hung ominously over the first century along with the question of the temple, which was scarcely completed in its new magnificence before the Romans finally burned it down once and for all. But the memory of the royal vocation of temple building continued. All this is reflected in many texts of the relevant periods and would have been as well known—common coin, one might say—among Jews of the day, especially biblically literate ones, as it is relatively unknown and unreflected on by today’s Western