Mitchell Stephens Professor of Journalism New York University
This page contains a running transcript of all conversations taking place inside "The Holy of Holies." Click through the table of comments to view comments for individual sections. For any comment you can click its 
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For evidence that the Hebrews took such matters seriously here’s Jeremiah, who lived in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, addressing Yahweh:
Yet I shall present charges against You:
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are the workers of treachery at ease?
You have planted them, and they have taken root,
They spread, they even bear fruit.
Is there documentary evidence that Jews at this time fretted over these questions? They seem plausible, but they also seem fairly post-Enlightenment.
I think this is actually a twist on the problem of evil. The problem of evil requires the assumption that God wants good things to happen, and that we know what those good things are.
In the Pompey example, we’ve got a statement that we believe to be from God that says that Pompey should die for this. So either God didn’t write this, God knowingly lied, or God didn’t predict the future correctly.
Within 40 years of Pompey’s death, the 3rd temple would be filled with God’s presence: the incarnation of Christ. He and his cousin John the Baptist announced the emptiness of Israel’s religion and offered the fulfillment that would come through the kingdom of God that had come near in Christ.
In John 1, the Greek word that describes Christ as God dwelling in flesh denotes the idea of tabernacling or templing. Paul in 1 Corinthians calls the church as the body of Christ, the temple filled by the Spirit.