Throughout history, there has been no doubt and no controversy concerning the location of the Israelite-Jewish Temples in Jerusalem - Solomon's Temple (in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, known also as the Tanakh) and Herod's Temple (in the Greek New Testament ). It has always been assumed that these Temples were located in the same spot where the Mosque of Omar or Dome of the Rock is located today. However, in modern times, in the 20th and 21st centuries, novel theories have arisen to dispute the traditional location. The most extreme of these suggest even that the Temple was located in some other country - in Yemen, Scotland or South America. Serious scholars dismiss these notions as crackpot nonsense. Some Palestinians claim the Temple was located not in Jerusalem but in Jericho. This is also dismissed as motivated by political and nationalistic ideology, with no basis in scholarship. There is also at least one theory that the Temple was in Jerusalem, but not in the area known as the Temple Mount or Haram as-Sharif , but just to the south of it. According to this theory, the Temple Mount was originally the site of Solomon's Palace , and later of the Herodian and Roman Antonia Fortress . Contradicting this idea is the archaeological fact that the Temple Mount was surrounded by one hundred mikvaoth , or ritual baths for purification. This means that the site was considered to have the utmost holiness and by no means was a secular area. Finally, there are theories that the Temple was indeed in the Temple Mount but not where the Mosque now is. Professor Asher Kauffman has demonstrated from careful measurements and Talmudic sources that the Temple was in the area north of the Dome of the Rock. The Rock itself was in Temple times the Stone of Losses , the "lost and found" department of the Temple area, situated just south of the Temple, which was directly to the West of the Golden Gate.

These theories are of more than just archaeological and historical interest. If the Jerusalem Temple is ever rebuilt in the future, it will certainly be better if it can be rebuilt in such a place where such reconstruction will cause no damage to the Mosques in the area. Considering the potential consquences, any would-be rebuilders had better be 100% certain that they are rebuilding in the the precise place.