event · E0002
Building of the First Temple בניין בית ראשון
In the 480th year after the Exodus, Shlomo began building the House of God on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. The wandering Mishkan came to rest: for the first time Israel had a permanent center — one city, one mountain, one house — around which national and religious life would revolve for the next four centuries.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- בניין בית ראשון
- Also known as
- Beit HaMikdash HaRishon built
- Era
- bible
II. When
- Traditional
- 2928 AM (833 BCE by traditional reckoning)
- Academic
- conventionally mid-10th century BCE; disputed
- Date range
- 833 BCE (traditional) / c. 950s BCE (academic)
- Precision
- exact
III. Where
- Places
- Jerusalem
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melachim explicitly dates the start of building to "the 480th year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt," in the fourth year of Shlomo's reign — on the traditional count, 2448 + 480 = 2928 AM.
Confidence is for what the biblical text states; the verse itself gives the 480-year figure.
|
biblical | ★★★★★ | |
| Seder Olam works the same arithmetic — forty years in the wilderness plus the years of the Shoftim — and concludes that the Temple was built 480 years after the Exodus, in Shlomo's fourth year. | tradition | ★★★★☆ | |
| Academic chronology conventionally places Shlomo's temple in the mid-10th century BCE; no direct archaeological remains of the First Temple structure have been excavated, and both the dating and the building's scale are debated. | external | ★★★☆☆ |