Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed
Luke 19:41–44; 21:5–6, 20–24; Matthew 24:1–2; Mark 13:1–2
After a five-month siege, the Roman army under Titus took Jerusalem, burned the temple, and leveled the city, just as Jesus had foretold forty years earlier. The sacrifices of the Law came to an end.
But he answered them, “You see all of these things, don’t you? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down.”
Matthew 24:2 (World English Bible)
Josephus, who watched the siege, describes famine, factional fighting inside the walls, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. Jesus had wept over the city, foreseeing that its enemies would surround it and not leave one stone on another (Luke 19:41–44). The Arch of Titus in Rome still shows the lampstand from the temple being carried in his triumph.
With the temple gone, the book of Hebrews' teaching that Christ's one sacrifice had made the old sacrifices obsolete (Hebrews 8:13) was plain for all to see.
Places
Ancient witnesses outside the Bible
Historical sources, not Scripture.
- War 6.4.5–7 — the temple burns
- War 6.9.3 — Josephus's count of the dead and the captives
- War 7.1.1 — the city is demolished
Dating notes
The temple burned in August AD 70, on the 10th of the Jewish month Ab by Josephus's count; the upper city fell a month later. Ussher's dates agree.