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Brendan Powell Smith

The Brick Testament - The Temple of Yahweh

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The Brick Testament website has been updated today with four new illustrated Bible stories covering the two most famous building projects from the reign of King Solomon. First and foremost is the Temple of Yahweh. The Bible says it took Solomon’s 153,600 forced laborers seven years to construct the original, while my LEGO rendition took me about a month. By my math, that makes me a considerably more efficient builder (but what do you expect from foreign slave labor, am I right?), but it’s up to you to judge whether I’ve captured even a fraction of the original’s glory. Of course, the original was destroyed 2,500 years ago, and nobody thought to take any photos, so good luck with that. Then, of course, there’s Solomon’s royal palace, which he spent nearly twice as long building and almost no one remembers. Both can be seen in these four new stories:

The Temple of Yahweh, Ark Brought Into Temple, Solomon’s Palace, God Threatens Violence.

Here’s a few preview images:

2ch03_15p1k07_15p21.jpg

2ch03_05-06p1k06_29.jpg

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1k07_07.jpg

Enjoy,

-Brendan Powell Smith

The Brick Testament - The world’s largest, most comprehensive illustrated Bible

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...........*falls over in awe*

*dies of shock from the unprecedented beauty of this model*

*Does the same thing, but off a cliff with a Wilhelm scream*

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What a magnificent temple.... the lily-work, the bronze sea, the gold-work and the cherubim, that big BBQ.... :cry_happy:

And what a splendid palace.... the porch, the shielded forest, the judgment hall and that sunny throne.... shrubby eyebrows on! :tongue:

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Wow! That's shockingly beautiful! :cry_happy:

If I listed everything I love about this MOC on this page it would be about a foot long so I will pick 2 things to say.. :tongue:

I especially like the inside with all of that yellow.

That carpet is really well done as well.

Absolutely stunning work! :thumbup:

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THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY IN TOPING THIS GODLIKE BEAUTY!!!!!!!!! :blush::blush::wub::wub:

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Down road i had planned on making Solomon's temple also. :classic:

This temple is a little small i think for M-F scale,

but it captures its assumed shape very, very well. :thumbup:

I love the (i think they're legs) detailing for the top edges of the exterior.

I hope you don't mind if i refer to this temple when i begin construction on mine. :classic:

The lampstands are pretty cool too.

I've been trying to get something close to that for a while, but haven't. :sceptic:

I'm curious why you chose to not have a roof over the pillars?

I've seen renditions with and without the roof though.

BTW: Should this thread be in the History & Adventure Forum?

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Thanks to everyone who's taken a look so far. It's heartening to get such positive feedback on what has been the most labor-intensive update to The Brick Testament so far.

Down road i had planned on making Solomon's temple also. :classic:

I hope I didn't steal your thunder, but you must have known I'd get around to it sooner or later (unless you only found out about The Brick Testament recently), and the clock was ticking once I began the King Solomon stories. :classic:

Let it be known, though, that I am not the first to make the attempt. Two and a half years ago, I was surprised to find someone had beaten even me to the punch when I was looking through photos people had taken at Brickfest 2005 and saw this. I thought that one was a very nice rendition, and especially impressive with it's shiny gold Holy of Holies. I can't begin to imagine what the builder shelled out to acquire all those metallic gold 1x2 tiles. He seems to have wiped Bricklink out of them, so I decided early on that I was going to have to stick with the yellow = gold aesthetic.

This temple is a little small i think for M-F scale,

but it captures its assumed shape very, very well. :thumbup:

I love the (i think they're legs) detailing for the top edges of the exterior.

Hmm. People may have noticed that I generally resort to shortcuts in The Brick Testament when trying to portray enormous structures, whole cities, or massive armies (by using microscale or only showing a small part of a much larger whole), but in this case I set out to build the Temple in true minifig scale. The dimensions of the Temple are given in the Bible, and it's actually not all that large, with a base that's 30 feet by 90 feet (9m by 27m), though it's not clear whether those numbers are meant to include the "side rooms". The height of the temple is also debated, since some ancient Bible manuscripts have the height listed in 2 Chronicles as an (almost impossible to believe, but hey, it's the Bible) 180 feet (54m), while others have the more modest height of 45 feet (9m). Both of those disagree with 1 Kings, which gives the height as 45 feet (14m).

Anyhow, I did some rough estimations while planning the size of the structure to build, and I thought what I ended up building was was plausible for a structure 30 feet wide, 90 feet long, and somewhere between 30 to 45 feet tall.

Glad you liked the cornice. That was artistic license, since the Bible does not describe anything decorative (or functional) concerning the roof. Almost all artist renditions of the Temple I've seen give it more of a traditional crenellation, but since it seemed like the Temple itself was probably not used as a stronghold, I thought the roof might be more decorative. Plus I wanted to do that with minifig legs for a while now.

I hope you don't mind if i refer to this temple when i begin construction on mine. :classic:

Not at all. I certainly used a lot of other artist renditions (all the ones I could get my hands on) as a basis for my own design. It will be interesting to see how you approach it differently.

The lampstands are pretty cool too.

I've been trying to get something close to that for a while, but haven't. :sceptic:

I really struggled with a menorah design back when I was illustrating the Life of Jesus stories since it's really difficult to achieve that shape in LEGO. You can see my first design of a smaller menorah here. It was later when I was illustrating the story of Samuel at the Temple in Shiloh that I came up with the minifig arm version of a large menorah. I was happy with that design, but I did need to order parts from Bricklink so I could build all the menorah's needed for the Temple of Yahweh.

I'm curious why you chose to not have a roof over the pillars?

I've seen renditions with and without the roof though.

That's another aspect of the Temple's architecture that is debated. Personally, I could not see where in the text there was support for the idea that the porch in front of the Temple had a roof. In my research, I did see that the architecture of the Temple of Yahweh has been compared to other ancient temples of the Near East, and I think people have argued that since those temples seem to have enclosed porches, it is likely that Solomon's temple did too. I probably would have gone with a roof over the porch if I thought it would look better, but aesthetically, I much prefer the porch with no roof since it really shows off the pillars.

BTW: Should this thread be in the History & Adventure Forum?

Before I first posted about The Brick Testament here on Eurobricks, I tried my best to determine the most appropriate subforum. I was indeed leaning toward History & Adventure (analogously, over at LUGNET.com I post in lugnet.build.ancient). But the brief forum description for that subforum reads "Castle, Classic Castle, Knights Kingdom, Adventurers, Wild West and Vikings". Since LEGO illustrations of Bible stories didn't seem to fit any of those catagories, I chose the subforum for "MOCs that aren't theme-specific" where I interpreted "theme" as official LEGO themes.

Thanks for the comments!

-Brendan

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I hope I didn't steal your thunder, but you must have known I'd get around to it sooner or later (unless you only found out about The Brick Testament recently), and the clock was ticking once I began the King Solomon stories. :classic:

Don't worry, i knew you aren't the first one to make such a temple. :wink:

But yours is my favorite so far :thumbup:

Anyhow, I did some rough estimations while planning the size of the structure to build, and I thought what I ended up building was was plausible for a structure 30 feet wide, 90 feet long, and somewhere between 30 to 45 feet tall.

Yes, You are correct. My apologies. :blush:

I've been thinking 40 feet instead of 30 feet wide. :wacko:

I guess it does make sense about having this thread in the other themes.

I've just kept thinking of History & Adventure Forum as everything that all historical MOCs w/out looking at the subtitles. :grin:

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Great work here, Solomon was always a good story, and you have done a mighty fine job of making his God's and his temples.

Good how you've also made Solomon's temple grander, just like in the big book itself.

Batbrick Away! :devil:

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Very nice done. :thumbup:

I like the Cherubims and the cedars very much.

(the brown dwarf beard looks also good on Solomon, it is better than the sheepish ron weasley face alone.)

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