It was completed around 10 B.C. and was the center of Jewish life in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ ministry. Like Solomon’s original Temple, the Second Temple was destroyed by the wrath of an outside empire: wrecked by fire in A.D. 70 during the suppression of a Jewish revolt against the Roman emperor Titus. Sixty-five years later its ruins were demolished for good and pagan statues were erected on the site.
