Remembering the Destruction(s) of the Temple at the Museum of the Bible

Tucked away on the fifth floor of the Museum of the Bible (MOTB) in Washington, DC is a worn stone, weighing roughly a ton.(1) Unlike most museum exhibits, this one invites visitors to touch its rough surface. The stone would be unremarkable but for what it was made to support: the terrace of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The stone is on loan to the MOTB as part of an exhibit called "The People of the Land: History and Archaeology of Ancient Israel" by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). It once formed part of the Western Wall, the massive terrace that supported Herod the Great's expansion of the Second Temple complex.(2) As visitors touch this piece of the "temple," they accept the MOTB's invitation to a pilgrimage experience. As one evangelical news site put it, "It's an opportunity to get a glimpse of the Holy Land without visiting the Middle East" (Stahl and Mitchell 2017).