For four centuries Solomon's Temple was the center of religious life in ancient Israel. This building housed the holiest relic, the Ark of the Covenant, and was the location for sacrifices to God and other religious rites. This first Temple replaced the mobile Tabernacle that was carried by the Israelites in their years in the desert and then was the center of worship in the promised land.
1 Kings 6 describes how Solomon built it in about 960 BCE. It was destroyed by invading Babylonians in 586 BCE, to be rebuilt 70 years later by Israelites returning from exile. Some believe that the Temple will be rebuilt again at the initiation of a Messianic age. Thomas, aka tbone tbl,
assembled a LEGO version of Solomon's Temple in what can only be described as an act of love. He spent 13 months on this project, as recounted
on his blog.
Now the outside is not all that interesting, but Thomas can hardly be blamed for that as he faithfully recreated the structure as commonly described. The interesting parts, though, are the interior:
and all of the Temple furnishings (described in
1 Kings 7). I particularly like the sea supported by 12 golden bulls:
and this very simple yet effective Ark of the Covenant:
Thomas also made some really nice sheep and a custom priest figure, so I'm hoping that he'll set up various scenes showing the life of the Temple and various events that happened there.
Nice pick. I was actually planning to blog this as a transition to mention your new blog over at LMOTD. I've really got to catch up with that again...
ReplyDeleteAs an interesting sidenote, I think this is the first time I've seen LEGO building used as a form of worship. Usually, we see people approach this topic from the perspectives of satire or architecture, but reading that blog I really got the idea that this kid was using this project as a sincere expression of faith.
Good point. I don't think it's the only one, though. You could argue that Christians display nativity scenes at Christmas time in part for religious reasons (also in part cultural), and there have been many LEGO nativities that I've seen. I've also seen kids make religious projects with LEGO with much more seriousness than most adults who do so. That LEGO Jesus statue at the Swedish church (blogged here last month) is another instance of a LEGO work being more devotional.
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