I have a question that hopefully Jewish members will be able to help me with, or at least people who are less ignorant than me when it comes to Judaism.
I don't get the whole Jerusalem Temple thing.
I understand it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE and that it was the centre of Judaism.
I get that...
But how come rebuilding it is such a big deal?
Why hasn't this been done already?
Pardon my ignorance on this matter.
Politics. According to Tacitus, the decision to destroy the Temple was made by Titus to destroy the moral of the rebellious Jews, so naturally later Flavian emperors didn't authorize the rebuilding of the Temple.
A Jewish midrashim source states that Hadrian in the early 2nd century CE had offered the Jews the chance to rebuild the Temple, but was later swayed by enemies of the Jews to change the plans drastically, in a manner problematic to the Jewish religion.
It is theorized by some scholars that during the Bar Kokhba Revolt, Jerusalem was captured by the Jews and they started rebuilding the Temple, but there is no straightforward evidence for this. Even if some version of the Temple was rebuilt, it was quickly destroyed by Hadrian shortly after. Indeed, multiple Christian patristic sources attest to Hadrian having destroyed Jerusalem whilst quelling the Revolt.
The first really serious and better-attested attempt was in the 4th century CE, when Emperor Julian decreed the Temple be rebuilt, however for reasons not entirely clear, the work was halted (sources attest some kind of supernatural fire breaking out; modern scholars think it may have been the result of an earthquake that took place in the Galilee at the time).
There were a few other attempt over the centuries, but none as close as during the time of Julian. The bottom line was that it didn't happen because the Jews never had enough power to do it, and when governments were willing at first, things quickly changed for some reason or other.
Nowadays the Temple isn't being rebuilt both because there hasn't yet been an Israeli government that was willing to do it (or interested) and because, even if there was, it would be a dangerous political decision because of the uproar that would be caused if the third most important Muslim site was taken apart by "the Jews". We need some good political maneuvering before we can start thinking about the Temple.
