The Temple combined in itself the functions of all three—religion, national figurehead and government—and also included what we think of as the City, the financial and economic world.29 It also included, for that matter, the main slaughterhouse and butcher’s guild: butchery was one of the main skills a priest had to possess. Allowing for the fact that the Romans were the de facto rulers of the country, the Temple was for Jews the centre of every aspect of national existence.
