalem could share a curved or nonlinear architectural pattern, while the Second Temple represents a departure.
Could the Second Temple be the exception rather than the pattern?
The measurements remain fixed. The geometry is the question.
A 2024 archaeomagnetic study analyzed fired bricks from Babylon's Ishtar Gate, dating its principal construction to approximately 569 BCE. The study concluded that the gate was built during a single major construction phase following Jerusalem's destruction, refining Babylonian chronology through magnetic signatures preserved within the bricks.
This places the Ishtar Gate's principal construction approximately 17 years after Jerusalem's destruction in 586 BCE, during the Babylonian captivity.
A Word About King Josiah, King Cyrus, and the Forgotten Pattern
In the days of King Josiah, a long-forgotten copy of the Torah was rediscovered in the House of the Lord (2 Kings 22). The tragedy was not that the Torah had been lost, but that it had been forgotten. As it was read, the nation realized how far it had drifted from God's pattern, leading to repentance and reform.
Did the original understanding of God's architectural pattern begin to fade after the death of King Hezekiah in 687 BC, causing later generations to interpret these biblical structures through a Babylonian, Second Temple, Greco-Roman, and modern architectural lens?
Not long afterward, Jerusalem fell, Solomon's Temple was destroyed, and the people were carried into Babylon. Decades later, King Cyrus permitted the Jewish exiles to return and rebuild the Second Temple (Ezra 1:1–4; 6:3). Many of those who returned had spent their lives surrounded by Babylonian culture and architecture.
When the foundation of the Second Temple was laid, many of the older priests, Levites, and family leaders who had seen Solomon's Temple openly wept (Ezra 3:12).
Years later, the prophet Haggai asked:
"Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?"
—Haggai 2:3
Why did the elders weep?
Why wasn't the rebuilt Temple identical to Solomon's Temple?
Project Arc explores whether an earlier architectural pattern may have gradually faded from memory during the Babylonian exile.
What did those elders see that we no longer see?
The measurements have never changed.
The Scriptures have never changed.
Perhaps the pattern has been forgotten.
Biblical Measurements.
Contextual Architecture.